On Friday, the family and I rolled over the big hill to Waitsborough for a rail jam at the Big Picture. My buddy JJ helped organized and managed to pull off a really chill set-up. I’m old, so I don’t know who won or anything. I can tell you that the Harman brothers are real good. This was as close as I got to an action photo the whole weekend. The new rails and such that Superparx built for Sugarbush look really tight. Props to Pure Snowboard, The Buzz, Sugarbush and the Big Picture for putting on a great contest. Hopefully it becomes an annual gig.

Warmth, beer, frontrow seats, not too bad of an evening. The daughter got a “Snowboarding is not a crime” (anti-Mad River Glen) t-shirt and promptly dumped a cup of hot chocolate on it. Being a father rules.

Yesterday, I decided that spending $29 for a half day ticket at Sugarbush was a better idea than sitting on my butt. It certainly seemed questionable once I hit the parking lot. I met up with my sister and shredded gnar for awhile until my legs felt like manure. There’s a tiny speck of white up there somewhere.

Couldn’t complain about the liftlines.

Jibbonks

I could go on a big rant about how bad the conditions were, but in the end it was a ton of fun. However, I will say this is the worst Thanksgiving conditions I can remember. Lil Sister on the hill, first day is good regardless of the conditions

Okay, the greatest brainwashing of all time is the fact that skiers actually think bumps are a good thing. I have a theory, back in the early 80s, Regan was prez and ski equipment was much improved. All of sudden people started to question conditions. The ski areas were scared so they hired Karl Rove. Karl spun the story and got bump skiing into the olympics. All of a sudden, all the skiers were like, “yeah those bumps are killer, I hear they are as big as cars on Outer Limits.” I don’t buy the bumps are good bs and I didn’t vote for bush.

We all hung at my mother’s farm for turkey day. The daughter likes chasing animals and the scary Emus like chasing daughter

Tranquilty and Bob, inverses

Good morning all,

It was just about a year ago, the Mongol Rally was just a dream, and I was staying up until 2-3 in the morning desparately trying to learn how to build a website. Through the Thanksgiving holidays, I worked away and finally had the basic framework of the site together. On Nov. 27th, the first post was entered and away we went. I can only speak for myself, but I can say confidently that I had a blast updating the blog and managing the site.

So here we are, a year older, with one insane adventure behind us, and a site that was orginally dedicated to our rally efforts. I have reworked the site a few times and as most of you know tried to make it flexible with hopes of continuing it on. If you have check any of the other teams’ sites or even the official Mongol Rally site, you know that there has not been a whole lot of movement in the world of Mongol Ralliers.

This week I have undertaken a massive redesign unlike any of the past trials. You can call it Bad Colonies 2.0, that’s hip right now. I don’t even have a real solid feel for the outcome, all I can say is that I will essentially be turning the reins of the site over to you, the user. Its a massive move and I am hoping to have it rolled out by Sunday evening.

So enjoy your Thanksgiving or your weekend, eat some turkey, park on the M26, whatever makes life enjoyable, I will work away and with a little luck you will wake up to a whole new bad colonies on Monday.

ciao ciao Seth

I just finished the base construction of a site for my mother. She is starting a business to provide guided horseback tours in Vermont. What makes this unique is that she will be taking people from inn to inn as travelers of past would. Take the time to check out the site and drop her an email if you are interested. www.vtequinetours.com

ciao Seth

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The essential ingredient to any winter downhill activity is snow. We don’t have any. While it is still early in the season, this is quietly building as the worst early season in recent memory. This is a big deal for the ski areas of the Northeast, Thanksgiving is an important weekend for the big boys, it sets the tone for the entire year. Right now, no one can even make snow. Fret not kids, Coles Pond Weathercam and the NOAA are predicting snow from Friday through Monday.

In the meantime without any snow, the coach has us training hard. We braved the big hill behind our house on Saturday and got these shots. More later…Seth

This week marked the biggest day of a father’s life, a child’s first unprompted Lebowski quote. Yesterday when the phone rang, an unprompted, “Phone’s ringing, dude” was uttered.

This year Triple Play cards are available at Mountain Creek, on the web at mountaincreek.com, at 26 Kings Super Market locations in New Jersey and Long Island, and 31 Sports Authority stores in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.

Give the gift that gives again and again and again. The only catch is that the Triple Play must be purchased by December 24th and is valid every day of the coming 2006-2007 season, except Martin Luther King Weekend, January 13-15. The Triple Play card is easy to use, just bring it to any ticket window, have it swiped and exchanged for a lift ticket and hit the slopes! It does not include admission to any special events, and it is non-refundable and non-transferable.

Mountain Creek’s combination of the best snowmaking in the East, a winter forecast calling for a snowier than normal season, a jam-packed event calendar, plus the outstanding value offered by the Triple Play card will allow skiers and riders to get out and enjoy themselves throughout this winter.

Mountain Creek offers other pass programs to fit your lifestyle, including Season Passes and Creek Cards which offer significant savings, and discounts on Season Passes are available through December 10, 2006. Find out more at mountaincreek.com.

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ABOUT MOUNTAIN CREEK

Located less than 50 miles from New York City and owned by Intrawest, Mountain Creek boasts state of the art snowmaking with skiing and riding on 46 trails over four peaks accessible by 11 lifts. A vertical of more than 1,040 feet combined with a huge network of terrain parks, the region’s only Superpipe, the single largest snowmaking installation in North America and world-class lodging facilities have quickly made Mountain Creek the premier resort in the region. A true four-season destination, Mountain Creek features summer family fun at Mountain Creek Waterpark and Diablo Freeride mountain bike park, as well as luxurious townhouse-style accommodations in Black Creek Sanctuary or in The Appalachian, the resort’s only ski-in-ski-out hotel, which also features meeting and conference space. www.mountaincreek.com

ABOUT INTRAWEST

Intrawest ULC is a world leader in destination resorts and adventure travel. The company has interests in 10 resorts at North America’s most popular mountain destinations, including Whistler Blackcomb, a host venue for the 2010 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games. Intrawest owns Canadian Mountain Holidays, the largest heli-skiing operation in the world, and an interest in Abercrombie & Kent, the world leader in luxury adventure travel. The Intrawest network also includes Sandestin Golf and Beach Resort in Florida and Club Intrawest - a private resort club with nine locations throughout North America. Intrawest develops real estate at its resorts and at other locations across North America and in Europe. Intrawest is headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia. For more information, visit www.intrawest.com.

While bumping around the New England Lost Ski Area Project, I found this get weather site. The Coles Pond Weathercam page is constantly updating with the latest weather conditions from Walden Pond.

From the Coles Pond Weathercam, here’s an explanation of the technicals;
The heart of our weathercam page is now a wireless DAVIS VANTAGE PRO 2 weatherstation, which transmits current weather data to a console inside our house. The inside display is then hooked up through a Davis ‘Weatherlink’ to the serial port of a desktop computer. Then Ambient ‘Virtual Weather Station’ (or VWS) software is used to FTP the data to this website every ten minutes, where it is then displayed on the weathercam page. (By popular request, we have removed the auto-refresh from this page. To view the most current data you will need to refresh or reload the page manually) The Davis equipment, VWS software, and much more are available directly from the Ambient website.

‘So where are they?’ you probably haven’t asked yourself. I don’t blame you. If you weren’t a rallier, it’s hard to put much emphasis on the trip at all, in some cases even to care to ask. Places you’ve never seen and people you’ve never met can only be known through stories to a point - though I admit the ability of the storyteller determines whether the sense of the trip comes through or not. Still, even the best storyteller would do well to have a visual aid of his journey, for while those listening may have an idea of the comraderie forged on the trip, shown in many adverse situations, it’s not until they see a photo of ten young men (nine, actually) grouped together in something larger than themselves that they come closer to understanding what it was we went through.

The answer to your question, R-D, is soon. I’ve finally mailed off all 1,591 exposures of colored film and still have to develop the 888 black and white. Once finished, I’ll scan the best ones and create some sort of compilation, hopefully mailing a DVD to each member of the convoy (if your addresses have changed since you wrote them down, please let me know!). The best of my best will make it up on the web somehow. Like any good marketer is thinking this time of year, I’ll try to have them out by Christmas, or near about. You’re also welcome to hassle my via email; I can be a horrible procrastinator.

On a quick personal note, I’m making plans for a 1-month trip to Australia early next year. While traveling through SE Asia after the rally, I had the most fortunate chance to make some very good friends in Koh Tao, Thailand, good enough to warrant another trip to the opposite side of the world. I hear the flight to Sydney is long and expensive, but what’s the tradeoff? I could continue to attend my job, since attending is about all I’m doing these days. I could sit around and think of my next trip - by the way, have you heard of the Rickshaw Run? Plans for the second half of 2007 include a three-week trip to Europe with my brother, Brent, after he passes his CFP exam - we both are looking forward to that one (the trip, not the exam).

Lastly, I’d like to doubly warn our readers to the quick use of a cuss in the posted Harbinger video. That’s how I talk, especially after 28 days on the road…if you can call what we traversed road. Anyway, if you’ve never heard that word, you should get out more.

Cavalierly, Vaughn

From skibuilders.com
Always wanted your own pro model ski, but can’t ski like a pro? Why don’t you just build it yourself? It sounds crazy, but building a pair of skis (or a snowboard) is not out of reach if you’re the average garage tinkerer. The first step is you build the ski-making equipment, then you prepare the materials, and finally you put it all together to form a ski. In the end your hard work pays off, and there is no better feeling than skiing on a pair of skis that you designed and built yourself. This website is designed to show you how to build your own ride.

There are three of us involved in maintaining this website and it is dedicated to documenting our homemade rides and skiing adventures. The three of us share one common passion: telemark skiing, but the information we present is not limited to telemark. In fact, you can also build alpine skis or snowboards using the information contained herein. So please find descriptions about all of our projects, as well as notes about equipment, and ski design. There’s even a forum to share information with other SkiBuilders throughout the world. Please feel free to contribute to this unique community to help advance the art, science, and knowledge of skibuilding. Have fun! - Kam, Kam and Kelvin.

From Grafsnowboards.com, check them out.
There are many reasons people decide to build their own snowboard. Sometimes it’s a great way to combine your love of snowboarding with your need to create. Maybe it’s dissatisfaction with the generic boards out there on the market. Perhaps you have an educational project where you’d love to do something involving snowboarding.

This website is intended to demystify the processes involved in building snowboards, and to prove that not only is it possible - but you can actually build some amazing rides. We hope to create a place where people can share experiences, learn some new stuff, and build a knowledge base. We don’t claim our approach is perfect and do not consider ourselves ‘experts’. We’re just reporting what we did and what we have learned.

Another Video Here, but they don’t allow embedding.

Snow, and lots of it, is also forecast for the nation’s midsection, parts of New England, and the mountains of the Pacific Northwest. “The Great Lakes and Ohio River Valley may be the only area spared the extreme cold,” reveals Sandi Duncan, Philom., Managing Editor, “but this is not to say this area won’t be without its cold spells and significant snowfalls.”

From NOAA Climate Predictions