riverc0il
New member
The short and skinny is Jay skied very well today. Bitter cold and uncomfortable winds had the slopes empty well into late morning when some brave vacationers finally decided to leave the comfort and warmth of their condos and townhouses and do what they supposedly drove up to Jay to do :lol: Said on gentleman I spoke with while riding the Jet: "the wife and kids are back in the condo because it is so cold." Fine by me. Less crowded than your average Jay weekend with a ski on Flyer and never more than one or two deep in the singles line at the Jet and Bonnie. Tram had what looked to be a three car wait. I debated doing the wait on my last run to get a run in off the ridge but didn't have the stomach for the wait.
The wind really loaded the powder up creating a tricky wind slab layer on the surface. Boot deep untracked powder was the norm for the morning and I hammered it without much care for competition as aside from the lack of vacation traffic even the regular Jay powder hounds seemed to be AWOL. Pretty laid back morning and I left lots of typical early hits for later. Lots of options.
I made a rare visit to Tramside today and poked around over there for three runs before the Freezer sent me shivering back to Stateside. Found some new shots (to me) where I suspected there might be some and wished the wind hadn't been as bad because I was really enjoying the turns on Tramside.
First full day on my new (to me) Atuas after a quarter day and a half day and first powder day as well. Really enjoying these new boards but something is a bit off. They still have demo bindings and the mount location of the demo binding is not to my liking. The tails are not keeping up and the tip is not hooking the turn quite the way I prefer. Sensational skis on natural snow and kicked butt in the untracked. Probably will save these for big days and lots of untracked as performance in tight trees on bumps and packed snow was way lower than my 8000s. But the Atuas are extremely nimble and tight turning in powder. Mantra-light I guess you could call them as they also have respectable packed powder groomer performance but slide a lot more than Mantra when things get hard pack and scraped. A total steal for just under two bills though I would have much preferred this year's Watea 94 and a lighter and shorter 178 without the twin. When I inevitability break another pair of 8000s, I may be looking at the slimmer Watea 84 as a possible every day ski but will take a demo before making that decision.
The wind really loaded the powder up creating a tricky wind slab layer on the surface. Boot deep untracked powder was the norm for the morning and I hammered it without much care for competition as aside from the lack of vacation traffic even the regular Jay powder hounds seemed to be AWOL. Pretty laid back morning and I left lots of typical early hits for later. Lots of options.
I made a rare visit to Tramside today and poked around over there for three runs before the Freezer sent me shivering back to Stateside. Found some new shots (to me) where I suspected there might be some and wished the wind hadn't been as bad because I was really enjoying the turns on Tramside.
First full day on my new (to me) Atuas after a quarter day and a half day and first powder day as well. Really enjoying these new boards but something is a bit off. They still have demo bindings and the mount location of the demo binding is not to my liking. The tails are not keeping up and the tip is not hooking the turn quite the way I prefer. Sensational skis on natural snow and kicked butt in the untracked. Probably will save these for big days and lots of untracked as performance in tight trees on bumps and packed snow was way lower than my 8000s. But the Atuas are extremely nimble and tight turning in powder. Mantra-light I guess you could call them as they also have respectable packed powder groomer performance but slide a lot more than Mantra when things get hard pack and scraped. A total steal for just under two bills though I would have much preferred this year's Watea 94 and a lighter and shorter 178 without the twin. When I inevitability break another pair of 8000s, I may be looking at the slimmer Watea 84 as a possible every day ski but will take a demo before making that decision.
