Dear Community of Tuckerman Ravine

[DMC]

IS IT FREAKIN WINTER YET!!!!!!!!

Sorry.... Just freaking out a little...

Had a long conversation with a friend last night about our various trips to Mt Washington next winter..

We're thinking March, April and May....

[kmrnskier]

I wish it was winter NOW!! Maybe if we all do a naked snow dance every night, we could have snow by mid October???? And get rid of this HUMIDITY!!!!

[kfarrar]

What about November, December, January and February, June, and next July? These all candidates for a trip up to Tucks.

[DMC]

kfarrar:
What about November, December, January and February, June, and next July? These all candidates for a trip up to Tucks. For you maybe..

The November,December,January, February... The snow is iffy...
June... Not enough lines left...

Just me .02

[CHUCK]

We just started to get the snowboard mags in and i'm now dying to make turns. may have to strap in and jump on the trampoline!! i think i'm starting to get the shakes! or maybe thats just left over from phish. Soon enough!!!!
peace Chuck

[Frankontour]

The trampoline is not for me... I think I'm going to bring my skis and my ski helmet in Mt Garceau to ski down the "Flanc" which is a 30 degree pitch without a single rock and much grass. After a drop of rain, it shouldn't be so worst :D :D :D :D :D

[Lftgly]

Last month I cleaned up the basement, and I moved my three oldest pairs of Rossi straight skis closer to the back door (3s, 4s, 7s). Yeah, like I'm really gonna take them to the dump one of these years. I'm not sure the local snowmakers, who scavenge dump skis for making snow, even bother taking straight skis anymore.

I read last year that a bunch of Cranmore skiers made a sacrifice to the ski god Ullr by burning a pile of old skis at the summit... I'm not sure if Cranmore got any more snow than average last season, but it couldn't hurt.

Maybe that's what I should do - taking skis to the dump is like throwing an American flag in the trash. Burning them would show proper respect for all those miles of vertical, the first runs down Tucks... maybe I should spread their ashes on holy ground... Mittersill?... or Tucks?... I'd never get away with a ski bonfire in Tucks, so it may have to be Mittersill. Rossis are wood core, right? They should burn OK. I wonder how much lighter fluid it takes to get three pair of skis going. Jimi Hendrix made it look easy with that telecaster at Monterey Pop, how hard can three pairs of skis be...?

If any of you Cranmore skiers out there read this, maybe we can coordinate our offerings. Maybe if there are several funeral pyres of sacrificial skis all lit on the same night on ski area summits across New England and Quebec, then the whole region might receive greater snowfall totals this winter. Frank, you gotta burn those straight skis before next season!

When's do you think is the best time? The Perseids meteor showers are coming up Sunday through Wednesday. Full moon Tuesday night in the middle of the meteor shower, so the meteor viewing won't be great any way. Are we better off waiting for the Equinox in September, to celebrate the end of Summer? or closer to ski season, like Halloween?

What am I saying, we'll be skiing at Killington before Halloween, god willing! Maybe I'll go burn 'em right now....

[Frankontour]

LOL Lftgly...you know that when the skis are good to burn for others, it's time for me to buy them. (if someone of you want to burn some old straight 160, just tell me :D :D :D :D :D )

On that kind of things, I still prefer the

http://kokotele.com/skicults.gif

to have snow sooner. Last year, I would have skied before halloween, if I didn't have a fu**** schoolwork. I finally skied on nov 2 for the 1st time.

But I agree to include Quebec in the list of the places to have more snow :) :) especially in Magog, St-Donat and Val David PLEAAAAASE !!!!!!

[Bannick]

I find a precise mixture of gas and two-stroke engine oil makes a damn fine fire starter. We made our hommage to the snowgoads in early october out in whistler. But it is all just a haze at this point.

Oh...I did see snow in the penguin exhibit at the biodome in Montreal last weekend. I sat there and stared at it for about an hour.

[DRPHIDDLEPHOS]

I have been doing naked snow dances every night since last tracks, no luck, no :snowflakes: :( but i will keep up the hope entertain my neighbors whith some late night window shows!! :cry: Oh! when is it going to snow!!!WHEN!!!! :disinfo: i have snow at my house!!

[Lftgly]

It's raining too heavily to hike up tonight and sacrifice my old skis. I don't think I could get even Bannick's formula lit tonight.

Frank, it's OK, they're all 200s, nothing even you would salvage. Don't feel bad for them, each of them lived a full life. In their later years, they graduated to honored rock-ski status. Then they each reached a point where I had to nurse them along, with PTex so thin that the base repairs wouldn't last a day, and edges ground down to the sidewalls and then some. They've been retired to the ski graveyard in my basement for years.

Dr., keep dancing, it may work. Maybe I should ask :disinfo: to officiate at my summit sacrifice.

[Frankontour]

Effectively, if they're over 200, I don't care too much for them.

Personnaly, I got some skis full of screws to maintain all fixed. It was almost dangerous (quite dangerous when I think more) to ski with that, but I just couldn't sacrifice them. I should try to find a way to send you a pic of my actual skis, just for laugh.

[SkiStooge]

I make Adirondack Furniture out of old skis.

[elwood]

I still like making ski shots out of old skis. That's where you mount a bunch of shot glasses to an old ski. You fill 'em up, get a bunch of people and all take shots simultaneously. Turns out it's kind of like skiing, you get a bunch of people together and get drunk.

[Bannick]

"Turns out it's kind of like skiing, you get a bunch of people together and get drunk."

I thought that was called curling???

[BladeGirl]

SkiStooge:
I make Adirondack Furniture out of old skis. Thats really cool, SkiStooge. Can you post a photo? I just got back from France and Italy where they are in the middle of a heat wave. Had a nice time but would rather have been shussing down the slopes than sweating in the sun!

-BG

[NtrentT]

Whats the problem with straight skis, I actually prefer them, I dont need skis to turn for me. Whats the fun in that.
blah,,, not for me

am i alone here? :envy:

[DMC]

I got a friend who calls shaped skis "Trickery"

[skicdave]

Hey :skistooge: ,

Are you an ADK craftsman on the side? We just got back from the Lake Tupper area (again) and spend some time looking at Adirondack furniture in Saranac, Lake Placid, and Blue Mountain. As usual I bought yet another pair of old wood skis (1930's) made by Lund Co for the fireplace in our bedroom. We must have enough old wood skis now to dress up a bar nicely! Kate of :chair: fame is looking to take a course in making rustic furniture.

Speaking of furniture. If anybody wants an old double chair lift for their backyard, I picked on up for $75 Cdn from Calabogie. They had at least 50 left last year! Just fits inside a van for transport.

Dave

[Frankontour]

NtrentT, I'm with you !!
I'm still with straight skis, but short ones. I measure 180cm and I use some 160cm skis.

Dave : I would prefer a single chair... do you think it still exists :D

Anyway, if some of you want to have some double chairs, I can tell you where to find some free ones :D (lol I'm laughing, but there is a ski area here that never opened and all the chairs have been let on the ground. They would probably need a serious painting on them I imagine, as it was in 1996 that it was supposed to open... and it never happened !)

[elwood]

NtrentT:
Whats the problem with straight skis, I actually prefer them, I dont need skis to turn for me. Whats the fun in that.
blah,,, not for me

am i alone here? :envy: NtrentT, trust me, my shaped skis go wher I tell them to go. They DO NOT turn for me. Maybe for beginners they help in turning, but when you are an aggressive skiier-- you power through your turns. Try them, you'll like them.

[Castlerock]

I sense a predisposition to hard snow skiing here. Sure the straight skiis can "arc'em" on hardpack, when driven by a competent skier. But, get on fatties, spend more time in the woods, out west, (or at Tucks in the winter) and you will find that your ability (or at least your endurance) increases. Come on, we don't need Luddites on this board!

[Lftgly]

Skistooge, I had thought of turning them into Adirondack chairs. How many pairs of skis does it take? Should I just get the plans for a basic adirondack chair, and substitute skis for the seat & back slats, or is it more complicated than that?

[SkiStooge]

We've made 2 chairs so far. One is now in Northern VT at a friends house and the other is out in Elmira NY at my sisters' house. I made my first by kinda eyeballing an Ad chair we had. It (the first chair) was sorta wobbly. The second we actually ripped the old Addy chair apart to get better measurements (and to improve the design a bit). I don't have any pix. Never thought of it at the time. (Improvements mainly mean the lover part that supports the base and back are now made of hardwood. Skis proved too flexible. I also am a firm believer now in carraige bolts. They have round heads and are much more comfortable to sit on. The average chair takes from 7 to 10 pairs on average, it seems. The main parts that are skis are the seat, back and arms. This is an ongoing learning process to me. Definitely not a business yet. lol I actually stole the idea from a picture I saw in a ski mag a while back. Rental shops seem to be good shopping for material. They, so far, have given the old oles to me when I asked. Just have to be careful of cuts in the topskin, etc. When you get the chair assembled, you take it to your friends auto body shop and absolutely BURY it in clearcoat to preserve the edges, bolts, etc. OK, enough about chairs for now. Have fun, be safe. Al :skistooge:

[Mumster]

Castlerock:
Sure the straight skiis can "arc'em" on hardpack, when driven by a competent skier. But, get on fatties, spend more time in the woods, out west, (or at Tucks in the winter) and you will find that your ability (or at least your endurance) increases. Castlerock:
I agree. Most straight ski advocates that give shaped skis a chance love the increased efficiency/endurance they provide....who would argue with being able to :skicool: longer?

[kmrnskier]

Mumster and Castlerock - I couldn't agree with you more re: shaped vs. straight. People also think that you are unable to ski as fast with shaped - SOOO untrue!! I didn't believe it till I tried it myself!

[Skilasnow]

kmrnskier:
Mumster and Castlerock - I couldn't agree with you more re: shaped vs. straight. People also think that you are unable to ski as fast with shaped - SOOO untrue!! I didn't believe it till I tried it myself! I fourth that sentiment. I ski both regularly. The myth that you can't go as fast in parabolics was founded in truth. They weren't very stable when they first came out in the '90s and you really couldn't go as fast. I have a pair of 195 straits and 192 mid-fats. I can go as fast and maybe faster on my mid fats with better turning control and tighter turning radius. They just aren't as good in the VW Moguls at MRG.

[Castlerock]

I got ten years younger when I went from 207 Race Stock Rossi 7Gs to 195 (or so) X-Scream's, at least measured in my abilty to "Top-to-Bottom" Great Scott in 24" of fresh (with flatlander/deskjob lungs).

But truly, they didn't inspire confidence ripping straight lines on the groomed. But technology has advanced and my Volkl G4's 188, feel like SuperG skis, going fast

Now for truly going fast the World Cuppers still have pretty much straight skiis for downhill. But the sidecuts on SuperG's are at least 2 cm on each side