Home made skis

I have been slacken on my blog lately. I've been consumed with my latest project of making a pair of super wide powder skis. As you know, you can find out how to do just about anything on the internet. Having made several wake/kite boards a few years ago I had some of the equipment like a vacuum pump and lack of common sense. www.skibuilders.com is the place to go. I was able to buy enough materials to make 2 pairs of skis for about $180. I'm not even going talk about the cost of my labor, but let's just say I have well over 40 hours into this first pair. I patterned my skis from the Black Diamond Mega Watt(left). I have my poplar cores in the middle and my template to the left. My measurements are a plump 163-125-135. Planing the profile of the core was a bit time consuming. I build a jig where I planned the profile with a hand router. I purchased the wood core already laminated 11mm thick. I shaped it down to 9mm under the boot and down to 3mm at the tip and tail. I then cut the P-tex to the shape of my template and super clued the steel edges to the P-tex.Gluing the edges is definitely the most tedious task. In the left of the picture you can see the mold I made with particle board. Once the edges are glued I placed it on the bottom of the mold. Then I mixed up some epoxy and added a layer of 24 oz fiberglass. You can see the wood core is waiting to go on top of the bottom layers. Ihave the fiberglass wet out with resin in the mold. I placed 2 strips of carbon fiber in the skis for good luck and to increase its value. Anything with carbon is worth more. Next the wood core is laid on top of the wet fiberglass. Another layer of 20 oz fiberglass is laid on top as seen below. I placed the whole mold in a bag which is sealed and I apply a vacuum pump to suck all the air out and press the ski into the mold. I leave the vacuum pump on for 8 hours until the epoxy is cured. You can see some of the black epoxy soaked through the breather cloth, which is fine. The ski comes out of the mold with a lot with flashing around edges. A belt sander cleans up the edges pretty good. I opted not to lay in the graphic layer. I wanted to make sure the flex was good before topping of the tops.

I skied on them for the first time last Thursday at Brighton. It took me a couple runs to get used to the extra width but man, they float like a snowboard. It's so easy to ski with them. I have no use for my snowboard now. These skis are awesome.

Kiteboarding Rush Lake Mar 4th

Kiteboarding penguin session was a nice ride this morning Wednesday Mar 4th. Thanks to Kenny for talking me into this early season insanity. It was a classic Rush dawn patrol, smooth SE wind, air temp was mid 40's, water(really mud) temp was mid 40's. I had to make an exception to my 100 degree rule which is the air temp and water temp added together needed to exceed 100 degrees. We were riding by 7:00am which was few minutes before sunrise. Water is way low this year. I have not seen it this low in the March in many many years. Water depth was about 4 inches in south and pushing 6-7 inches in the middle. Kenny took a good ride to the north and was able to find 12 inches of water. The SE directions opens the lake up since its pretty small. We packed it up at 8:30 and headed to work. The wind was getting punchy when I left. According to www.utahwindriders.com forum we were the first kiters on rush for 2009. RUSH IS PLUSH

Best Powder Day of the Year

Back to back powder days. Tuesday morning was outstanding, 17 inches and it continued to dump all morning long. It was snowing at least 2 inches per hour. Powder doesn't get any better than this. The Milly bowl was closed all day for obvious reasons. I took about 8 runs and every run had untouched freshie's. Even after 6 runs backbone still was giving up untracked lines. I was riding my snowboard and you had to be very careful to keep you speed up at the bottom of the runs because the powder was so deep.

Wednesday was calling me and I talked Craig into joining me. We arrived at 8:50 and the powder addicts were already lined up. The Milly bowl was open today after being closed on Tuesday. There was 31 inches of pow waiting to be had. It was feeding frenzy and the bowl was tracked out after 2 runs. We had 2 sick runs down Scree slope as you can see below. We made into the side country and we were the 3rd set of tracks in the Mary chutes. I was riding skis today so I could get around on the traverses better. We put down 3 laps in the Mary main chute. I took a few runs with my bro Jeff. We dropped in Peanuts and then Rock Garden. The video below is Craig in the Mary Chutes. I just ordered my ski building materials. Stay tuned for my home made super fat powder skis.

Prator Canyon, Star Valley Ranch WY

This was a hike and ride I won't forget. I took my Dad's snowmobile up Prator canyon about 2 miles to my usual turn around spot. I was planning on leaving the sled and hiking for 2 hours and snowboard down. As I was getting off my sled I saw another sled coming down the narrow gully that leads up to the top. He said the trail was packed down all the way to the meadow. So I thought, let's see what my Dad's new sled can do.(Polaris 600 long track). I made it half way up the gully to the water fall. I ditched the sled and stared hiking. After about 20 minutes of hiking this this guy on a super sled (1100 Arctic Cat) asked if i wanted a ride to the top. The trail was already pretty steep and way beyond my sledding ability. I said sure, if he wanted to. He took my backpack and had me sit in front and he stood behind me. Off we went - up, Up and UP. This sled had some serious HP. Both of us weighted 400 lbs and it was climbing like a billy goat. We went as far as the top meadow. I teamed up with 4 other boarders/hikers. We blazed the trail to Prator/Green Canyon ridge which took us about an hour in knee deep powder. I still earned my turns. The run down was a true slice of heaven with 2 feet of super dry powder.

Snow caving Jan 23rd

I was invited to go snow caving with my local scout troop. I took them last year so they asked me to take them again. We went to Sky Line Drive area near Fairview UT. This a great place to go snow kiting so I thought I could kite and cave in the same trip. We arrived late Friday night around 6:00. We had 9 in our party. It took about 2 hours to dig 5 caves. We then connected all caves with a short tunnel. It was a mild night with temps in the high 20's and clear skies. We woke to several inches of snow and zero visibility. Snow kiting was out with the poor visibility. Everyone stayed warm including my 6 year old son, Griffin. After breakfast we took them down to the park and ride snow board hill.

Y Couloir-Little CC

After being totally inspired by the straight chuter blog, I have been itching to go hiking. I decided on the Y Couloir to scratch my itch. I've never hiked this chute before so I wanted to explore it before a inviting any friends.
It was super warm and it actually rained a little bit on the way up. I made it to the first Y, which took a about 70 minutes. The snow was getting pretty wet so I wasn't feeling totally comfortable with the conditions. The chute was about 40 wide so making turns was no problem. There were a few rock bands in two places which kept the decent interesting. I've be back to finish this Couloir later in the year.

Snow Kiting-New Year's Day

My long time friend talked me into starting off the new year hanging on to a kite. This was first time snow kiting this year and my first time kiting since June. Cycling has replaced a lot of my kiteboarding free time.

We rode Strawberry River which is between Daniels Summit and Strawberry Reservoir. Great place to ride. My legs were spend after two hours our solid riding. No rest like you get on a ski lift.