so, after watching the video of snowbird i thought i had to post a video by myself.
spring conditions in snowbird, right? you didn`t even dare to dream about powder?
so, sorry guys, pleaso forgive me for posting such pics/videos... but....
as i mentioned a few times before we had a pretty bad start into the season. but somehow there is a higher force which is looking for justice - and that`s why it snowed nearly the whole last week. i was up in my local resort on wednesday and they had about 60-80cm of fresh light pow!
as a proof the pic below: this guy is standing. we had to hike a "short" distance to get to the descent. unfortunately there was no slope as there is normally... so it took us nearly one hour for the distance of maybe 500m (which normally can be ridden in 2min). on the pic we passed about 2/3 of our way, we "just" had to walk over to the pylons you can see in the background
next picture is in the middle of the descent. with normal powder-conditions it`s a really cool run from 1850m down to 1000m over sea - all the way down open space and powderfields (usually also tracked very quick...)
so... he is strapped into his board and standing on it. and the snow still reaches nearly up to the hip!
and two more pics on the run:
so i was riding my swallows which are 146-112-136 at 177cm - and i had real problems staying on top and avoiding tipdives. it was totally insane. i never ever saw anything like this. during normal riding i sank so deep that i had snow over my knees. doing turns i sank even deeper, snow up to hip or even higher.
falling was no option because you could hardly get back on your feet/skis... i once fell and it really wasn`t funny. the tips dived and i fall forward. the binding didn`t releas so my feets stuck on the skis somewhere behind me, snow all around my face, snow everywhere - i could barely breath. so i tried to get up. i tried to push my body up with my hands - but they didn`t grab any hold and just sunk deeper into the snow. somehow i managed to turn on my back, release one binding and got up.
a little illustration what happened when you fall:
so in conclusion: it was really an outstanding day and a totally new experience. but even with my powderboards these conditions were barely rideable. maybe if they were 15cm longer i had something like a chance. so: on "normal" powderdays they work great. but there are some very rare days when there is just too much snow laying around
