My Splitboard Revolution

The word is in, the new boots are the bomb! I've taken my purchases on two trips thus far and loved the CRAZY CHANGES to my touring performance and riding sick-ness.

About a month ago now my faithful touring man Jock and I took up a friend to the Main Range (or Snowy Mountains), NSW for some exploration. After failing to fill up with petrol before every country service station decided to close on Sunday night we had to sleep a sneaky night in Khancoban. We finally made it to Deah Horse Gap just on the Victorian side of Thredbo.

Life felt rather North American as we stepped straight into skis out of the car. Hell Yeah to foregoing the usual Victorian hike to the snowline!

Such a low profile set up. 

Setting off from the car!

I was mocked for my enthusiasm at the "frictionless" touring mode in my new boots. It felt amazing to be able to raise the heel with so much freedom. The classic line for gloating telemarkers is "free the heel, free the mind" however I'm pretty sure those teleskiers have never felt the absolute freedom that comes from the Dynafit pin system. MIND BLOWING!

The weather on the first day meant that our trip from Dead Horse Gap was rather slower than we wished, therefore we ended up calling it stumps and setting up a pretty epic camp on North Ramshead peak. Check this out...

Home making.

Ski In - Ski Out!

Cooking up a storm in the cave.

Day 1 skiing entailed getting up to "Mt" Kosciuszko for lunch. I italicize the Mt, as Australia's highest mountain, being situated on an unfortunately high plain is more of a hill than a mountain. We Australians sure know how to make a mountain out of a molehill.

Skin-sition on the way to Kosciusko, the pimple in the left background.

At lunch we met a lovely father and son who had old school touring skis to tramp around the high plains. My favourite piece of information gleaned from them was that although they had forgotten tea, coffee, hot chocolate or anything else warm to drink they had fallen in love with hot powdered milk mixed with golden syrup. I'm not sure they will still be loving it back in Sydney.

Getting ready to shred Australia's highest mountain!

Although it might be a bit of a molehill, the 2 turns down under the Kosciuszko cornice was however mighty fun! Jock put in that nice swopping track in front of me. I was happy to get the extra turn in! 

The big ski led us down to Cootapatamba Hut.

This is the smallest hut I've every seen and truly an emergency shelter with little else but two rudimentary bunks. The second story is a ladder access entry in case of high snow levels... Oh the optimism of Australians.

Taking the opportunity to clean my face at the Cootapatamba Creek.

Another chilly night in the snow cave meant lots of sleep. We thought this was meant to be balmy spring skiing, but conditions were decidedly August-like!

Jock is artsy... Thanks for capturing the amazing skies.

Day 2 we decided to go ski South Ramshead and head on out down through the tree line and out to the car.

Chatting + skinning + sunshine = happiness. 

We ran into the father and son couple and tried to induce them to ski with us but they thought that their gear was more suited to the more mellow creek line. Some shared chocolate later we all cruised down through the trees. This was a test of my skills as a true split-board skier. As the terrain was undulating and snowboarding with a 30kg pack is somewhat difficult I decided to use my splitboard without skins on to negotiate the journey to the road. The asymmetry of the board when used as "skis" is somewhat challenging, as is tight tree skiing with a pack on. I was pretty proud of my epic Stem Christies and only had one serious run in with a tree!

After about 30 mins we were back at the car peeling off stinky layers of clothing and socks. I had developed an awesome blister which I swore over a bit in front of the tourists up in the mountains for some tobogganing. Not my best moment!

We wanted to make a cheeky side trip to Hotham on the way home and so braved the Benambra-Corryong road a two hour dirt extravaganza. The road was in much better condition than September 2011 which was a relief. Arriving at Hotham at 7:30pm on Wednesday I was pleased to have a couple of curries in the freezer ready for an end of season a dinner party with extra Hotham friends and a glass or two of schnapps at the pub.

What a trip!

Thanks to Jock Gunn for most of these photos yet again, I love having someone so handy with a camera who will cart it around at all times!

Life is precious

So many sunsets. 

 So much air to breathe. 

 So much to smile at. 

Life is good. 

Embrace each precious moment.

Bumps! Boots!

So after the visit to that little mountain in Victoria... (see the post) the idea was firmly implanted that I needed to get sorted to hardboot if I was going to take splitboarding seriously.

One of the two awesome backcountry gentlemen we ran into for lunch was was rocking a dynafit set up. This is an alternate and fairly recently developed alpine touring set up. It's main advantage being that it is extremely light. It is a compact pin system that pinches the front of your boot to lock in rather than a traditional style touring binding.

Lightweight Dynafit System

A traditional style touring binding

The Dynafit company mission statement says it all - this is a company dedicated to making the uphill as easy as possible while allowing good downhill performance. I thought it must be possible to install the toe piece and leave it on the board whilst riding. This would create an amazing uphill mode and solve part of the slow skinsition issues I was having.

I wandered into Bumps one Thursday morning after visiting my Great Aunt in Elsternwick looking for a new toe strap for my Burton soft boot bindings (which I had lost whilst carrying the splitboard uphill because I couldn't get an edge to traverse). Whilst trying to see if Bumps had Burton stock I noted that they did have a small section of touring gear. I thought I would just ask what they had in the way of touring boots. On getting talking to Byron, a lovely Canadian, I mentioned why I was looking for them and that I would really prefer if they were Dynafit compatible. After overcoming the initial shock that I wanted to snowboard in the boots Byron was totally professional - despite retaining a rather quizzical expression. We determined that it would be possible for him to order in some boots in my size that may work. The price kind of shocked me - I could purchase 3 pairs of regular snowboard boots for the same amount - but I knew ski boots would last a lot longer than soft boots. I left assuring Byron I would call back with my answer on whether I really wanted him to order them. I think he thought he had heard the last of me.

On getting home I decided to do some internet research.  I knew I wasn't the first snowboarder to feel the pinch out in the backcountry. I had seen my coach in Canada set up his board with hard boots, but not with dynafit toe pieces. The internet proved to be a wealth of knowledge yet again. I put a post on the Splitboard Forum looking for advice on how to go about making the switch. I was pretty shocked to get a few responses within 24hours. These Splitters sure are friendly people! It was indicated that the key was getting boots that fit well. So I knew it was time to call back Byron.

Trying on the boots for the first time was amazing. Who knew ski boots could be so light? My Dynafit TLT5s are only 1065g. Whereas an alpine boot advertised as being amazingly lightweight weighs nearly 2000g!!! Furthermore the sole is rockered (like a semicircle) and extremely squishy, I was actually enjoying walking around the store! I was sold within a couple of minutes and had them to take home before you could say splitboard!

My new boots - check them out hanging out in some Nidecker bindings I had borrowed from a friend to confirm the concept would work! I love that they are mauve and white - so feminine for such a macho environment. 

Next stage was getting the right hardware - Dynafit toe pieces and a light weight hardboot binding. This proved fairly simple when Adam from Firstlight Snowboards, a fellow Australian Splitter, introduced himself on the Splitboard Forum and explained which Spark R & D (located in Bozeman, Montana) pieces of hardware I would need. I ordered them and just had to wait for all the right pieces to arrive. It's funny how quickly you can become a local expert in a particular area when you get into highly specialised gear like this.

I'll update you on how it all looks and rides very soon but I had a pretty awesome trip up to Bogong on my old gear recently. So wait for photos of that first!

There is this little mountain in Victoria...

There is this little mountain in Victoria that is the home a serious shreds. Because it is amazing I'm not going to tell you the name directly as although I love bragging about my trips there I don't want you all to come along. Leave the snow to me please!

The splitboard's second outing was slightly more legitimate than a tramp around the Mt. Buller resort. I picked up two of my intrepid touring partners, Watkin and Joe, looking rather follorn late on Sunday night sitting in the mud outside of the Euroa Milk bar. We then went down the Hume (who hates the Hume???? It is the pits driving in the dark down the Hume and I seem to do it more than is fair. Why make a road so straight? So dull??) to meet Jock outside of my Telluride friend's house in Bright. The first challenge of the tour was packing Jock's car.

Jock is kind of like a real life Bear Grylls. His car demonstrates this. It is full of gear. From ice axes, ropes of all kinds, telemark skis, touring gear, crampons, first aid kits, extra sleeping gear, ridiculous amounts of Deb instant potatoes, just few bottles of port/whisky/cider and anything to fix anything the available space is filled before the four of us even try to get into the car. We did manage to fit eventually and set off on the Towonga Gap Rd to the back of beyond. After a bit of dirt road excitement we were finally at the trail head. I would tell you the time but my Mum hates the idea that we set off hiking at night, so I'll just leave it that the full moon was making it a gorgeous night for hiking up to the hut and the skiing base.

Off we set. With skis and boots on the outside of your pack it is a challenge to duck under and over the logs that litter these high country spurs. Joe was pleased that his lack of vertical height was finally an advantage over the tall man Watkin. There were a few moments, especially whilst bush-bashing that the wisdom of setting off to arrive in the middle of the night may have seemed a little ridiculous. However, once snuggled into tents with snow all around it was apparent that the morning would prove the late night exertion all worth it!

Nothing better for the head than to wake up in places like this. Life is good.

Monday and Tuesday weekends are the best. I'm not sure more words are necessary. Check out these happy snaps courtesy of Jock Gunn - master amateur photographer...!

Watkin shreds. I watch the show from the top right corner.

Skin tracks.

Lunch break with some pumped back country skiers we met in the bowl. They loved seeing us "young folk" enjoying the mountains. These blokes are who I would like to be in the future. There happiness is the simple joy of skiing down  a slope and spending time outside is inspirational. Furthermore, that they were excited about us joining them in this communal adventure is such a joy as we young folk, especially the dirty snowboarder type, can feel like real mountain men regard us with rather a certain level of scorn. Luckily we had some delicious oranges to give back some of that love...

Life is good at the top of Victoria. With great friends, amazing chalky Aussie snow and so much mountain to explore we ran off the hill planning the next trip up.

However, there was one little thorn in the side. As the boys put it "Bloody Splitboarders". Although I'm fit enough to show them all up hiking and even skinning at the end of the day, my skin-sition (the change from the mode to walk up the hill to ride down the hill) was still at times difficult.

Getting frustrated as Watkin tries to help me! 

Perhaps more concerning was the difficulties I was having traversing on hard pack. A self-made splitboard doesn't have an edge on the straight side. There is significant lateral movement in both the boots and the bindings. Thus it is near impossible to get enough grip to traverse on hard pack. Due to these difficulties it is necessary to "unstrap" at such times, which leaves you rather exposed. Although soft boots may seem comfortable when sitting at the pub it is impossible to "kick in" to the snow as you can in ski boots. This resulted in me having a fall that nearly wiped out Watkin, Jock and most of our ski gear. In addition, I had a very "female" moment (though Joe, perhaps more feminist than I said it was a "snowboard" moment) where I was needed Jock to carry up my board so that I could just deal with getting up the little stretch of steep in slippery snowboard boots & crampons. All rather scary and unsafe.

Furthermore, the sketchy tight tree skiing required on the way back to the hut of an evening emphasised the lack of responsiveness of the splitboard. Given the number of trees I ran into and sit downs I had to have, anyone watching would have had a hard time guessing I can actually snowboard and have in fact raced at a fairly high level. The amount of play that comes from soft boots and soft board makes it virtually impossible to ride smoothly through these tight sections.

After a delicious pub dinner on the way back to Melbourne I woke up on Wednesday morning and decided to go visit my Great Aunt in Elsternwick. On the way I saw Bumps, a ski shop, and thought they might have a binding piece I was looking for. Fatefully, I walked in and met Byron, a "can-do" kind of Canadian, who after a brief chat pushed me further along the tracks to get hard boots.

So the train kept rolling on.

Back to the Blogosphere...

Since late in April lots has happened in my life, it has been a time of massive transition. Currently, I’m taking a break from snowboarding; given all the head injuries I’ve had I’m not sure that racing is the right thing for me right now, or in the future. Though it feels like I’ve been up in the mountains nearly every week getting my shred on (albeit far from the race course)!! 

2012 is going to be remembered as the year I became a randonee snowboarder.  What the hell is that you ask? It may take me a few posts to make sense of this. So let me start at the start.

During the midst of my return from overseas depression I purchased a splitboard & skins from Nick, a friend of my good friend Jock Gunn. I have done some backcountry touring on snowshoes, with only hiking boots/crampons and a trip or two on a borrowed board, but I am pretty keen to get serious about taking my carving turn to more adventurous surrounds. The new board was made by Nick and  although not as high performance as a Kessler race board seemed to serve my purposes pretty well – it is a cheap way for me to try out and work out what type of splitboard will be ideal in the future.

The first trip me and the board went on was fairly tame. It was decided that due to horrendous weather, lack of knowledge of whether the gear would work and perhaps a dose of laziness that my first splitboard experience would be in bounds at Mt. Buller. I headed up one Sunday afternoon to be greeted at the base by the dynamic chauffeuring combination of Ollie and Wooly – two dedicated Melbourne University Ski Team members and wonderful friends. That they had a bit of a green tinge, perhaps due to a few too many nights at Buller, seemed to bode well for my Monday/Tuesday weekend. At least if the splitboarding wasn’t ideal, the dance floor was there to be carved up with plenty of awesome friends!

Sunday night was a feast of delicious throw-it-all-in-frittata at the palatial surrounds of Watkin’s house, with aforementioned touring buddy Jock Gunn (JG).  

This prepared us ideally for an adventure to the summit of Mt. Buller on Monday, a turn or two in chutes one and two and even a little trip down Men’s Downhill. The board and skins worked!

However my skin-sition was fairly slow.
By the time I had changed from Walk Mode to Ride Mode the boys had devised a way to hang off a pole with an ice axe...

and got a shot of JG front flipping whilst holding said axe...

I think I need to speed up the skin-sition, if for no reason other than to prevent them hurting themselves! 

Port anyone? Celebrating me FINALLY getting the bindings back on my board!

At this early stage of experiencing my board I was pretty conscious of the fact that performance is lacking when you saw a snowboard in half. There is an immediate need to remedy the noodle that is created of the board. I think the first time I mentioned that I needed some hard boots was after some pretty horrendous turns down Little Buller Spur.  I had seen my coach in Canmore, Mike, set up his splitboard with hard boots and this seemed like an ideal fix. Better touring performance uphill and improved responsiveness downhill were the spoils of such a transition, however the concept definitely is rather new to Australia and would require some development.

We started that mental process with a quiet camomile tea after a fairly big dance session. There were some awesome ideas thrown around! However, all needed a little clarification over the following weeks!

Thus the train started rolling on the tracks of my life as a randonee snowboarder…

Second photo on the Louise website!

On a day off I headed up to Louise with my friends Pete, one of the guys who works at the hostel, and Alex (of the German Male Variety) for some fun shredding. We were lucky enough to happen upon the opening of the ER3 chute off the Paradise chair.

Check out this shot of me that appears on the website dropping over the cornice..

Felt like a minor celebrity when my coach text me that this was up on the website before I had even left the ski hill. I have, after all, had two photos on the site this season!!

The last week my sister Hannah has been staying which has been great. We had some lovely bluebird turns up at Louise, have enjoyed going out for dinner with friends in Canmore and I have loved showing her how my life works here. It was also a great opportunity for Han to catch up with some friends from Melbourne who now live in Canmore. Unfortunately she is heading home on Thursday to finish off her pHd. However, these are some really special memories that I will treasure & remember for a long time.

In any event I'm pretty excited about Thursday as it is the day we fly to Denver to race our first Nor Am at Copper Mountain in Colorado! Can't wait to hit up the course as I know that I'm riding better than I ever have before and have got all the skills to really show people what I'm made of this season. On that note I better get back to putting more layers of wax on my super fast board!

I will keep you updated on the course at Copper and how the race goes. Fingers crossed.

Sending happy & excited smiles from Canmore!!

Fish Live Under Ice

On January 2nd I had an awesome day Ice Fishing with Christian, a new friend from France who has been living in the Area since the 80's, who serves with me at the Habitat Restaurant. Prior to 2012 I had never caught a fish before, now I've caught a few from under the Ice!

Christian picked me up at 9:00am to head out to the Spray Lakes, 16km past where I lived last year (see earlier posts from 2010). It was a gorgeous mild day with just a bit of a wind blowing. Christian loaded up the Sled with a shovel, two fishing rods, an auger (giant screw driver for making a hole in the ice), some snout for bait and a giant ladle he assured me was for making soup. I was dubious.

Gear loaded & sled in tow Christian definitely had this organised! 

We wandered out onto the ice. Which was cracking, apparently a good sign that more ice was forming. Though I felt a little nervous. Christian engaged his mental GPS to find his lucky spot and we halted on the ice to set up the holes. After ensuring the Auger was running straight Christian left me to hand turn it to create a hole for him and myself. Others use power Augers but Christian is a Frenchman and a traditionalist, no point interrupting the peace with an unnecessary tool and it is a good work out turning the Auger! I was puffed with only a foot of ice to get through, sometimes there are 3 or 4 feet!!

Christian set up two hooks on a rod for me with the little snout cut his special way, and after clearing out the ice with the "soup ladle" we were ready to get underway. We dropped the lines to the bottom and then pulled them back about 15 turns of the reel. This is about 65ft under the ice. Deep but not too deep as apparently down really deep there are only little fish & the bigger better eating is a little off the bottom.

My wonderful guide. He was definitely more appropriately dressed than me. Apparently cosy hats are a must!

Our little holes, protected from the wind.

Christian pulled up a gorgeous lake trout as soon as he dropped his line, he demonstrated how to pull the fish away from the hole and make sure it didn't dive back to freedom. He then demonstrated killing the fish by bashing it's head against the shovel - kind of brutal really but at least then the fish didn't have to lie waiting to freeze to death. We buried the fish in snow to make sure that they didn't freeze too much as it is slightly insulated compared to the air. It was time to reset the hooks and try again. Alberta rules say with one permit you may take 3 fish per day so we still had some fishing to do!

My first catch came shortly afterward. This was one of the most awesome feelings ever! I have never caught a fish from the sea or a river & now I was pulling one out from under the ice!! WOW. I took the honors of killing the fish via a few sharp hits to the head on the shovel and buried him neatly next to Christians catch.

Christian fish dancing in the Sun! 

We were ready to get number three after a short break to eat some PB & J sandwiches and chocolate. Fishing is tiring work especially in the cold & the wind! The fish seemed to disappear for awhile which led to much fish dancing to stay warm. The fish can't hear it so it is okay. I suggested that they may have wised up to the idea that bait was not good food. Christian assured me that these Lake Trout have a short memory & that he had in the past gutted a fish and found two of his pieces of bait inside. Dumb fish - perhaps they were just lost!



We had a few bites, lost a few fish and eventually pulled up a couple of little guys each that were catch and returns and had declared that we would only wait until 1:30pm to see if something bigger came along. My feet were getting very cold & the wind began taking its toll. As is the way, after saying we were going to leave in 40 minutes Christian had a whopper on his line. It was a good fight but the Human won and we had a big guy to add to our catch to bring home & cook up!

Fish number 3 and the tools. What a good 'un!

With our catch! So stoked & a little cold!

Ice is cool.

Although there were other groups of fishermen and women it was amazing how peaceful the ice was. Standing facing away from the wind and watching the line with one eye and the majestic mountains really does give you some time to re-evaluate. Listening to the ice crack as you stand there (which apparently is fine????) makes you realise how insignificant you are, somewhat like watching a big open ocean. As Christian said, ice fishing is very Zen. Very Zen and very exhilarating at the same time. It is impossible to be anything but in the moment as you pull a fish carefully from the black hole in the ice.

WOW! 

I bought my fish home and was taught to gut it by another man at the hostel. So many lessons in one day! This was quite shocking how easy it is to pull out all the guts from a fish. However, once all the guts were out it was still quite a beautiful little guy. I couldn't wait to cook him up!

My friend Ali came out from Calgary for the night so we feasted on Baked Lake Trout (with butter, lemon, sage and garlic), Baked Potato and Sweet Potato Salad, Roasted Beatroot and Goats Cheese Salad and Green Salad. Yummy!

I think everyone in the Hostel heard about my big catch. I was pretty proud at this point of my wonderful dish. Though his eye was a little creepy!

And here are the remnants...

It was such an incredible day, an amazing new way to enjoy the mountains and a massive learning experience. I am very grateful to Christian for including me in his favorite activity, I'm sure I interrupted his Zen somewhat but definitely enjoyed the lessons taught (imagine these with a thick French accent!)

• Fish are not patient. Fishermen must be patient.
• Small bait is better for catching bigger fish. (I feel like this could extrapolate to some deeper meaning though I'm not sure what!)
• A soup ladle is critical to ice fishing.