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Robes
Trad climber
Truckee CA
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Nov 23, 2010 - 02:28am PT
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Hi,
Judging by the fact that you are from Santa Clara, I'm Guessing that you will be doing a fair amount of skiing in the Tahoe region as it is the closest area with decent cross country near you.
Having grown up as a serious nordic skier in Truckee (and i must say that nordic is term used by the local XC skiers) I would recommend a wider ski with fishscales. I don think that metal edges will be needed for the type of terrain that you are describing, but you may want them if you decide to tackle anything too steep.
The main thing to consider, if you will be taking on any hills of considerable size are the boots. Traditional striding boots are actually quite flimsy these days and are most suited for groomed track skiing which is not what your after, judging by your post. You should ideally be looking for a boot that has a decent amount of flex, but still has the support that you need for un-groomed downhill descents. I would suggest checking out what they call a "combi" boot (its built for both skating and striding XC skiing) or look into a boot design more suited for backcountry skiing if you'll be taking on more technical downhills (i've used the old "3 pin" bindings for a bunch of gnarly descents).
Head to Paco's(in the safeway parking lot) in Truckee and tell them what kind of terrain you are hoping to ski and they can help you out for sure. If they don't have what you are looking for check out The Backcountry(also in truckee by the 7-11) and they'll the more intense back country stuff. Both great local shops. Both totally knowledgeable and helpful.
If you have anymore questions feel free to PM me.
\Good :Luck,
Rob
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bergbryce
Mountain climber
Oakland
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Nov 23, 2010 - 02:53am PT
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OMG I miss skate skiing so much.
Used to live in Anchorage where I'd get a good mid week fix a couple nights a week on the lighted trails. Access to nordic skiing was so fantastic there, I kind of took it for granted.
Skating is wicked fun and will rip you into the best cardio shape of your life. Classic can too but requires more patience, skill and is considerably more difficult to learn to do well, imho.
These days there is a lot of XCD gear on the market which is turning light touring gear into something you can make turns on.
My favorite xc ski website is Tim Kelley's crust skiing website...
http://crust.outlookalaska.com/
check out the trip reports (links are near the top of the page). they come with great photos and hilarious captions!!
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Dr.Sprock
Boulder climber
I'm James Brown, Bi-atch!
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Nov 23, 2010 - 05:09am PT
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i saw kelly slater at alpine nocking down the cornice with the 90mm howdyduty, and somebody dished him, can you believe somebody would disrespect mr slater?
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GDavis
Social climber
SOL CAL
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Jan 12, 2011 - 12:35am PT
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Bumpity bump
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Urmas
Social climber
Sierra Eastside
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Jan 12, 2011 - 02:13pm PT
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Best place to rent gear: Mammoth Mountaineering Supply. Go to mammothgear.com and check out their website.
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Todd Eastman
climber
Bellingham, WA
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Jan 12, 2011 - 02:31pm PT
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Who held the targets?
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reddirt
climber
PNW
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Nov 26, 2011 - 12:01am PT
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X-country kicks ass because you can just pull off a road and take off, no chair lifts, no 'boarders'...
don't knock the boarders, join 'em
Cross Country Snowboarding http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4w7sVSMbjyM
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steve shea
climber
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Nov 26, 2011 - 11:12am PT
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I still have skooch leg from last year! I gotta learn to change it up.
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 26, 2011 - 11:19am PT
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Yeah, boi!!!
My son's already hitting me up for some snow-camping. Hey does Lover's Leap campground close in winter??
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 29, 2011 - 01:36am PT
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I'm hitting it soon....
What's up with the huge poles now. Everyone uses oversized poles???
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
merced, california
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May 10, 2012 - 05:49pm PT
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It's Thursday and the Tioga Road has opened. We can finally lose that topic like the recent feeble snow-pack.
I think this thread's just been hibernating. It's probably because I just now am concluding a re-read of Doug Robinson's worthwhile observations.
Can I get a bump from the grump who is wishing it was October?
---
Here's a Quasi Official notification about the Tioga Road, from today's Sierra Star (www.sierrastar.com):
Tioga Road now open in Yosemite
Tioga Road...opened Monday, May 7.
Vault toilets are available in several locations along the road. However, due to damage sustained to two transmission lines, the Tuolumne Meadows area will be without electrical power and visitor services until repairs can be made.
Due to light snowpack [sic] this past winter (approximately 50% of normal), the Tioga Road was able to be cleared of snow early...
All campgrounds along Tioga Road are closed. All commercial services, including the gas station, store, and village grill, also closed.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
merced, california
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May 10, 2012 - 06:05pm PT
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I don't like to understate what may become a grave situation this summer, but the lack of snow might mean the Meadows just might not erode as fast as they have in the past. conservation. of. energy. means. nothing. without. results. t*r. give. earth. rest. no. no touring. only running water and running from hordes of bloodthirsty mosquitoes, I would think.
Which brings me to the whole point of this afternoon's ramble in the Meadows, several points, really, as I think on it more. Rambling and rumbling brings out the creative side in Muirian personalities like moi and toi, (if I may?).
Not long back, Jeff Mathis was much younger. He's always been a great dancer. In 1970, he was considered to be the tenth-best cross-country skier in the Park. I don't know whose rating system applied, but this was news to me when I heard it from the Muskrat's very lips, from the mouth of the Horse Ridge guy himself, by fiat issued by the quondam meister of Ostrander Hut and the TM structure provided by the NPS for ski tourists.
JM (the F stands for Freeman) First-class scout, body/fender expert, telephone lineman and glib deliverer of lines to lines of lasses with lovely...well, he could certainly dance. He learned cross-country skiing, ladies, in 1970, before it was refined and mass-marketed as ski-touring (hyphen preferred). Technically, Nordic ski-touring, I guess, though it's constantly shortened to Nordic touring, and then there's the texter's nightmare, is it xc or x-c? S[ell-chek says the latter, so take your pick.
And you thought I was serious about Nordic sport? I love the bikini teams from oslo, stockholm, helsinki, and reekyavick. That's Nordic. Snow gets kinda boring. I'm not so much a mountain person as a rock mouse.
In 1971's January or February JM was invited to be the third party on a trans-Sierra trip with Donna Pritchard and Wayne Merry's wife, Cindy. He was number ten, but available and could pay his way. He had come to terms with an old pair of surplus GI slats. I couldn't tell you definitely the kind, but the cables were good ones. His main problem was one ski broke somewhere. I mean on the route, yeah, but the break was ahead of the binding, and not much was broken off, but still...bummer. I believe "be prepared" sunk in during the days we spent in Scouting, because JM brought a spare tip!
I love hearing of someone's foresight. Jeff's not absolutely famous for planning back when the day was earlier and he was younger not by much but rich in klister and blind luck. But he skated on that one.
He was even more fortunate in his financial dealings. Jeff Mathis was the sole proprietor of the now-long-defunct Tuolumne Sporting Goods, est. 1970 or 1971, we can't tell. (He had no catalogs, Guido.)
All Muskrat had to do was fork out some filing fees and arrange for paying the Board of Equalization. He only retailed to himself, which was the main money-saving idea, and to a select clientele. He had his "warehouse" in his rented Degnan's dorm room. I provided the transport for the bulk of his wares, which were purchased at wholesale from EMS. We hauled the goodies in the DORF van, which served as its break-in road trip.
We came back through Ventura, stopping to visit with the guys in the Yard (none of whom we actually knew), and we drove up Hwy 1. On the return, we picked up a hitcher, who later got hired as a checker at the Village Market. Name forgotten. We over-nighted with Brother Don, my former temporary roommate. He was a really righteous guy, who just happened to have an excellent coke connect, he said, having understood that I had come into some insurance benefits from having my hand chewed on by a peach-pitting machine. So he gets these extravagant lines out, not cheap, either. And Mfathis sneefzes. Shag carpet. Saved from certain debauchery. But there was Schlitz, and it was karmic pay-back for the blue-balls I gave JM in high school anyway. Best friends don't let best friends go over trifles like swollen genitalia or wasted drugs. Or other infringements. We all worthy.
In Berkeley, we stopped in at the North Face, picked up another couple of travelers, stopped by my old wannabe alma mater, St. Mary's College, and finally got to the Valley by midnight. What a long-ass day! But we had energy and Jeff had new Bonnas! And several hundreds of dollars worth of other wintry gear. One of the riders from Berkeley happened to drop me on a top-rope some hundred feet. Ya do a fella a favor...
I did not ski that winter. Jeff remained in the dorms, later on finding a gig with the trail crews. I took the high road to education and tried to resume my collapsing college career. No go. Kingsley's riotous geology field trip to Yosemite caused me to throw in with the dirtbags once more, not the doctors. It is never a really tough decision. It is what it is.
The next winter was very different.
I had been working at the Mtn. Shop that summer of '71, and gotten hitched. I was kept on to work the fall/winter. We lived in the Village at Tecoyah dorm. Jeff had got his UI and fallen in with a lovely lady, Georgia, aka Tirebiter, much too refined for the guy she called "just another rock and roll kid from Merced." TB was a maid, and kept a dorm room, as always. But they spent their time across the Valley, over the road at the base of Sentinel, in their cave. It came equipped with an air-freshener called AirWick. The tailed, black variety. He was fit company for a dirtbag trail crew unemployed Flame. So was Georgia. She was one of many many ladies Jeff danced with, but there was only one AirWick.
Jeff developed his skiing and I began going out with him, though I could have had pros give me lessons, it's how Jeff and I rolled. He got me involved in climbing, taught me some, climbed with me, then we went out with others and traded new technique. The same sort of thing happened with ski-touring. He got me interested, though I had a professional obligation to learn what I needed to know for the shop. I skied with him in the Valley lots, then we did the Chinquapin trail ( a must for all beginners on skinny skis), and finally Dewey or Taft Point. And Crane Flat. This is where they generally liked to hold lessons for YMS clients.
The YMS nordic program started that winter, as well. Several Olympians, Ned Gilette (track racer), Jim Speck (Nordic combined) for the USA, and Trine Bech (I tend to confuse it with Speck, so it might be Beck, but he's yet another Nordician) from Norway's team. They were like Bridwell or Robbins to me and others. The shop itself, it was first left in the Village, then moved to the Lodge Gift Shop. Not workable. Back to the Village and the friendly mice in the closet.
It was great experience to pick up mounting and basing and turning tips from such experts. What I saw in them thatsets them apart from the masses is their ability to remain focused on their goals. You've all seen the training climbers go through for their own ends. The Olympic athletes are some of the most dedicated on earth. It is interesting to speculate on just when climbing is going Olympic.
Ding-dong the snow is gone. Fairview's there, and here's the throng.
Enjoy.
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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May 10, 2012 - 06:11pm PT
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Hey bluering, take the r out of nordic and add a k and you'll fit right in.
Just kidding.....I think.
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Charlie D.
Trad climber
Western Slope, Tahoe Sierra
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May 10, 2012 - 06:15pm PT
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Love to ski tour on Echo, our beasts like it too:
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
merced, california
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May 10, 2012 - 08:33pm PT
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Girl, you revived me!
I was a Sacto Scout who spent two summers at the old Scout Camp on Uppaweckoho Wake! It wasn't so cold as in the pics (marzelous, davvling shots--for basically boring frozen water), but I earned my Mile Swim badge, awarded more for enduring the cold water than for completing the length. Those were the summers of Gagarin, as I recalled, 1961 an 1960.
In the seventies I drove my poor old neglected climbing widow [ :) if you're reading this, sweet-meat] to Echo and we skied over to the old camp and...camped. In a Tuolumne Tent, TNF's coziest. The best part of waking up was to find the wind, which had blown us over the lake, in effortless blind gliding bliss, the afternoon before, had now shifted in the opposite direction. We wind-sailed using our mountain parkas! Both ways. Magic weather gods, you rule...
I just read Doug Robinson, and if you can find him, another skier of immense knowledge and tale-telling ability is Sir Arnold Lunn, and he has dozens of titles. The one I liked and remember best is (not surprisingly) Mountains of Memory. Books get you through times of no snow better than...
I refuse to issue any gear recommendations. I no longer ski myself, and have no idea what's on offer. Just start with three-pin bindings and light equipment. I know there is no better satisfaction than learning to get from one spot to another over the snow. It leads to much much more. Be serious and at least read about waxing. It's not an art, it's a science guided by a playful muse who was raised by a friend of Donini's in a F N VAN down by the SWAMP, which ends in P and that stands for plenty.
Ski-touring is such a gentle pastime. Welcome to the fold.
Post this Reply!
I'm so delighted you enjoyed Echo, t*r. It's one of my best skiing memories.
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ms55401
Trad climber
minneapolis, mn
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May 10, 2012 - 09:01pm PT
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skiing groomed nordic is way homo
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
merced, california
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May 10, 2012 - 09:11pm PT
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Nope, we have not met, I'm pretty sure. I would certainly benefit from our acquaintance, I feel, simply because you have in your writing expressed what lies in your nature. I don't mean to be forward. That usually puts one in an awkward situation, like being in the middle of a kick-turn when the crust breaks.
edit: In my past I was a sales person whose job deeply involved working with largely unfamiliar folks so that I could find the types of books they enjoyed, or to find what kind of trail they would generally hike, and so I learned to try to put people at ease. If I sound overly-familiar, worry. Otherwise, it's just me being that guy selling books n' boots. If I have not met your own good self, I have talked with dozens of your peers.
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DonC
climber
CA
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Nov 27, 2018 - 08:01pm PT
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Moved to Bishop so have ready access to snow for the first time in many years. I used to be a pretty decent telemark and AT skier, but that was many years ago. I'm looking to get back on skis, but just leisurely skiing in the meadows, up a closed road, etc. Probably a mix of groomed trails and easy off trail.
I'm just starting to look at equipment and really don't have a clue where to start - so many options these days. What would be a good set-up for my plans?
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