Riding the Horse

[Steeps]

New video time.... well, new upload. The powder never amounted to much at the end of last season so I just rode without a cam. I'll be putting up some videos I've been sitting on from previous seasons, including some full runs from the 60,000 ft day.

Whitewall is a great section of the mountain, but tends to be either a complete foggy whiteout or has been ridden heavily. It's a big open headwall with some notable rock features at the near end, reached after a very short hike by taking the stairs at the top of Stairway to Heaven chair.

[Steeps]

Here's a full top-to-bottom run from the big vert day. Not the most extreme terrain - it's a pretty standard CPR double-black run off the bat, then the usual cruise through the mid and lower mountain main runs. I was surprised to see that it's under 5 minutes on this run as it wasn't a particularly direct route (fastest drop time to date is around 4:13). I was on a bit of a mission that day....

My favorite bit of this run is the short gully section called Brigg's Brag from 1:48 to 2:07. It's one of those narrow little connecting trails that's a bit of a half-pipe format, and routinely mangles (and is mangled by) beginners. The lower section is typically full of triangular shark-tooth moguls from slowboarders cutting back and forth across the run. I love to see how fast I can clear it from cat track to cat track, but I often have to throw on the brakes and stop or slow right down if anyone is ahead of me. 19 seconds is a pretty leisurely clear time. Will aim to get some better recorded video of that particular section as I think my best time to date is 0:14.

[Major Q]

Wow! Excellent run.

Now, tell me how skiboards are slower than long skis...

[sempai]

It looked and sounded like you were flying down that run. Do you track your speed?

[shortydude]

Did you spray the ski patrol when you smoked past him

[Steeps]

Hehe thanks.

I don't track my speed (I use a flip phone so no ski apps) but know that I can hit 100+ kph based on riding with others who do. The GoPro's speed doesn't seem accurate the few times I've tried it.

There are few locals who can keep up with me. One of my friends can usually outpace me a bit on skis on smooth blue runs like Wiley (~2:50 to 3:50) based purely on mass but is slow on harder runs, and I ride with one former World Cup racer who will kick my ass about half the time depending on terrain and conditions. She's somewhere around 5 ft tall and usually pulls out an old pair of 210 cm straight-edge skis to shred moguls in the spring (we've also dropped some of the more notorious and iconic runs on Snowblades for fun - need to get her on real skiboards this season). I don't ride with anyone who can outpace me on the steepest terrain; reaction time for skiboards is just too quick.

No, I didn't spray the patroller. I've been literally told by a patroller that "ski patrol knows who you are and we approve" so I want to keep it that way. Kicking Horse patrollers are badass, focused on keeping the avalanche hazards down and recovering injured people, and definitely do not have a cop complex.

I found this video that I suspect is a patroller checking out the terrain pre-season this year:

I need to ask around and find out who it is so I can ride with them; that's my type of terrain!

[Steeps]

Well, it almost looked like we were going to have a season.... good snowfall Saturday to Sunday, great riding on Sunday, and more snow on the way this week. I finally got my hands on my new pair of Sticky Icky Ickies on Saturday, too (bought them in January in a tariff panic, but had a friend pick them up in the US and bring them back here - FedEx and border fees are killers).

Monday morning, the main hanger beam on a gondola car failed, and a car full of 8 people just fell off and hit the ground. Luckily, it was immediately after taking off from the base, and it was only a 10 ft drop with no critical injuries, but ouch!

The gondola may be shut down for the rest of the season. With the total breakage of a steel tube, I expect that it will at a minimum need complete non-destructive testing of all the gondola cars, and I'll be really surprised if it re-opens before the resort closes. There are a couple of lower mountain lifts available at the moment, but both are slow and access limited terrain. Pioneer is a legacy lift that regularly breaks down, so good luck to any who chose to ride it. Neither accesses the good stuff at the top of the mountain. I can't imagine that the resort will limp by on these two lifts for the rest of the season.

Might get a couple of days in on other resorts - Revelstoke is offering 'locals day' tickets for dirt cheap to Golden people in a couple of weeks - and RCR is letting us ride for free on their other resorts if I don't mind driving 3 - 4 hours to do so. Bert is down in Kimberly so maybe I'll get a proper skiboarder day in.

Other than that, the season is probably done in any meaningful sense, just as it was starting to get good.