Garmont G-Rex Review

Besides ski movies and online video, my other skiing interest is telemark. Over my last two seasons in Park City I started the PC Telemark "Tele Tribe," a youth telemark program that met every Sunday afternoon.

Relocating to the East Coast, I'm now involved with New England Telemark and hope to set up a Tele Tribe in the Northeast. The fine folks at NET even started a Tele Kid's Forum on their forum, Telemark East. Rather than try to build a gear review with pictures in a forum, I'm going to do it here and just link to this post.

The biggest challenge in kids telemark is the gear, and in particular the boots. Until this season, the smallest boot you could get was a size four in the Garmont Teledactyl. That meant the youngest kids could learn telemark was around 5th or 6th grade. Most of our kids in the Tele Tribe were in 7th grade, and the ones that were in the orange Teledactyl had a huge gear advantage over the ones that were in small women's boots. See the photo below for a great example of what a soft, kids telemark boot can do for a kid's technique.


Last year at the trade show I found out Garmont was coming out with a new version called the G-Rex, and it would dip all the way down to a size one or two. I would hazard to guess this means kids as young as third or fourth grade can now learn to tele in modern, plastic telemark boots. My only gripe is went with basic black for the color, away from the distinctive orange. Oh well, can't have it all :)
Here's what the Garmont website says:

G-Rex: The next generation of our all-around kid’s tele and touring boot. It is the only plastic boot in the world specifically developed for younger free-hell skiers. The G-Rex is light, warm, and supportive, with all of the features of the big kid’s boots. The removable inner boot is warm, dries quickly, and can be fitted with alpine boot fitting aids-especially important for kids growing into their boots.

• Use: Kids Telemark, Backcountry Touring
• Color: Black
• Shell: Double Injected Pebax
• Liner: Garmont Superlight Traditional
• Closure: 2 Buckles
• Height:29 cm
• Weight: 945 grams (2.08 pounds)
• Sizes: 19-26.5
• U.S. MSRP: $275.00

I can't give any examples of "alpine boot-fitting aids" even though I've spent time working at a Surefoot, but I get the general idea.

G-Rex sizes:
19 is a size kid's size 1
26.5 is a kid's size 8.5

In general, add the tens and singles digits of a Mondo size to get the U.S. size. See the Kids' General Footwear Sizing Chart, courtesy of Backcountry.com.

G-Rex binding requirements, thanks to Telemarkski.com
G-Rex boots size 19-22.5 require the Rottefella Jr. Softwire binding
G-Rex boot size 23+ require an adult tele binding

Buy 'em here:
Backcountry.com
Telemarkski.com

NY Times Article on Independent Ski Co's

A little overboard on the use of the "Mr." title, but otherwise a good read on independent ski companies such as Wagner, Liberty, Bluehouse Skis, PM Gear, and Igneous.

I like Liberty's style. They started the company from their gambling winnings at SIA, have signed up a bunch of influential athletes, got some awards, and advertise smartly. They even have commercials on nossaTV. Here's a video, or more of a photo montage:

Music Recording Industry Lawsuits

Remember when you were a kid, and you wondered if it was OK to use your dual tape deck to make copies of your own tapes? Well, apparently it's not.

The RIAA is now saying this sort of thing is illegal, and are suing over it. Before they were content to sue people who ripped DVDs, then traded them online. I could see that. But that has been wildly ineffective. So now they are going to the source.

Just one more ridiculous attempts to stem the tide of people that don't want to pay the recording industry for music they can get online for free.

I like Scott Karp's "Change or Die" paragraph at the end. Musicians, and filmmakers, need to understand new media and the direction things are going. CDs, DVDs, and now even DRM is dead. Give it away, and make money off special editions, clothing, and live shows or screenings.

Via Publishing 2.0.

Wal-Mart Cancels Online Movie Downloads

When I started this blog it was to relate the tech industry to the ski and snowboard industry. This is the kind of news I'm looking at.

The subject of interest to skiers is whether ski videos should be available online, how much should they cost to view online (if anything), and how will this affect DVD sales, the bread and butter of guys like TGR, Matchstick, Poor Boyz, Rage, and Level 1?

In the tech or Hollywood parlance, ski movies are considered "long-form video." While no one is giving them away just yet, several platforms have been selling them. I had used the Wal-Mart service to download and watch Nacho Libre. The playback was great, and I was quite used to watching videos on my computer by then.

But this was back when I was using a Windows XP machine. And the culprit behind Wal-Mart pulling the plug seems to be compatibility with Mac devices such at iPods and I'm assuming Macs themselves (which I'm on now).

What's next for Wal-Mart? Seems like they've backed completely out of the online video anything market. Back to just selling DVDs in the stores? This market is starting to yo-yo. Either Apple and Amazon squeezed them out through a mix of business acumen and technology, or this online video thing isn't quite suited to long-form video.

Via DigitalMediaWire

Little Rock, Arkansas – Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has shuttered its online movie download service, the AP reports. The company launched the service in February with 3,000 titles, but customers could not watch them on an Apple Inc. device.

The company decided to abandon its online DVD rental service in 2005, a unit that comprised 40% of overall DVD sales.

Amy Collella, a Wal-Mart spokeswoman, released a statement saying that the closure came after Hewlett-Packard Co., which ran the software for the service, “made a business decision to discontinue its video download-only merchant store service."

Wal-Mart’s decision removes a major player from the online movie download world, as Apple’s iTunes store and Amazon.com Inc.’s Unbox dominate the landscape. AOL cut its movie download service last month as well.

Dr. Strangeglove

My wife got me the "Raiders of the Lost Archives" box set of Greg Stump ski films for Christmas. Actually, I saw it in the ski shop at Okemo and said "I want."

The "classic ski four disc-set" it features Dr. Strangeglove, Siberia, The Skiers Guide to the Galaxy, and Fistful of Moguls. I think these all came out during my college years, and despite being on the ski team I somehow missed seeing these. No time like the present to get caught up.

So I just finished watching Dr. Strangeglove for the first time. Wow! First of all the colors. Second of all the music. It really took me back. I don't know if Stumpy was driving ski fashion, or just showing things as they were.

But for sure the format is mind-blowing. Set around the ficticious Ski TV show produced by Greg Stump, which Dr. Strangeglove and his chain smoking "board of directors" rule over. it's definitely a different formula than today's ski porn. Both story line and locale kind of wander for the first half the film. Stump is chasing Glen Plake around the western U.S. and Canada before Dr. Strangleglove intervenes and arranges a shoot at Mono Lake (they pronounce it wrong in the movie, it rhymes with "Bono" of Sony Bono fame, not Bono of U2 fame -- in other words NOT like the kissing sickness). The monoski segment is both disturbing and entertaining at the same time (cover your eyes, kids).

The final segments at Mammoth were great. Having worked at Mammoth for two years, the Dave McCoy interview where he rants about the impact of insurance on the ski industry is very insightful. Remember Mammoth went on to pioneer park building. The riding gets a little more progressive and enjoyable to watch. You see possibly the first alley-oop caught on film. There's a line near the end that I'm positive is Junior's in the Top of the World chutes. And the footage from the "proposed San Joaquin Ridge expansion" is amazing. Too bad it never happened. They have a hard time getting June Mtn open nowadays.

It looked very good on our new 56-inch HDTV. Lack of an HD DVD player didn't matter since the disks aren't Blue Ray or HD-DVD. But VAS did a good job digitally remastering these movies.

Oh, gotta mention the Ice-T "Hit the Deck" track during the Mammoth scene. Have the CD, had absolutely no friggin' (how's that for an 80s/90s phrase?) idea Ice-T was in a Stump movie. No friggin' idea!

Most shoking of all, I can't find any footage online. Zip, zilch, nada. A friend of mine knows someone that knows Greg Stump. In the meantime, guess you'll just have to hop (turn) on down to your local ski shop and pony up.

For Love of Water

Just got off the phone with Matt Richardson of Bear Pond Productions in Vermont. They shoot a bunch of ski and snowboard videos for the likes of Stowe, Smuggler's Notch, Sugarbush, and Burton. But he told me about a video he put on Brightcove, and I've been meaning to get more familiar with their embedable media player. The video is about savings China's rivers, but as Matt astutely points out "it's already too late." Let's hope he's wrong.



I'm a little disappointed by the quality of the Brightcove player, though I do like the preview photo that you can run.

East Coast Snow Conditions

My first season back East after ten out West. Snow conditions out West basically consist of fluffy powder and not so fluffy powder. More likely it's "How much" new powder.

So time for a review of East Coast snow conditions:

Primary Surface Abbreviations
(from the Ski Vermont site)
PDR - Powder
PP - Packed powder
HP - Hard packed
LSGR - Loose Granular
FRGR - Frozen granular
WETPS - Wet packed snow
WETGR - Wet Granular
SC - Spring Conditions
VC - Variable Conditions
WETSN - Wet Snow

Now, you folks left of the Mississippi probably need some better descriptions. So here are some more descriptive, um, descriptions (hey I'm an engineer, lay off!)

• Powder - more than one inch of fresh snow that isn't mixed with ice; pretty much a myth, unless you ski at Jay Peak, somewhere affected by "lake-effect," or after a bona-fide Nor'Easter
  
• Packed Powder - when the resorts say its "Powder"
• Loose Granular - death cookies
• Frozen Granular - frozen death cookies
• Wet Packed Snow - um, snow that has been rained on?
• Wet Granular - death cookies in a rain storm
  

The Eskimos have like 65 native words to describe snow. So we added some of our own snow conditions:

• Death Cookies - "loose granular," if you don't know then you don't want to know
• Roar - fresh snow mixed with death cookies (from White Russian on the Rocks, or WROR)
• Skied off - basically the Western version of "ice" of any kind, there is no ice out West
• Sheet of Ice - literally like an ice rink stood on its side parading as a ski trail, usually referred to jovially since a decent skier can at least hold an edge if not make great turns, but anyone who ever uses this term out West has obviously never skied the East
• Blue Sheet of Ice - sheet of ice with a blueish tint, no one is quite sure how it gets the blueish tint, but its slicker than pig snot on a hot day
• Bulletproof - now you're speaking like a local, take it in context, but usually the most negative connotation possible
• Dust on Ice - or "Dice," to distinguish from the Western Dust on Crust, which really doesn't hold a candle to the East Coast version
• Frozen Ocean - when you have sleet and freezing rain overnight, leaving everything exactly like it was the end of the previous day, and pretty much bulletproof the whole next day or longer
• Frozen Chicken Heads - when smaller terrain features freeze solid overnight, usually softening the next day, actually more of a Western phenominom
• Water skiing - when it rains so much you're literally hydro-planing across flat sections of the trail
• January thaw - no snow at all, you are skiing on rocks and mud, if you're lucky enough your local resort even stays open
• Wintry mix - more of a traffic report phrase, usually sleet & freezing rain and sometimes snow (usually followed by their parental-sounding advice "stay at home unless you REALLY have to go somewhere")
  

And just for some balance, some of my favorite conditions from out West:

• Early season obstacles - a Mammoth favorite, basically means there isn't 7 to 9 feet of snow blanketing the mountain yet, and by 7-9' I mean base; don't go anywhere that isn't tracked yet or you risk dry-docking
• Dry docking - completely coming to a stop because you skied into an area where early season obstacles still exist and you just gave yourself numerous core shots
• Low tide - when early season obstacles still exist and it's easy to dry dock in certain parts of the mountain that otherwise look perfectly skiable
• Core shot - taking such a large chunk out of your ski base you can see the core, rocks back East can't do nearly the same amount of damage as volcanic rock, they call them the "Rockies" for a reason
• Graupel - little styrofoam-looking bits of hail, never good for avalanche conditions if they get buried
• Avalanche conditions - something to pay attention to out West, entire books have been written on the subject, I'm not going to even try to summarize here
• Crust - impenetrable snow that occurs when snow warms, then refreezes
• Corn - sun-warmed snow on top of a crust, can feel like feeling powder 10 times deeper
  
• Powder - anything that comes out of the sky
• Fresh - powder
• Blower - light dry, fluffy powder
• Pow Pow - affectionate name for powder, usually part of the phrase "sick pow pow"
• Bottomless - so much light powder, or a comparatively lesser amount of heavier powder, that makes every turn feel like bouncing up and down on a bed or a trampoline
  
• Face shots - when there is so much powder the force of making a turn blasts snow up from your ski tips and into your face
  
• Powder rules - varies from ski town to ski town, but generally any time you get over a foot of fresh, businesses close and all the employees go skiing or riding only to come in the next day as if they were in some parallel universe and the store never missed a day (except everyone spends the whole day reminiscing)
• Up-Side-Down cake - when heavy snow lands on light snow, not fun to ski and definitely not good for avi conditions
• Right-side-up cake - the BEST conditions you can ask for, happens when a cold front comes through but not before squeezing a bunch more wet & heavy snow out of the sky, then leaving some nice light fluffy goodness on top that causes everyone in a ski town to call "powder rules" and call in sick and have the best day of their life skiing anywhere on the mountain with complete bottomless snow with some blower pow on top giving you face shots every turn...

Hulu

In my never-ending attempts to find ideas to help distribute skiing and snowboarding videos I read a lot of tech blogs. One of the latest sites to come out is Hulu. It's basically NBC's answer to YouTube. Check out the Halloween episode of The Simpson.



A couple of things I really like about this player are the Closed Captioning and the fact they have cool content like the Simpsons. Now if we could just get NBC stoked on ski videos.

Deer Valley Resort to Host First World Cup Ski Cross Competition in North America

Having worked two seasons as a ski instructor at Deer Valley, this seems like the perfect fit. DV is in tight with the U.S. Ski Team and the FIS. And I've raced down Solid Muldoon on many occasion. Almost lost my job once for buzzing the patrol director and Stein Erikson, on the same run!

World Cup Moguls on Champion, Solid Muldoon is two trails to the right. Photog: me

Well known for hosting world-class freestyle ski events, Deer Valley Resort will welcome the Visa Freestyle International, a stop on the FIS Freestyle World Cup tour to its slopes February 1 and 2, 2008. The event will feature aerials, dual moguls and for the first time ever in North America a World Cup ski cross competition. More than 200 athletes from approximately two-dozen countries are expected to participate in the event.

Via SNOWNATION.

AT Racer

Weird title for my second ever post, but that's what popped into my head. But not in context of Rando Steve or any of those other lycra-wearing, uphill-downhill racing dudes. Read on...

My wife and I just got back from a day of early season skiing at Okemo in Vermont. The conditions were great for the week before Christmas. Having just started with New England Telemark, and as founder of Park City Telemark, we normally both drop a knee. Sometimes I snowboard in the morning first. I basically need a challenge most days, and those two ways down the mountain offer plenty.

But this trip I took a couple of alpine skis. My justification basically came down to the upcoming trip out West. I will be on the road for the whole month of January, hitting up: Colorado, Tahoe, Utah, and Montana in that order. With at least one mandatory telemark day in there, and unknown conditions all together, I'll be lugging my two pairs of tele skis. So that leaves one or two more chanced to alpine in New England.

So I brought a pair of alpine skis and a pair of alpine touring (or AT) skis. The alpine skis were my K2 Fugatives from last year. The AT skis were the K2 Shuksan (full disclaimer: I used to be the K2 Ambassador for Park City and The Canyons, both alpine and telemark/AT).

I took the Shuksan's out first and never went back to the car. I simply forget

1. How much fun it can be to lock down your heels and
2. What an incredible ski K2 has made in the Shuk.

I can't remember the specifics dimensions and I'm too lazy to go look them up in one of my old catalogs. They are about 78 or 80mm in the waist. And they have one, or more likely two sheets of Titanal inside. That's basically Titanium if I remember correctly. That means they hold an edge like a race ski. But they are still wicked light, especially with a pair of Freerides binders mounted up.

Speaking of race skis, I'm an ex-racer (or "Racer-X" as Edi Thys made popular in SKI Magazine). I like to "tip, grip, and rip" or "lay 'em over" or "get 'em up on edge." I've always liked a mid-fat for going fast and carving out West, most recently in Park City. Mid-fats are great because they give you enough width to basically prevent "boot out" unless it gets really mushy.

Problem is, most mid-fats now have TOO MUCH sidecut. K2 deepened the sidecut on the Recon and basically ruined the ski if you ask me (I'm no longer a K2 Ambassador, so I guess I can say that). I mean, I know some people can't angulate but still basically want to roller-blade down the hill. IMHO that's what slalom skis are for.

K2 left the sidecut on the Shuksan a few millimeters smaller (as they measure sidecut, rather than turn radius / meters as most other companies do). They did this to make the ski more forgiving in the backcountry and off-piste at the resort. That keeps it from hooking up in heavier snow and breakable crust. If you've ever experienced this phenominon (sp?) you know what I mean.

But the law of unintended consequences plays out in my favor. I can get a ski up on a high edge, and I don't want all that extra "cheater" sidecut as a result. Skiing the Shuksan on the groomers is like skiing a true GS race ski, maybe even a Super G ski. Mach speeds, huge arcs, laid over or otherwise very angulated. Today was the most fun I've had in a long time. Never mind I had to wait for several minutes at the bottom of every run for wife to make it down on her tele's. Maybe she'll take my suggestion next time about being on the same gear!

Though I'm clearly a backcountry type now-a-days, these skis take me back to my racing days. To bad these skis can't come out West with me!

Mt. Bachelor Video

Tried to ski Mount Bachelor in the spring once, but we took a road that was closed, had to go around, and ran outta time. But this video from Pete Alport, with Poor Boyz Productions, makes we want to go back!

First Tracks

First Post!