Sierras

This is the first set of pics from my recent trip to snowboard in the Eastern Sierras. It was a long drive down there, but 6 days of snowboarding in the sun and soaking in hot springs made it worth the drive.

Rainier, Fuhrer Finger

We climbed and skied/snowboarded the Fuhrer Finger on Mount Ranier last weekend. It was my second trip up there and a much more interesting route than the first. More pics here

October snow

I went snowboarding last weekend on Branham Peak in the tobacco roots.







It was pretty good for October

a couple more

splitboard crampons. They go under your feet and dig into hard snow/ice on either side of the board when it's in ski mode.

Product photography?

Spark R&D's Ignition 2 splitboard binding. Spark R&D is my friend Will and the photos I took are part of a trade for some bindings of my own. This image involved around 1,500 watts of halogen lighting.

A couple more

Product Testing?

I made the snowbaord and my friend Will made the bindings. They worked really well for a trip to Beehive Peak early last friday. The forecast for the weekend was pretty bleak so we went out a day early.

As soon as the sun rose the peak was looming ahead.


Patrick in the couloir visible in the middle of the previous photo.


The descent down the north side was on excellent snow. It was too high and sheltered to have been affected by the sun.


The second run back down the basin wasn't so hot though. Breakable crust about an inch thick would put considerable effort into trying to steer your snowboard. It was challenging to make turns. About half way down the basin the sun popped out and things got nice and warm. Spring skiing is fun.

That last ones a link

Building a Snowboard

I finished with most of the work on the snowboard i've been building off and on for the last year or so. All that's left is mounting hardware. Here's a link to the picasa album with all the photos.


Core. Maple and Doug fir. The wide center strip will be the inner sidewalls for the splitboard. The core is 1/4" wider then the board so there will be 1/4 inch that needs to be cut out of the board after lamination.


Cutting out the base. There is a template underneath and a folliwing router bit was used.


Edges bent by hand and tacked in place with superglue. Epoxy during layup will more firmly attach them to the base and the layers above them.


Router Bridge for thickness profiling the core. The core goes from 2mm at the front to 7.7 in the middle then back to 2mm at the tail. The bridge worked ok but next time I will use a planer jig instead.



Core with sidewall. There are a lot of insert holes that need to be cut in a splitboard.



Dowels were used to align the core with the base during layup. The two base pieces were spaced at 1/4" with pieces of basswood from the hobby shop. The dowel system worked very well. I had to cut holes through the fiberglass and VDS before laminating too.


rubber vibration damping strips that go over the edges and some kevlar veil. Kevlar is very hard to cut so hopefully it will deflect some core shots in it's life.


Me fixing a leak in the bag. No pictures from the layup unfortunately.


My high tech heating system. Kmart heating blanket with a space blanket on top. Got it pretty warm inside, no idea how warm. Epoxy cures much faster and stronger with heat. The weights make sure that everything lays flat on the camber mold.



Out of the mold. Lots of flashing that needs to be trimmed.


Finished board. Cotton cloth graphics and a couple of carbon tows for show.

More pictures of the finished board in picasa. I'm mounting hardware now, hopefully take it out for a test ride tomorrow morning or this evening.

Mount Timpanogos

Skied timpanogos with Marshall. Icy crust for 4000'. Our route selection left something to be desired too. At least the views of Utah lake and surrounding areas were nice.

Cooke City

It's a pretty amazing place for backcountry snowboarding (and listening to snowmobiles). I got to do my first rappel into a couloir on Mount Republic and then descend it on excellent, stable powder. This season has been really good in Montana, a nice change after the last couple years.





More Here

Mount Ellis

A short approach and a good run when the snow is fresh. We got up and down it right before the previous nights snow started melting.

Scrubfest

I went to a splitboard festival in Wyoming this weekend. It was fun riding with a pack of snowboarders. The Grand Teton is a big mountain.

North Bridgers

Here's a couple pics from a snowmobile rescue/snowboard morning trip Patrick and I did a week or so ago. In typical Bozeman ski-scene fashion we ran into my friend Bob the skier on top of the line we wanted to ski.

Update

It was a busy weekend. I did the King of the Ridge at Bridger Bowl on Saturday for the 5th time and managed to win again with 26 hikes and got the very useful prizes of $250 cash and a pair of sunny day goggles. I got rested up that night and then went and did some shooting of guns with Marshall on Sunday, who was visiting for the weekend and now owns nothing less then an AK-47 (that came with a bayonet?). Yes, it's completely unnecessary and ridiculous to own such a gun. It is also quite fun to shoot.

I went on a long and arduous ski trip up to the Mount Cowen cirque on Monday in celebration of President's day. It is a really cool area, and the sunny weather got me caught up on my vitamin D for the next week or so. I was worried I was going to run out of food, but fortunately I remembered I had some Gummy Bacon Jesse had given me for Christmas and it saved the day.


That night I went to the Maxey Cabin up Hyalite with Marshall and others. Now I'm watching the lunar eclipse and getting ready to scrounge up some dinner.