Closing out Mt. Hood Meadows

Haven't updated in a while. Life has me busy, but still I feel the urge to document my first full season of snowboarding.

Its been a great year with record snowfall. So all of us locals have been spoiled. The first photo here was taken on May 4th 2008. If you take a look back to the beginning of the season you will see the same view but with trees poking through the snow. Sadly that was the last day we got to snowboard at MHM. They closed the season a bit unexpectedly with less than a days notice. So we missed the last day along with a lot of other angry people.

Why? Probably to cut costs since the only people going are the season pass holders and they already got all our money. I think everyone expected them to try to stay open as long as possible, but management did nothing to promote new people to keep coming. They said "the quality of snow would not be good enough to offer an enjoyable experience". My other favorite excuse for not build some good snow parks was that "There was to much snow". Personally they are full of crap. It was a bit sad ending a ski season with 10 to 15 feet of snow. You can see to the left the Shooting Star area of MHM still has a full snow pack. More snow on the ground than most winters. In fact they closed earlier this year than they did last year. Go figure...

I don't wanna spend time complaining about MHM. Marni and I had a great time and we got to experience some incredible snowboarding. I personally got to hit Heather Canyon a number of times. Thats the "Back Country" area connected to MHM. The Terrain was very steep. Double Black Diamond steep. Its hard to describe the feeling of standing on the edge of a cliff thats as high as a city sky scraper and the incline is so steep that you can put your hand back behind you and touch the snow. Then when you drop in you know that one mistake can send you tumbling down 100s of feet if your not careful. It really makes you feel alive in a way you never knew you could.

Photos really don't do Heather Canyon justice. Its something you have to see first hand to really appreciate. No matter how hard I try I can't seem to capture how small it makes you feel looking down. If you look hard you can see people way down at the bottom looking like ants. Looking up from the bottom even looks more impressive. I can't wait for next year to try it all again. Maybe if we are lucky we will get some more record snow fall!
In the meantime I wanted to post some more photos so we can look back and remember what a terrific year we have had so far.

This one is looking up from half way down Heather Canyon. Marni is getting better at her boarding so I'm thinking next year she will be ready to tackle some more extreme terrain. We still have all summer to board at Timberline. So I think she will be able to handle it! Don't tell her yet. I normally get one chance per trip to get her to try new things. Most of the time I have to surprise her. :)


Out of all the times we went to MHM this year we didn't get to bring very many people. Chris Robin and Estera both co-workers from DirectBuy came with us once. We all had a great time. Marni's friend Tina made it once as well. Its hard convincing friends to get up at 5am in the morning to drive an hour and a half so they can fall down and hurt themselves! Its fun while your there, but if your not experienced the next day you are in a lot of pain from falling down so much. Not much of a problem for Marni and I since we don't fall down that much anymore.


Some of the highlights of the year... I broke a rib going over a jump(ouch), got to try the half pipe for the first time (not so good at it yet).

I've learned how to drop of cliffs without crashing. I like that almost more than going over jumps.


I can now put chains on the van in about 10mins. Driving in show is not such a big deal anymore. Marni can fallow me just about anywhere now. Its almost time to get her a new board.

You can click on any of these photos to get the full shot. Our little camera is taking a beating but its done a good job. Next year we will get a mini video camera.

Marni stands at the top of the Cascade express. There is another looking down the half pipe.

Marni and Estera walk off the Butter Cup, and then later stand in the parking lot. At the top is another photo of Marni standing at the top of the Mount Hood Express lift.

I like to take photos from high places. You can see some of the great natural features looking down from the top of Marmot Ridge. Those are so much fun to go flying off of!

On the bottom right you can see Chris Robin stuck in some deep powder! And to the right of that it looks like Marni has mastered that art of riding a snowboard strait on the flats!

I tried to get some photos of me going over jumps but its hard when most of the time I do that sort of thing solo. Marni got some video, but its never been of my best moments. All the shots we have are from video. Maybe I'll get some better ones this summer up at Timberline. Speaking of Timberline we just got back from there and now I have whole mess of photos to post from that!

I'm going to have to focus this blog on some other aspects of our life. With the summer coming and hot weather on the way along with the high gas prices we will probably find some other things to do one the weekend that don't require diver 3 hours round trip. Plus we gotta start saving for next years MHM Ski pass. Maybe when November comes around we can find some more friends to come with us. That should make the drive a little more affordable. We have lots of room in the mini van AKA "The Snow Mobile" ...or if we don't wash it after our boarding trips the "The Dirt Mobile"

For now I will leave you all with clips of video from Marni's birthday weekend.

Rome Snowboards

Let me tell you about Rome snowboards!

After doing a ton of research I decided to purchase a Rome Design 155. I almost went with the Rome Mod, but since I already have a Burton Se7en I didn't want another board with a funny tail/nose. Now the Rome Design 2008 model is super light. Not a bit of fiberglass. All Carbon, wood and Bamboo. The closest board out there to it is the Burton Vapor. If you want the full details check out the Rome Snowboard website. It was a hard board to find, for some reason none of the board shops in Portland carried it. I REALLY wanted to look at it first. Finally my favorite shop Sublimity Snow and Skate Got a 158 in. Not the size I was looking for, but Steph (the shop owner) was able to get me the right one.

So How is it? Well first off the Rome website lists it as a stiff board. It is not. In fact is really flexible. At first I wasn't sure what to expect. My Burton Se7en is supposed to be a med. flex and the Design is a lot softer. The site recommends this board for Mountain/Backcountry use. After riding it I know why.

When going down super steep slopes it turns like butter. The light weight super flexible design enables me to turn quicker and smoother. That just what you want when one wrong move could send you tumbling. This is the feel I want when I am in a situation where there are no room for mistakes. I have a ton of control. The fact that its so light makes it feel as if I can jump higher, and it just seems to float over the pow.

The downside? Well because its so thin it is not as strong as your regular snowboard. Its not a board you wanna do rails on. And it is NOT recommended for "street use" Now all boards can break. Im just saying you might wanna be a little careful with this particular snowboard.

Ok so lets get down to why I'm really writing this blog. My Rome Design broke. The tip snapped while I was swooping through a deep dip in the snow. Didn't seem like it should have but it did. I was deeply distressed because I am not that hard on my boards. But there it was broken. Snapped in such a way that repair wasn't gonna do it.

Prepared for the worst I took it back to Steph at Sublimity Snow and Skate and asked for help with the warranty claim. She called the local Rome Rep and sent my broken board off with a smile. I didn't hear anything for some time. I was convinced that there was no way they would cover it.

It would have been very easy for Rome to say "Hey you broke it. Not our fault." I can only imagine how many kids send in boards broken from abuse expecting a free board in the mail. I expect that would get old after a while and any company dealing with that sort of thing would get callus to legitimate situations.

It took about six weeks. Then I got a call from Step and she said my board was back. I went in to find a brand new board! They replaced it with no questions asked.

I am now a dedicated customer of Rome. I will continue to buy from them and recommend their products to all my friends. I love all the tech and design that goes into them. Also the fact that they are a smaller company seems to help to keep them affordable. You really do seem to get a lot for your money. But when it comes to customer service, well... What more can you ask for?

Kids, don't forget to fill our your warranty card. I'm off to the Mount Hood Meadows!

Snowboarding so far for 07/08

This snowboarding season has been great so far. We have gone up to Mt.Hood almost every weekend. We even go a few extra days in on the Holidays! At first the season started off slow. MHM (Mount Hood Meadows) opened on November 23rd with the lightest base of snow ever. Just 17inches. They had the snow makers going 24/7 and had staff pushing snow off the parking lot and edges of the trails to cover the bald spots where the ground was showing. We were all wondering exactly how the winter was going to recover since from what I understand the snow pack starts building a lot sooner than it did.

...But suddenly we got hit with a huge snowstorm. By the next week we had feet of now powder. Since then the storms have not stopped. Every weekend we go up there are several feet of new snow! Needless to say we have been having a lot of fun.

Snowboarding in powder is great but really different. Of course its smoother and gives you a lot more control, but you also have to change the way you ride a little. You also have to make sure you don't stop on any flat spots cause you end up getting "powder stuck". Your board stops and then you start to sink. Its very hard to get up and out of it. Thats a problem skiers don't really have since they can just walk through it. I got stuck in waste deep powder that 2nd weekend and it took all my energy to get out of it. I had to lay on top of my snowboard and paddle out like I was on a surf board. Since then I make it a point to have enough speed to make it through any flat area!

Marni is becoming a real pro. She went from falling down all the time last year to falling down once in a while. Now she is finding longer and steeper hills to slide down and getting better with every trip. It wont be long till she is slipping down some black diamond runs with the best of them.

I'm getting a little better myself. Still trying to work out the jumps. I really wanna fly through the air like a bird and I am almost there. I have been learning how to "drop" of hills/small cliffs, and been getting good at hitting natural jumps straight on. Its a lot of fun when everything goes just right. A little painful when they don't but no worries. You gotta take a knocks to get better.

This photo of Marni and I was taken New Years Day 2008. We try to take a new one every year. At this point I have so many photos of MHM and our snowboarding trips I don't know what ones to post. I may have to stop taking so many and focus on some video. But for now I will post a few more, then later I will put what I have for video up on my YouTube account. One last thing... Sadly I broke my new Rome Design Snowboard. Snapped the front of it going into a dip. I ended up having to walk about a mile and a half back to the lodge that day... Through the snow... That sucked. I am still waiting to see if they will be cool and replace it under warranty. Seems like it broke pretty evenly along the die cut of the base. Fingers crossed. Remember you can click on any of the photos for a full view!

Everything DirectBuy

I just got back from Orlando Florida recently! Spent 11/17th to 11/20th there. I always feel like I am tempting fate every time I get in a plane. As I look out the window and see the ground thousands of feet below I know that humans are not supposed to be there drinking and eating snacks. So I am always glad to be back on the ground.

When we got to Orlando after flying flying 8-9 hours, we went straight to the hotel our company put us up in...

"The Gaylord Palms". It was a nice place. the whole hotel was set up to welcome us for the big DirectBuy convention. Everything was "DirectBuy" Flags and banners, projected lights and logos. No expense spared.



It really gave me a good idea of just how big DirectBuy is now. We recently hit the "worth over a billion dollars" mark as a company. However out here in Oregon it still feels comfortable and personal at our centers. Thats because our owners are great and really take care of us. We also have a great staff and very little turn over.

More about the hotel: It was huge, and out in the middle of nowhere. So we didn't really get to see all that much of Orlando. The food was good and I felt a little under dressed the whole time. I kept thinking "This place is for rich people, and I'm just a poser. But I still had a good time. I had to share a room with my co-worker Damien. He snores. I had a hard time sleeping and since I was 3 hours in the future I had to get up way to early for the presentations.

At the convention we get to listen to motivational speakers that touched on a lot of subjects: Attitude, the corporate business plan, customer service, and everything else you could possible imagine. Some of it was very boring, other times it gave me a lot to think about. They also gave out awards. The first photo below is Clay my boss getting an award for something.



In these photos you can see Damien, Clay, His wife Raylene, and Jeff. That was the extent of our party. I wish we could have taken some more staff. I wish I also could have taken Marni. It was lonely without her.

I don't wanna go on for too long so I'm just gonna post a few more photos.

Closing notes... Florida is to hot and sticky for me. The water is awful and nobody understand what good coffee is. I like colder places with a little more to look at. Florida was very flat. I could post a bunch of photos I took on the way back to the airport, but they would all look the same.

Since I have been back Marni and I went snowboarding! The season just started. Give me a few days and I will post some photos of our last trip! Case-

The Very End -0- Season

So this is what Mt. Hood looks like at the very end of Oct. We are still waiting for the fresh snow. It should be here anytime. But lately it looks more like we will have a late season this year.

That doesn't mean you can't still go snowboarding. I went up there last Sunday (10/28/07). I wasn't sure what to expect. Only 45mins before the lifts opened I was able to get front row parking. The place was pretty empty and I thought there would be more snow. I was also a little apprehensive because I knew there would be no terrain park. What fun is snowboarding if you can't throw yourself off a jump or two? But after driving an hour and a half I decided to go for it anyway.

Half the Palmer snowfield was closed off. Rocks were sticking up everywhere. After our last snow storm we got a wind storm that peppered all the new snow with dirt. Nothing looked that great. But so far I have never been disappointed with a trip up to Timberline.

After taking a few turns I got to the 2nd half of the Plamer. It was little more than a canyon trail leading back to the lift and much to my surprise nature made its own terrain park! A really incredible snow wall! I missed it on the ride up. It wasn't until I was sliding past it that I realized how much fun could be had. Everyone else had the same idea. The photos do not do it justice. It was much larger than it looks, and the angles were sharp.

So hours of fun were had, and I completely exhausted myself. Everyone there was really mellow and having a great time. It was nice not to be around a bunch of snobby pros trying to work on their demo videos.

By the end of the day the temperature heated up and the snow got soft and wet. The drop off of the snow wall was really eaten up providing an opportunity to try out more extreme drops into softer snow. I had some pretty good wipe outs. Someone lost control and ran into me but was able to walk away laughing. I posted the video on youtube.
Click here to Watch Video!

Part of me wants to run up there this weekend, but I think I will wait for some fresh snow. I really wanna take Marni up with me, but she needs less rocks and more open space. I get tired of going alone all the time. We have a ski and snowboard expo in town this weekend anyway. Its should be a lot of fun checking out all the latest cool gear. Its gonna be hard not to buy anything! -Case...