Swallowtail snowboarding at Wolf Creek
Contributed by tom. April 2006.
Activity: Alpine snowboarding
Location: Wolf Creek
I bought the Prior Pow-stick swallowtail board, and it arrived two days ago. We were able to find a good deal on an O-Sin 4807 swallowtail board for Lisa, and we got that about two weeks ago. Those boards are designed to float on snow, with the nose always on top, and the split tail making the board very manouvrable. But to really take advantage of them, you need POWDER! I didn't want to spend the summer staring at the powstick and thinking of how it would ride...
Thankfully, the Lord hath provided, and the weekend brought snow. Wolf Creek resort got quite a bit of snow -- even though they reported only 3" on Sunday morning, it was after a week of storms. With all the terrain there it would be no problem to find some freshies. Lisa and I packed up the truck and drove the two hours south-west.
MOVIE
PICTURES
It was the last day of the season for Wolf Creek -- $23 tickets as the customer appreciation day. It's a shame they're closing, the snow was outstanding. We headed directly for the Alberta lift, where there's always lots of fresh snow in the trees -- no particular trails, just pick your way back to the lift.
The boards performed very well -- I still have a lot to learn about boarding in powder, all my boarding experience is just a 100 days of hardboot carving, but I definitely got the surf feeling. We both ran 55-deg on the front, and 30-40 on the back. That way the back foot spanned the board width, and the front foot felt familiar from carving. Lisa ran her TD-2 bindings, and I went with the softer Sno-Pro race bindings.
Lisa noticed that I'm still counter-rotating -- I've been trying to pre-rotate into my turns, a'la the Pure Boarding technique. It seems that I do it in the beginning, but then I finish every turn with a big counter-rotation, which after a pause leads into the rotation for the next turn. Lots to learn -- it was great to see it on the video, because I felt like I was doing just the right thing. But video don't lie.
We both loved our boards -- I was in 7th heaven with the Prior Pow-stick. It turned on a dime in the trees, the nose never went under the snow, it's a rocking board. Worth every dime -- I owe a lot to Lisa for convincing me to buy it! Now once I actually learn how to ride it properly, things will get even better!