TheHigherEnd

Due to a drunken disaster, mine are still rolling around in buddy's van, but anyway. A friend offered me some of his B-Sides, but really I don't like borrowing gear, and my chick needed some anyway as she is going to learn to board later this month.

So I did something I would never recommend, ever. I went into the mountain's shop and bought gear.

What I got is incredibly girly (again, for my special lady anyway), 2 years old, and full retail (which is actually amazing, price was literally a buck or two away from online).



Now these were not the cheapest in the store, but being this was a stop-gap measure they sure were close. I didn't buy the lowest-end, flat amber lens crap, but long story short they were Fifty Bucks. Not chump change (to me) or anything, but for goggles this is pretty low end.

They are Scott Decree with the Illuminator, dual layer, spherical, 100% UV/UVA protection. That's a lot of words you don't normally see for a Ulysses but seriously, you probably have no idea.

These things made my $120 pair look like garbage. The optical quality was spot on, incredibly clear. Ate shit pretty good twice, got snow inside and no damage whatsoever. Just dried them on the car's vent on a beer break and was good to go. NO fog, at all. I'm like a heat machine and this is a major concern for me. The real star, however, is the Illuminator lens tint. It is a slight yellow shade (snow is still white, sky blue to the eye after a few minutes) with a mild blue mirror. Not full, hide-your-eyes mirror, but just a bit. It was a perfect day to test goggles, sunny, then foggy, then blowing snow, then bright and flat patches. A little of everything. These excelled in all. Bright light had really good contrast, flat absolutely popped. The best I have ever used. I have been a fan of Smith Sensor Mirror for a while now (I live in PNW and if it's not flat light chances are you don't even want to be up there). These are better than them by a good margin. The optics are clearer, the performance in varying conditions is miles better, maybe the only drawback is the non-fully-mirrored optics perhaps look a bit less cool, but seriously... performance makes up for this and more.

I don't think many even consider Scott these days, they've been around so long they aren't even sold by the trendier stores/websites anymore. But man, the product is so solid. I looked at a few pairs and all were well constructed and featured the same level of clarity, even the bottom of the barrel. Also, really, fully UV, spherical, dual layer, $50. I really don't think there is another company offering anything even close to this value.

Just ridiculous. I now know two things:

1. I'm getting a pair of Scott goggles with the Illuminator tint (probably the Fix model).

2. Not Yellow.


Oh yeah, and a third thing I suppose, Hoodoo is a really fun little resort (Well, 800 acres). Such great terrain, so cheap. It's a pointy little mini-mountain with features you'd expect a few thousand feet higher. Surprisingly steep at parts with good snow, GREAT tree bowls and windlips everywhere, I'll be back.

snowklinger

10/char....

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is it late october yet?

TheHigherEnd

Ok, tl;dr version:

Scott Illuminator lenses are incredible for flat light.

Hoodoo is a fun hill.