Nov. 11, Mt Baker, WA
Posted: Fri Nov 11, 2005 9:08 pm
Well, three days after opening day, Baker was a totally different story. It started with a couple inches of fresh powder over a really brutal layer of crust underneath. As the day went on, the powder got deeper and deeper to the point that it was about 8-10 inches deep at the end of the day, and the groomers had turned into nice soft packed powder.
I took my first pair of skis, the Bremallows (pictures and full write up to follow). The Bremallows are about 130mm at the tip and tail, with about 150mm in the center. They also have a short section of normal shaped sidecut in the center of the ski. I had them tuned up before I took them skiing and I was really glad that the edges were sharp.
I was really impressed at how well they actually skied. I was expecting them to be really terrible and fall apart after a run or two, but they skied remarkably well on all of the gnarly crust and sticky snow that Baker is famous for, and they lasted the entire day! By the end of the day the tails had delaminated a little bit, but I had already riveted them together because I figured they would delaminate.
As far as how they skied, they were awesome in the powder, no hooking, and totally predictable. In the crust under the powder, they seemed to do as well as any other ski. Finally, they were really sketchy on the groomers that were hard packed. As a side note, I tried to do a 180 and ski backwards with them, and the reverse sidecut caused my legs to spread really wide, and then I fell over backwards in a really awkward feeling fall.
The best part, though, was all the comments I got from people. Everyone was amazed that I built my own skis, and I couldn't believe how many questions they asked.
I took my first pair of skis, the Bremallows (pictures and full write up to follow). The Bremallows are about 130mm at the tip and tail, with about 150mm in the center. They also have a short section of normal shaped sidecut in the center of the ski. I had them tuned up before I took them skiing and I was really glad that the edges were sharp.
I was really impressed at how well they actually skied. I was expecting them to be really terrible and fall apart after a run or two, but they skied remarkably well on all of the gnarly crust and sticky snow that Baker is famous for, and they lasted the entire day! By the end of the day the tails had delaminated a little bit, but I had already riveted them together because I figured they would delaminate.
As far as how they skied, they were awesome in the powder, no hooking, and totally predictable. In the crust under the powder, they seemed to do as well as any other ski. Finally, they were really sketchy on the groomers that were hard packed. As a side note, I tried to do a 180 and ski backwards with them, and the reverse sidecut caused my legs to spread really wide, and then I fell over backwards in a really awkward feeling fall.
The best part, though, was all the comments I got from people. Everyone was amazed that I built my own skis, and I couldn't believe how many questions they asked.