SES 05 - Part II

After the first run of the day at Aspen, I felt like I needed to roll over and have a cigarette - and I don't smoke. More SES people arrived at the base of Ajax and we headed for the summit again. This time, the agenda called for Ruthie's Run, which is FIS approved for downhill racing, complete with TV camera towers. It was inspiring to set an edge on the same terrain that has tested the world's best skiers for decades. Ruthie's has several pitches of ideal carving terrain - wide, nose-dive steep, perfectly groomed, no ice. Sitting on the side of the trail catching my breath, I could just imagine speed-suit clad racers airing out 100+ foot spans of the steep sections right in front of me, at 75mph.

Scott Firestone of the Carver's Almanac stationed himself on Ruthie's, and diligently shot gigabytes of photos of everyone. He's graciously published an album on his site of the best shots. There was plenty of action to be shot, as everyone put on their best show on the flawless corduroy under the blue sky.

In the afternoon, the troop headed over to Buttermilk where the Bomber and Donek demo vans had been stationed all day, for the annual carve limbo contest. Briton Michael Sanders slithered under the pole at the impossible height of 12". A few people in disbelief tried to crawl under the pole, and most couldn't even do that. Credit British cuisine for Michael's sleek profile.

Since Friday night was the date for the official end-of-session banquet, après-ski festivities were curtailed in order to head back to our accommodations for showers and fresh duds. However at the Bomber house, this simply meant the après-ski shenanigans would be held in the fabulous hot-tub.


The El Dorado room in the Silvertree Hotel at Snowmass was decked with round tables and tablecloths and our festive crowd filled it nicely. Tasty microbrew draught beer was included with admission, and a cash bar was also available. Dinner was a delicious and ample Mexican fajita buffet. People ate, drank, and schmoozed as video footage from the week flickered on one of the walls.



Our esteemed organizers and hosts Fin and Michelle ran the show. Fin announced a new award for greatest incompetence by a session attendee, and bestowed it upon Jim Jordan for scoring himself a free ride around the chairlift bull-wheel thanks to a stuck backpack. To everyone's delight, the sorry display was caught on video and replayed several times, forwards and backwards. Fin also honored our sacrificial lambs - Diana with a ripped achilles, and Andrea Morgan with a blown knee. It seems a session isn't complete without one or two people getting wrecked, and not in the good way.

World champ Mike Jacoby gave a brief overview of the new race camp he'll be running this summer on Mount Hood, which will be an intensive 10 week training and conditioning school for serious racers. Maurie (a.k.a. "MozzMan") from down-under was invited to deliver an invocation to sum up the vibe of the session. He succinctly put it, "this is such a good time, it would put a hard-on on a jellyfish!" Now there's an image. Ya gotta love those wacky Australians.

With the help of alpine experts Bill Bordy, Dave Tille and the rest of the hardbooter.com team, Fin surprised everyone with a new addition to the night's activities - an alpine snowboarding version of Jeopardy! featuring an unprepared panel of Mike Jacoby, Bryan Sutherland of oldsnowboards.com, and myself. Somehow I came away with the win, pulling otherwise useless info from memory such as the name of an old Alpina hardboot model (Kool Kat or Top Rat) and the name of the entry-level binding Bomber used to make (Toaster).

Saturday we were back at Buttermilk, and some snowy overcast weather had blown in the night before. Buttermilk is an easy mountain, but it is good for simply having fun and not worrying about technique. The Tiehack trail provided some moderately steeper stuff, but the best run Racer's Edge was closed for racing. The demo tents only ran until 1pm, as this was the last day of the session.


Some interesting devices came out of the woodwork that day, including three guys killing it on snow bikes. These are relatively cheap conversion kits for your mountain bike. Just take off your wheels, derailleur, pedals, and brakes, and slap on the foot-pegs and the mini skis by Line and you're off. It looked like a gas. Then an entrepreneur showed up at the demo tents with a pair of full-suspension skis that he fabricated himself. They feature a riser truss for the bindings which has a reduced footprint and is curved on the bottom to accommodate the flexing ski. Housed inside this truss is a gas shock actuated by linkages protruding out the ends of the truss, attached to the ski towards the tip and tail. You could almost see smoke curling out of Madd Mike Banker's ears as he examined the skis and listened to the guy tell us how magnificently they carved. I have often daydreamed of such an active suspension system for skis and snowboards, but one thing I didn't consider was the possibility of an extremely narrow, blade-like ski. These skis couldn't have been more than an inch and a half wide under the foot, and the inventor enthusiastically explained how they felt like hockey skates, effortlessly rolling from turn to turn with no perceptible pause or "thump" as the ski goes flat in the transition.

I wanted to take a run with Mr. suspension-ski to see it in action, but it was the end of our day and I was worn out anyway. The Bomber and Donek crews packed up their tents and drove off. Another successful Summit Expression Session in the books. No long good- byes necessary, we're all together online. So it was no 5-senses virtual reality DVD, but hopefully if you've read this far, you're inspired to join the friendly carving crew at either the next SES or the new eastern session in the works for 2006. To paraphrase Warren Miller, if you don't do it next year, you'll just be that much older when you finally do.