The Echo Valley Project 20-21

[chrsdipietro94@]

Preparations are well under way at my favorite feeder hill in the Eastern Cascades. Again this season, I'll be managing the operations of this north central Washington historical institution of intrigue & wonder. It's a labor of love that supplements my side gig as a house husband.

Here's the layout.... 600 vertical feet served by 3 rope tows and a Poma.

I was at the hill yesterday testing rental gear. At the current moment, we have just about enough snow to open... planned opening in December 19th. There is more snow on the way... it already looks better than it did last season.

We are having the lifts inspected on Sunday.... it may be a low angle Pow frenzy if we time things right.

My other goal for this season is to master the groomer... The rule is... I can't ride alone until I successful back it out of the garage.

All systems are go are right now. Staffing is in progress. Lets just hope we don't get locked down. Think snow

I'll try to maintain this thread better this season... last season it fell by the wayside after I sustained a season ending tubing injury on the job.

 

[Brownski]

I’m interested to hear all the details, including the tubing accident

 

[chrsdipietro94@]

I’m interested to hear all the details, including the tubing accident

Believe it or not, it was the first time I had ever been tubing... when I was a kid, we used Sleds... the Saucer style was my go-to rig.

Our tubing hill is pretty old school. No magic carpets here for the ascent.... all runs must be earned by ascending a 25 degree icy slope that pitches up to about 30 degrees near the top. As an inexperienced tuber, my form for my first run was sub-optimal. An experienced tuber knows to keep your ass from hitting the ground. My ass (literally) was absorbing some form of traumatic force the entire way down a short, steep lane, covered in a thin layer of ice, mud, and rocks. I ended up blowing out 2 discs in my lower back.

Here's a shot of the lanes from last season

This was in December of last year. I didn't actually have it surgically repaired until February. January was miserable. It made me understand the true meaning of chronic pain. I am pretty healthy now. My back isn't 100%, but it's about as good as it's going to get.

Lesson learned: For first time tubers, the attendants now provide a short demo on proper tubing form.

 

[chrsdipietro94@]

We started testing rental gear today...

We don't have a ton of gear... 64 pairs of skis... it's a cornucopia of Volkl, K2, and Dynastar. It's aging but well maitained.

The tests are pretty simple. I took an exam to become a certified Marker binding tech.... it was open book

Using a specialized torque wrench... a Vermont Product

There's a twist test

And a lean test

The criteria is Pass/Fail. The bindings must release within the torque specification provided by Marker. All bindings are tested preseason. A sampling is done mid-season.

The other task on the agenda was checking for dead mice in our boot collection

Lift inspections tomorrow, interviews next week, hill ops training the following... it's going to be a busy month.

 

[raisingarizona]

Oh wow, K2 Fours! Classic.

do any of the blinking red lights still work?

 

[JTG]

A lot of people like to hate on K2, but they’ve had some great skis. The Four really ushered shaped skis into the mainstream, given what Bode did on them at the ‘96 Junior Nationals. One of my favorite “straight” skis before I got the Four was the 5500. Segmented or “cracked” edges date back to the invention of steel edges in 1929, but I don’t believe many skis were using them in the 80s.

 

[raisingarizona]

A lot of people like to hate on K2, but they’ve had some great skis. The Four really ushered shaped skis into the mainstream, given what Bode did on them at the ‘96 Junior Nationals. One of my favorite “straight” skis before I got the Four was the 5500. Segmented or “cracked” edges date back to the invention of steel edges in 1929, but I don’t believe many skis were using them in the 80s.

I skied on the el Camino’s for the winter of 96/97 in steamboat. They were completely destroyed after one season with concaved bases around the strips of wood that ran vertically down the skis. I’ll admit, those were the beginnings of my hucking days were skiing was merely transportation from one air to the next with plenty of questionable transitions ?.

That being said, the funnest skis generally aren’t made to last very long.

the original dynastar bigs fell into that category. They were the most ridiculous fun skis at that time but you were lucky to get a season out of them. I knew people that horeded those skis and had two or three back up pairs for a few years in the late 90’s.

 

[Brownski]

You’ve probably seen these before but I’ll throw them up for the new guys. Still love my 812s. They’re showing their age but still fun to ski on. They usually put a smile on peoples’ faces too, lots of great comments when I bust them out. Nobody at Big Snow had anything to say about them though.

 

[x10003q]

A lot of people like to hate on K2, but they’ve had some great skis. The Four really ushered shaped skis into the mainstream, given what Bode did on them at the ‘96 Junior Nationals. One of my favorite “straight” skis before I got the Four was the 5500. Segmented or “cracked” edges date back to the invention of steel edges in 1929, but I don’t believe many skis were using them in the 80s.

I had Yamaha Paramounts in the 1970s and they had a cracked edge and my buddy had Olin Mark 2 VCE - Variable Cracked Edge. Dynamic VR 17 might have been one of the first racing skis to have a cracked edge in the 1960s and the many other companies making top racing skis (like Yamaha, Blizzard, Fischer, Kastle, Atomic) copied Dynamic. The Mahres K2s might have had cracked edges on the 710s as the shape copies the VR 17.

 

[chrsdipietro94@]

Oh wow, K2 Fours! Classic.

do any of the blinking red lights still work?

Checked them out yesterday....Nope.