Photo Album #3 Posted

I've posted the third album from our trip to the South Pacific. This one includes 135 pictures from all over Sydney. There is everything we saw in the city, at the various wildlife parks, the sunny beaches, the famous Blue Mountains, the Sydney Opera House where we saw Handel's Messiah, and the Sydney Harbour Bridge which Carrie got to climb. The photo album is here: Sydney

Ben in town for skiing

John's brother, Ben, is finishing up med school and will be spending the next couple of months in Taiwan on a hospital rotation. Since he had to fly through San Francisco anyway, he was able to swing an extended layover in the Bay Area to do some skiing. There wasn't much snow, but we still had a great time. Our friends Kevin and Lora joined us on the slopes at Sugarbowl as well. In the picture, you can see Ben and Carrie sporting their stunna shades.

1,000 little Dixie cups

I have to give the guys credit, they came up with an original idea. To be honest, I would have felt unloved if I came back from sabbatical with no prank waiting for me, I just wasn't expecting something quite this messy. My first day back in the office was started off by discovering 1,000 little Dixie cups on my desk, all stapled together, and mostly filled with water. And my co-workers, being the cost-conscious people that they are, made sure to save a few pennies by buying the cheapest cups available. Which meant that by the time I arrived, the cups were already starting to melt and leak everywhere. Let's just say that it was non-trivial to get my day started today.

New snow in Jackson Hole!

Carrie flew out to join in the fun in Jackson Hole over the weekend. Carrie's arrival also means an upgrade in accommodations from the Hostel to the luxurious Teton Mountain Lodge
(4.5 stars), new snow (3 inches) and warmer temperatures (+16F).

K2 Apache Recon All-Mountain Skis

Details: 174cm, radii 18.0, sidecut 119/76/105mm, fir/aspen core, traditional shape
Average retail price: $649
Conditions: Jackson Hole (Wyoming) sub-zero overcast, 3 inches of fresh powder in 24 hours.
Terrain: Groomed intermediate trails with soft chalky snow on top of hard ice, 3-6 inches accumulation of soft fresh over hardpack.
Review: This ski has clean graphics, in line with K2's tradition. I was however, very disappointed by their performance. Spent all day on the intermediate and advanced groomers, which chunked up through the day as the top layer was pushed off, and then new snow started building up mid-day. Granted, they were shorter than previous skis demo'd this week, but that should have made them more responsive. Instead, they felt clumsy and unresponsive. The Recons were light enough to turn pretty easily, but they carved poorly, and had a hard time holding their edge. Unlike the Volkl AC3's which were very confident in all conditions, the Recons were all over the place in the wide range of snow pack.
Score (scale of 1-3): 1 - Hated these, expected more from K2, would not buy them.

Pwn'd!!

The diagram you see in the picture articulates the details of just exactly how this narrow chute pwn'd me today. Granted, it's my own fault for turning into a gnarly looking chute on a low-snow coverage day, but who would guess that a marked trail on the map would be so hairy, or that the stream running straight through the middle was still running, despite the -10F temperatures?
1.) This is where my right ski nose-dived into a soft spot under the hard crust and popped off.
2.) This is the imprint of where my head was introduced to the hardpack after I was launched out of my right ski. Notice, no trail between points 1 and 2, that's all air-time, baby! (Loving my new helmet at this point!)
3.) This is where my body impacted after rotating over my head, creating the bounce for my next air.
4.) This is where I landed for the slide along hardpack before coming to a rest where the picture is taken. Notice again, no trail between points 3 and 4, more air-time, baby!
5.) This is the arduous climb back up to point #1, where my ski was. It's about 30 feet from my final resting place to my ski. Took about 25 minutes, because it's a 45+ degree slope with only a thin crusty layer of the snow, and 5 feet of soft stuff underneath. Kind of like trying to climb in quicksand.
And that's only one of my adventures today. Also came face first with aforementioned freezing cold stream, rode every single lift on the entire mountain, took the 4 lifts and 45 minutes (now that the tram is closed for replacement) to the top peak of Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, experienced JHMR's famous 4,400 vertical foot top-to-bottom run (20 minutes, all black or double-blue runs), and rode a couple of JHMR's famous super-steep runs.
Took two days and some adjustments to my boots, but finally got my ski legs back and got to see everything this mountain has to offer.

Volkl AC3 Titanium All-Mountain Skis

Details: 184cm, radii ~19.5, sidecut 118/76/104mm, extended wood core, traditional shape
Average retail price: $899
Conditions: Jackson Hole (Wyoming) sub-zero mostly sunny, 0 inches of fresh powder in 24 hours.
Terrain: Groomed intermediate trails with soft chalky snow on top of hard ice, off-trail advanced in-bounds bumps with chunky, unpredictable conditions.
Review: After fighting with the twin tips all morning, I switched to the Volkl AC3's for the afternoon and the difference was night and day. They aren't overly shaped, allowing for cruising the groomers with gentle, large radius turns. It has some fancy technology, but it felt nicely stiff to me, holding its edge very confidently with zero chatter, and extremely stable at speed. The graphics are a little boring and generic, but that's once of the tradeoffs with an all-mountain ski intended for the masses. I enjoyed these so much, that I'm keeping them for tomorrow, which looks to be another groomer day, as this afternoon's snow showers never really materialized. I can't quite stomach $900 for a pair of skis when I rarely get more than 10 days on the mountain in a season, half of which are spent snowboarding now. And honestly, as confident as these skis are on the groomers, they are not a $900 improvement over my K2 Four's, which are very happy on groomer days.
Score (scale of 1-3): 3 - Very fun current-gen ski, would buy as a replacement/upgrade to outdated or broken skis

Salomon Teneighty Gun Twin Tip Powder Skis

Details: 188cm, radii 12.8/15.5/18.6/22.2, sidecut 130/94/123mm, Isocell complex core, twin tip
Average retail price: $699
Conditions: Jackson Hole (Wyoming) sub-zero mostly sunny, 0 inches of fresh powder in 24 hours.
Terrain: Groomed intermediate trails with soft chalky snow on top of hard ice, off-trail advanced in-bounds bumps with chunky, unpredictable conditions, intermediate terrain park with table tops and big air features.
Review: My biggest complaint about these skis is the sizes that they come in: 154/164/174/188cm. A 14cm jump is a big gap, I chose the 188cm, the closest to my normal K2's at 183cm, but they felt a little big. This was definitely not the day to be on powder skis, but I wanted to take some twin tips into the park to see what they were like. The Guns struggled on the groomers, requiring more than average effort to carve, suffering from a lot of ski chatter, with huge loss of stability at speed. When carving GS-radius turns, the Guns constantly feel like they want to run away on you, in almost every direction. In the terrain park, they were stable enough at the lower speeds, but with the hardpack conditions, I didn't feel it prudent to throw any reverse tricks. It's hard to compare these to the Volkl's because they were tested in such different conditions. But on price and graphics alone, I choose the Volkl's. Baby blue just isn't a very sexy color for $700 skis.
Score (scale of 1-3): 2 - Kind of indifferent, would not buy

Volkl Gotoma Twin-Tip Powder Skis

Details: 183cm, radii 25.9/28.5, sidecut 133-105-124mm, sensorwood core, twin tip
Average retail price: $679
Conditions: Kirkwood (Lake Tahoe) white-out blizzard conditions, 18 inches of fresh powder in 24 hours.
Terrain: Freshly powdered (normally groomed) intermediate trails, off-trail advanced tree skiing, out-of-bounds hiking.
Review: This is the first time I have skiied a non-K2 ski in over 15 years, and I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised. These are the same length as my 10-year old K2 Four shaped skis (advanced for their time), but with their 103-70-93mm dimensions, the K2's have been failing miserably at keeping me above powder as of late. With about 40% more surface area, the Volkl's floated above the "Sierra cement" effortlessly. On the wide trails, I had a blast tearing through 6-12 inches of powder, and in the trees it was no harder to carve tight turns in 18-24 inches. At almost $700, these are out of my price range for a niche ski when we have so few powder days in Tahoe, but at $54 for a demo day, they were a dream to ski on.
Score (scale of 1-3): 3 - Loved them, would buy if I had 4 or more powder days a season

Temps are warming up!

The good news is that the temperature warmed up today. The bad news is that it was still only -11F when the lifts opened this morning. Here, you can see me in my full storm gear. For those of you wondering, yes, the Camelback tube that feeds water from my pack freezes in these temperatures. In about 10-15 minutes, actually. I've been having fun demo'ing the latest in ski technol0gy, I'll post some notes about what I've thought about the skis that I've tried. Since the airlines will only let me bring my snowboard or my skis (not both), I chose to just fly with my snowboard and demo skis on my ski days here.

Free lift ticket at Jackson Hole...w00t!

Yes, that is a picture of John, mid-mountain at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort from today. Yes, I was in Campbell this morning. Yes, it's true, even with my entire week in Tahoe and this afternoon in Jackson Hole, I have yet to pay for a lift ticket this season. w00t! It took 10 hours from door to snow, 2 cancelled flights, a 3 hour layover, but trading in my boarding pass for a free lift ticket at the ticket window and carving turns when everybody else is stuck in meetings pretty much makes it all worthwhile. I'm here until Sunday, anybody want in?

Carrie's birthday

This week was Carrie's birthday week, happy birthday, Carrie! We celebrated on Thursday by going to La Fondue for some yummy dessert and then on Saturday by taking a Hummer stretch limo with a bunch of our friends up to wine country. The Hummer was fun, it had a flat screen TV in the partition and 9 other small screens throughout the interior cabin, and was big enough to provide a cozy fit all 18 of us. We visited Michel-Schlumberger - our wine club winery - and had some yummy beef stew paired with their great Pinot Noir and a library tasting of several Cabernet Sauvignon's, including their delicious '99 vintage. From there, we headed over to David Coffaro, a cool winery specializing in Italian varietals, and enjoyed their 10-foot front projection hi-def screen showing the NFL playoff games, their popcorn machine, and the mini cheeseburgers that were coming off the grill. For dessert, we visited Geyser Peak (where the photo is taken) and got to sample several different chocolates paired with yummy dessert wines. We finished the day of wine tasting at Stryker Sonoma, where they had some super yummy paella, really outstanding Zinfandel's, and some Bordeaux varietals. The limo then brought us back home where Mondo Burrito catered a huge burrito bar for us and everybody decompressed before heading back to their respective homes.

Photo Album #2 Posted

I've posted the second photo album from our trip, this one includes pictures from Queenstown in New Zealand. There are 115 pictures showing us doing stuff in the city, at the Minus 5 ice bar, Milford Sound, riverboarding, canyoning, on the Shotover jet boat, going over to Walter Peak Station, and taking the Lord of the Rings Tour. Enjoy the pictures here: New Zealand

Holiday DVD Sneak Preview!

I've posted a 15 minute video with highlights of our liveaboard dive trip to the Great Barrier Reef, near Cairns, Australia. It's edited out so that it's just footage of us and the cool things we saw. All of the divers that are recognizable are us, there are a few divers in the background from time to time, those are other people from the trip. The easiest way to identify us is by our fins. John wears bright yellow split fins, and Carrie wears red split fins. This will be on our holiday DVD this year, but as usual, that's late. So this is a sneak preview!

Photo Album #1 Posted

Because there are just SO many pictures, we'll start posting them episodically so that it's not so overwhelming. The first album is up and has 31 photos chronicling our travels from Campbell, CA, to the San Francisco airport, a connection in Los Angeles, the flight to Auckland in New Zealand, the ferry ride, and then the two days we spent on Waiheke Island, before hopping on a jet down to Queenstown on the South Island of New Zealand. Check it out here: Waiheke Island

Epic snow

So winter has finally arrived in the form of a huge snowstorm that made for an epic snow day up here in Lake Tahoe. We got more than 18" of fresh snow today, along with below freezing temperatures, translating into incredible skiing. The roads were horrendous...25 yard visibility at times, total white out conditions, chains or 4WD required on ALL roads, and idiots thinking the 25 mph chain control speed limit is for decoration. But the skiing made it all worthwhile. With whiteout conditions on the slope and 17F temps at the summit, I had on full storm gear including my new fleece hood/face mask and got to use my clear Oakley lenses for the first time since I got them two years ago (woot!). Because my 10-year old K2 Four's can no longer cut it in the powder, I demo'd a pair of Volkl fat twin-tip powder skis and had an awesome day surfing on top of the fluffy stuff. Made a wrong turn once and went O.B., resulting in a 35 minute hike up hill in chest deep snow to get back on the trail...but fun nevertheless. ;-D (Updated 1/7/07 with picture of Explorer covered in 6 hours worth of snow at Kirkwood, halfway dug out.)

Kirkwood

It's warm and sunny out, it hasn't snowed in over a week, what does that mean for mountain conditions? Hard pack most everywhere on top of an ice layer from the continual melting and refreezing everyday, unpredictable chunk in the trees and steeps, and corduroy groomers everywhere else. A perfect day for snowboarding on the blues. After fighting with my boots in the morning (they'd stiffened up after a long off-season), had a great afternoon cruising the groomers until the wind picked up and they started icing over. Loving the new Giro Fuse helmet that Carrie got me for Christmas and my new Under Armour thermals. Even with the super warm weather, I stayed comfortably regulated all day...yay!

South Lake Tahoe

Unfortunately, I forgot my CF card adapter, so no pictures until Friday when I'm home again. Up in South Lake Tahoe this week, and the weather is beautiful. About 40F at night, and up to 55F during the day. It's almost *too* nice (makes for bad snow), but that's ok, the sun is nice. And I get to try out my shiny new helmet that I got for Christmas...very exciting! I'm staying at one of our favorite gambling destinations in South Lake - The Lakeside Inn and Casino - which has super cheap gambling, and cheap rooms...bonus!

John's January Travels

Happy New Year! Hoping everybody had a fun and safe New Year's Eve, and wishing everybody a great 2007. Just an update for anybody who might be interested in joining John on his adventures in January. Here are the dates and places:

• 2-5 : South Shore Lake Tahoe, NV
• 13 : Winter Wineland Sonoma County, CA
• 16-21 : Jackson Hole, WY
• 22 : Back in the office (sadly)