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Upcoming PNW demo days

Here are some of the upcoming demo days that I know of:

March 17-19 @ Mt Baker: Splitfest. Demos from Karakoram, Jones, Prior, Voile, Arbor, Never Summer, Capita, Weston, Union, and more! Raffles, workshops, and a bunch more – check out www.splitfest.com for the full details.

March 25 @ Crystal: Sturtevant’s demo day. Skis from Armada, Atomic, Blizzard, Dynastar, Head, K2, Kastle, Line, Marker, Nordica, Rossignol, Salomon, Swix, Volkl. Snowboards are only from Rossignol so far. $20. More info here: http://blog.sturtevants.com/2017/03/spring-fling-demo-day-crystal-mountain/.

March 26 @ Stevens Pass: Westra Demo Day. I just learned that Westra is a board shop in Everett; they’ll be bringing gear from Volkl, Blizzard, Armada, Sego Skis, Head, Salomon Nordica, Arbor Snowboards, Weston Snowboard, Jones and Yes Snowboards, GNU Snowboards, Lib Tech, Ride and more! Registration is from 8am-9:30am with a $25 registration fee. You can pre-register at Westra Sports for $20. Demo will run from 9am-3pm. http://westrasports.com/2017/03/demo-days/

April 15 @ Stevens Pass: Burton demo day. Presumably they’ll be showing off their Step On bindings, as well as their range of boards and bindings. Try and get some runs on the Family Tree line of boards, those things are sick! There will be a raffle and a beer garden as well.

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Whistler Summer Gravity Camp: adult camp review

While browsing my Instagram feed I saw a clip from Summer Gravity Camps, urging us all to sign up for this summer’s sessions. And I realized that this time last year, I was signed up, paid up, and outrageously psyched up to go!!

Here’s the overview:

SGC Week 4. V2 from Summer Gravity Camps on Vimeo.

My experience was this:

– The riding at Whistler is mind blowingly good!!! There’s a huge variety of trails, for all types of crazy, and the flow trails (my personal favorites) are bigger and better than anything I’d seen before. Some of the corners are banked up to the clouds – you’re riding a nicely sculpted wall at top speed.

Continue reading “Whistler Summer Gravity Camp: adult camp review”

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Jones Prodigy snowboard review update

So a few months ago I was looking for a board for my kid, and reviewed the Jones Prodigy, saying:

I’d be all over this like butter on toast except for the directional twin shape. As an all-mountain ripper I have no doubt that this thing is incredible. But my kid’ll be doing a lot of park riding as well as all-mountain ripping this year, so I’m thinking he’ll be better off on a true twin. If I could afford two boards for the kid? TAKE MY MONEY.

Come Christmas time, I couldn’t resist, and picked up a 130cm as his powder board (he usually rides a 120cm Banana Blaster). I wasn’t sure if the larger size would make much of a difference, until last weekend at Stevens Pass, which was possibly the best powder day of the season!!

It’s hard to get a review out of a 9 year old, but here’s what I saw: in about a foot of fresh powder, this board floated beautifully. The nose stayed up on top of the snow and he was able to shred it all. At the same time, it seemed highly maneuverable in the steep trees (Wild Katz trees, for those who know Stevens Pass).

We rode together all morning and at times I had a hard time keeping up 🙂

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Snowboard boots for kids who rip

I’m going through all of last year’s gear, seeing what I can sell, and figured I’d write a quick entry about snowboard boots for kids, since we took a long time to find them.

My 7 year old started the year in some Burton rental boots – super comfy, but super soft and squishy and only held together with velcro. We’d bought them new from REI’s rental fleet in 2014, when REI in the Puget Sound area decided to get out of the rental game.

By Christmas it was obvious that his boots were holding him back – he was charging double blacks in a pair of bedroom slippers! So we went on the hunt for a good pair of boots.

I don’t remember all of the ones we tried – most size 2 boots were super soft and made for beginners; there was one pair that was crazy stiff; and then there were the ThirtyTwo Boa Kids boots – super comfy, stiff but not too stiff, and with a Boa closure (key for kids to be able to do up and adjust their own boots).

thirtytwo-kids-boa

He outgrew them in half a season, but we’ll get the same ones this year (and now they’re last year’s model, so they’ll cost a bunch less).

Hope that helps!

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Review: Yes 420 snowboard

(I’ve posted an updated review here – but you should still read this one first!)

Last year, I was on the hunt for the funnest, surfiest, slashiest snowboard. I didn’t get very far down my list before settling on the Capita x Spring Break Slush Slasher… but by the time I’d discovered it, the board was sold out everywhere.

(This year’s version is out now, though, and available from Backcountry.com.)

Instead, on a whim, I ordered the Yes 420:

The 420 is a short, fat, flat powder board, that rides kinda like those flat-bottomed skiffs the Aussies like to race:

In deep powder, it’s insanely fun to ride! It sits up on top of the snow, and turns like a dream – you can drop a rail into the snow to rip a turn, or stay up on top and drift your turns. Super fun.

Downsides are: on chop, you feel every single bump, and you’ll soon be exhausted; on groomers, it’s slow edge to edge, just because of its crazy width; in the lift line, it’s a bit of a pain since it’s hard to tilt it up on an edge.

So its useful conditions are pretty much deep, untracked snow – and for that, it’s an amazing board. Definitely a very focused board that’s meant to be part of a larger quiver. Would I buy it again? Probably not, to be honest. While it’s fun to ride in powder, so are many boards!!! And this one sucks once you’re out of the soft stuff. For resort riding, that means you can ride it for the first few runs of the day, or until the goods have been tracked up, and then you have to go and switch out to a board with better dampening.

Think it’s the right board for you? Buy the 2017 Yes 420 at Backcountry.com.