easterntreeskier stuff

Armor & Outerwear
armor	sixsixone offers a number of snow-sport specific armor & padding. check out the N8-3 pressure suit vest for lighter weight and mobility or the N8-1 for full blown upper body protection. for lower body protection, check out the bomber pant or for more mobility, the bomber short.
Books
Ski the Whole Mountain by Eric and Rob Deslauriers	A good addition to the expert skier's library, the Deslauriers brothers cover a range of advanced topics including air, trees, and steep skiing. While the built in advertising for their various clinics can interrupt the flow, it is separated from the main narrative and remains preent but out of the way. The greatest strengths include Hank De Vre's great time lapse photos and the brother's showing how the same fundementals apply in a variety of different situations. The time lapse photos really help understand how to link things up, ie, short of a movie, they go a long way to overcoming the limitations of print in conveying the kinetics of motion. Their "technique" is a carving technique but their breakdown into edge weighting, upper body motion, and transitions really works. Even as a semi-expert skier, I use some of the edging and two footed carving excercises to refresh my technique. However, when I tried them on intermediate skiers, I had mixed results. The one footed techniques and the side slips seemed too difficult to master, albeit, a better teacher probably would have helped! The brothers coverage of advanced techniques for air, steeps, crud, powder, and trees contain many useful tips. One example I use is to focus on using carving turns as opposed to hop turns on steep terrain. Applying this out east is difficult, given the relative lack of sustained steeps. However, it does lead to a reduced energy expenditure, albeit, those hop turns still are great for clearing obstacles, blasting through heavy crud, and showing off the holes in the base of your skis! (I am a tree skier afterall....) The faults with the book are that despite the brothers roots in the East, most if not all their book covers places with snow! Very little of the book covers the peculiar conditions of eastern alping skiing, that is, the relative lack of snow and the abundance of hard pack, boiler plate and ice. The section on trees and glade skiing is welcome and includes references to eastern tree skiing's unique challenges. However, it is part of a section on moguls, which, while extremely useful for mastering tree skiing, really covers technique for those wonderful soft snow based moguls and not really for the insanely hard concrete staircases we have. In brief, the fault of the book is it's Western bias, which means it is less applicable to eastern skiers and moreover, simply serves to make me jealous! A book I highly recommend, if you wish to order it and support the site, please use the "buy" button to the right.
Skis
Elan Mantis 662 & 666	I started on the 662 at the end of the 2003 season, after demoing them at Killington in later March conditions: crud and heavy snow. I was coming off Volkl P50's, which had phenomenal edge control, nice tight turns but not so great float in powder and heavy snow. The demos of the K2 Merlin's were not my cup of tea: heavy, slow to turn, an "exceutive" ski. I did like the Look bindings on the K2s, however, they were the best boot/ski contact ever, rock solid! The Salomon's didn't last a single run; I was never a fan of Salomon skis, too soft for a heavy turning guy like me. Never having skied Elans, I was sceptical when the demo guy said they were the secret weapon. These things were fast turning yet ripped through the crud fields on Ovation. I bought a pair the same day and mounted the Look Titanium bindings on them. I was really looking forward to getting these puppies into something more interesting than spring snow but it was the end of the season. Well, 2004/2005 arrived and a having skied about 50 days in the 2004/2005 season, I can say without a doubt that these Elan's really delivered in deep snow and tree runs. Not great ice skis, especially compared to the P50's or my old Fischer Revolutions. The ski was acceptable in the moguls, with good rebound, though not at quick as the old K2 wood cores. But the crud handling, slough, powder, crust, and other glorious forms of non-ice, they are awesome. You just lean these boards over as far as they wil go, and they just rip the turns. So, entering the 2005/2006 season, I was NOT prepared to buy a new pair of skis. However, in the heavy December snows and the Kia-sized moguls, I finally bent the shovel! Looking at them in the shop, the ski was basically worn out. The camber was gone, the unbent ski sat practically flat on the floor! After 60 days or less, I think that this is unacceptable but I went out and bought the 666, a leftover from the previous season. The marketing has the 666 with Titanium in there somewhere, but the ski has identical performance to the 662. So far, I have managed to destroy the bases; given the lack of base depth in the trees this year, not much of a surprise there. I would recommend this ski highly, with the caveat that if you are a heavy skier like me who hits bumps, crud, and trees day and day out, then be prepared for the relatively short life span of the ski. My new 666s are well on there way to the scrap heap at the rate things are going...From the looks of it, I probably should be upgrading to the M777 or M999.

Links
	a mad river fellow with technical information about trail maintenance & techniques in Vermont
	a really cool virtual snowboarding engine, soulride is used by a couple New England areas
	a cool article on "Bark Eaters" by Jim Kapp in the PSIA Region 1/2 Election Issue 2003 "SnowPro" (PDF) on page 22
	a personal site, Greg's Snowriding Zone, has an awesome links section to ski oriented sites
	a well maintained site from Ohio, winterheat has up to date information & links
	and of course, there is the sking section of DMOZ.org
	skicentral provides an easy way to lookup current conditions at most major areas, especially NH, VT, ME, and QC
	alpinezone runs very active forums concentrated on the Northeast
	A personal site by an avid powder hound, thesnowway is loaded detailed trip reports, photos and video

Last updated: 1/23/069:25 AM