www.snowboard-women.com

Wahoo! The 2008 snowboarding season is officially in high gear. With me and the crew headed there this weekend (Jan. 18-21), here are some special tips for women for what to pack for your upcoming snowboarding trip.

Now this ain’t your standard list, because there are special considerations for the mountain weather and us girls’ comfort on the hill and out at night. Download this list when you’re packing for your next snowboarding trip and you’ll be glad to have these little creature comforts to make your days and nights in the cold that much better. Plus, it may help you remember things you usually forget!

• What To Pack on a Women’s Snowboarding Trip (89k)

Did I forget anything? Let me know!

Ahhh… as snowboarders, we hate those traverses (aka catwalks or cat-tracks.) I’ll say that the concept of them is great - they allow you to get across the mountain and to another set of runs without riding all the way down and taking another chairlift or series of chairlifts to get around the hill. But they were originally made for skiers, who find it easy to make their way across on these flat pathways by using their poles to push themselves along.

(Eileen coming out of a catwalk at Vail)

We snowboarders have to build up a lot of momentum from a previous downhill slope and hope like hell we make it through the flats with enough speed so that we don’t have to unstrap and do the one-foot shuffle (or unstrap our snowboard entirely and walk!) But you shouldn’t have to rely on hope and momentum alone… although that helps a lot. Here are some tips you could try to make your life on those lengthy traverses easier…

• Keep your board tuned up and waxed. I couldn’t believe how much I was sticking on a few traverses my first day on Whistler. Well, I had neglected to wax my board prior to this trip, and it made all the difference! A fresh wax and edge-sharpening should help you slide across even the flats just a little easier.
• When you know there is a traverse coming up, build your speed. Just gun it and go for it. You’ll need the speed on the flat.
• When you’re in the traverse, point your board straight ahead and stay on one edge. If you carve even a little bit, you’ll create friction and slow your speed down shifting from edge to edge. Unless you have plenty of speed, keep the switching from heel to toe side, to a minimum.
• When choosing which side to lock into, I personally prefer heel-side. It’s a little easier on the legs than toe-side, which for me usually creates intense burning in my calves. The bigger quad and glute muscles are better equipped than your little ol’ calves at holding static for long periods. If you can, go for heel side.
• Try to keep your weight on your front foot. Tuck your front shoulder forward slightly and picture hanging your front hand towards your front foot. This will help you subconsciously lean your weight forwards. If you lean too much on the back foot, that acts as a brake and will drag your speed down.

But, even trying all this, stalls on the flats happen to the best of us… So hurry up and unstrap, get over to the side and out of the way, and get yourself to the next downhill pronto!

Or just grab some snowshoes… heh…

My friend Dan Perry is running a fun little contest and offering a cool bit of schwag - a Google refrigerator.

Having received a good bit of Google schwag in the past, I gotta say that this is a pretty cool gift! Compared to beach chairs and blankets, this fridge is a winner.

So if I won the Google fridge, I’d bring it on our snowboarding trips to the mountains, and use it to keep our cans of beer chilled so they’d be the perfect temperature to bring to the jacuzzi apres-ski. Also, the fridge would be a good conversation piece for all the Hotties on the Hill that we meet

Check out Dan’s blog for some fun golf and SEO talk in the meantime…

And, now back to our regularly scheduled snowboarding chat.

Back when I first started snowboarding, I used to wear what I thought were pretty warm gloves. Having grown up on the East Coast though, I know that mittens are by far much warmer than gloves (because your fingers are all mooshed together and they keep warmer that way.) And after days of freezing fingers, I wanted something much warmer on the hill!

So yeah, I saw the light and began wearing mittens. But sometimes mittens are just so cumbersome! Sometimes you want the dexterity of having separate fingers, but the warmth of mittens.

Well I have the solution for you! These Women’s Toaster Softy Mitts
are perfect - I first discovered them in Vail 3 years ago.

I picked up a pair myself in Whistler last week to replace my old ones. Here’s how they work:

You slip your fingers into the glove inner-liner…

that goes inside the outer waterproof mitten part…

Which you can then unzip on the side…

and access your four separate fingers when you need them to restrap your bindings, open your backpack, take a picture, unscrew your flask, etc.

These snowboarding gloves are the best! They keep you warm, AND give you the option to have more dexterity for detailed tasks without taking off your gloves. Plus, you can use the zipper to slip Hand Warmers right in next to your fingers - to keep even warmer!

Want to keep your hands warm while snowboarding? Go and get a pair of these; you won’t be sorry (and you won’t be cold!) Women’s Toaster Softy Mitts

I love Burton’s snowboarding gear so imagine my excitement seeing a store devoted solely to their women’s line. This store is gorgeous. It was about 1000 square feet, with hardwood floors. The clothes are arranged by color scheme and wall fixtures are back-lit with soft white fluorescent lights.

Three-quarters of the store is devoted to clothing, and the rest is accessories and hardgoods. The entire back wall contains their ’08 line of Feelgoods, Feelgood ES’s, and Feathers. I didn’t see many ’07 models still in store. But man, those ’08 Feelgood ES models were beautiful – to the tune of $799!

They had a good selection of boots and bindings – about 10 different styles of bindings, and about 8 boots. The ’07 boots & bindings remaining in store were priced well – I saw some regularly priced at $249 marked down to $149. Interestingly, they only had 1 model of boot which had “traditional” laces – all the rest were the Burton innovative drawstring style, apparently much easier to tighten and customize a fit. I’ll have to try some on sometime!

Accessories – lots of gloves and liners. I have to point out these funky lobster-claw mittens we saw… why would you want to have your index finger AND thumb separated from the other 3 fingers? Thought that was weird. But fun, I guess?

Even the music was perfect - it was kinda indie-rock yet somewhat poppy. Somehow just fit the vibe of the store. Good marketing!

If I had more time to shop and a little more money to spend on this trip, I would have dropped some cash… but I really just wanted to window-shop. And this was definitely the place to drool over cool Burton merch!

From a Mammoth Dump Alert email this morning:

Snow Report for Thursday Jan 10

At 6am at Main Lodge it is 33 degrees. Temps should stay comfortable today in the upper 30’s. Clouds are hanging around and the winds are low. We may be in for a few scattered snow showers during the morning. At the summit it is 27 degrees with mild winds.

The 7-10 feet of fresh snow the last few storms left behind has made for excellent riding conditions all across the mountain. The coverage now allows for more exploration to find powder stashes and exciting natural features. If that’s not quite your thing, Mammoth also offers nearly 900 acres of smoothly groomed terrain on 89 runs with soft snow.

I’ll be there next weekend with Jessie, Leila, Miller Time and others; let’s hope the mountain gets even more snow between now and then!

Interesting EXPN.com article brought to my attention by Adam over at HighlyObsessed.com. It highlights the changes coming to next week’s X-Games for the Women’s Superpipe competition - dropping the finalists’ field from 10 down to 6 and raising the question of whether this further marginalizes women in the sport?

Producers at the X-Games argued that the newly-limited field simply would push the women to be better riders to get into one of the 6 available finals spots, and that the skills by women in past years in the 5th place and below “totally sucked ass.” Um, excuse me… but I totally respect ANYONE who gets in a 20 foot pipe and flies through the air doing any number of crazy stunts! (I’m personally a cruisy/carving rider, for the record… )

In sports, it’s just a fact, women are not the same as men for any number of reasons, but actions like this by the X-Games send the wrong message. But I have a feeling it ain’t ever going to change, in snowboarding or any sport. Hey, at least give a wider field a chance for a little exposure though?!?

Introducing… Tam! He is a snowboarder from Seattle that we met when we were out on Friday night at Garfinkel’s.

And he is a hell of a dancer! Imagine our surprise when he busted these breakdancing moves out on the dancefloor that night:

Tam…had fun with you and your buddies that night. Have a great rest of your season!

This recap covers Friday/Sat/Sun of our trip last week… (read part 1 here)

The next two days, we enjoyed continual new snow which just kept falling! On Friday we rode Blackcomb. We really wanted to go up to the top of the hill and go over the backside to the Blackcomb glacier and to the back bowl, but the top was closed due to the storm. We were somewhat near to the top, having taken no less than 4 lifts to get to our first run of the day, and the wind was absolutely pelting us with powerful gusts and driving the snow into our faces – thank god for goggles and face masks. It was very hard to see at times, luckily they mark the trails with orange signs at the left edge of the runs, and blue at the right. Just keep yourself inbetween those two markers as you make your way down the hill and you won’t end up off a cliff! Needless to say, we did not go back up to the top of the Exelerator chair due to these conditions.

(Gracie and Jessie in line, and already snow is accumulating on them!)

Further down from these freezing winds, we rode up and down the Solar Express a few times. The snow was really nice here and it was a fun blue/blue-black run that wasn’t too tracked out or bumpy. In some places there were rocks exposed – weird because of the amount of snow that had fallen. I was pleasantly surprised by the small # of people on the hill – it certainly wasn’t like mammoth which gets so busy in places. Maybe the snowfall and wind kept people inside? But it was great for us!

Saturday we went back to Whistler Mountain and were stunned that it was STILL snowing… we noticed when we got up that it had pretty much slowed to a light flurry, but then when we made our way up to the gondola to take our first run of the day, it was once again thick, heavy flakes that quickly added up to a new layer of snow on the sidewalks. And the mountain itself was covered with at least 8″ of freshies.

Each run that we did still had areas of untracked powder although our favorite runs of Thursday (Franz’s) were pretty packed-powder and a little icy in places. Definitely not as good as Thurs. conditions. However, we discovered a secret trail under the Whistler gondola – following the signs to Kadenwood, we ended up on a little pathway that had nobody on it, and was just one of those windy, cruisy runs through the trees, thick with powder. Once the run dumped us out of the trees onto a wide run, we were on the skier’s left of the gondola and found these undiscovered areas where there were nobody else. This is where we really found the powder. Both Jessie and I managed to get stuck in it a few times but for the most part it was light, fluffy, and at least 12″ deep or more in places. This really felt like the run of the day, so like Costanza, I “ended on a high note” and took the gondola back up to make my way back to the Village for another après session at the GLC. The gals met me later for beers and we watched the in-house band, the Hair Farmers for a while, and headed home for rest, hot tubbing, and primping for the evening’s dance festivities.

(Jessie, me, and Gracie always ending on a high note at the GLC)

All in all, I really enjoyed Whistler. First off, it was fun to be in another country to go snowboarding. Having just been to Australia two months ago, it was cool to be surrounded by mostly non-Americans. We met a handful of Americans, all from Seattle (it’s only a few hours drive, comparable I think to Los Angelenos driving to Mammoth.) Mostly we met Canadians, and TONS of Aussies. Everybody was really nice – surprisingly so! On Friday, I even got run into by some douchebag on the mountain who was out of control, but he stopped and apologized and made sure I was OK. Unfortunately, I can’t say that about most riders at Mammoth and Snow Summit!

Another random act of Whistler kindness – on one of the traverses, I was about to stall out when a friendly skier cruised by me and goes “grab my pole!” She pulled me out past the flats and I made it without having to stop. How cool was she?

The village is awesome; as I mentioned, it is a huge village and not just a few blocks of stores. I love that the entire town is more or less easily walkable even in the snow. Once you’ve made your way from your condo into the village, you can meander through and shop or eat without getting snow on your pretty little head – because the walkways are under the 2nd-level businesses in each building (the stores are set back from the open-air.)

(Jessie in the Village, going shopping)

Prices in the restaurants and bars were comparable to LA. And there’s a good range of choices for dining – from cheap-but-delicious made to order burgers at the Splitz Grill, to nice high-end sushi. Music in the bars ranged from standard American top 40 dance music to hip-hop to European style-house… sometimes in the same night! It was definitely interesting last night at the Savage Beagle, when the dj mixed in “Shout” and “Tequila” to the mix of Euro anthems. (But that did give us a chance to do our best pee-wee herman moves.)

As we left today, we saw our first peek of blue sky in the entire 4 days of our stay… looked like it was shaping up to be a beautiful bluebird day! But we got some great riding in, and sampled a lot of what Whistler had to offer. I’ll definitely be back!

Want more about our Whistler trip?
- Read Part 1 of my recap
- View our pics on Flickr
- Watch videos on YouTube

For many snowboarders, a competition or snowboarding event is a chance to push their skills to the next level. Now that the sport has become so popular, there are many events exclusive to women snowboarders. These snowboarding events can range from half-pipe and trick competitions, to pure teaching and riding improvement clinics.

Mark your calendars for these upcoming snowboarding events for women. Better yet, get registered and show off your riding skills for cash or prizes, or just sign up for a class to improve your snowboarding!

• Roxy Snow Classic, Bear Mountain, CA - Jan, 20, 2008. All-girls slopestyle contest - everyone who participates gets a goodie bag. Winner is automatically entered into Chicken Jam (below).
• Betties Get On Board, Windham Mountain, NY - Jan, 26, 2008. Kicks off Women’s Week at Windham Mt and is sponsored by ShreddingBetty.com. Special discounted lift tix, gear demos, and swag available to female snowboarders.
• Queen’s Cup Open, Park City, UT - Feb. 22-24, 2008. In a unique format, both skiers and snowboarders, professional and amateur, have been invited to this event featuring a charity Rail Jam to benefit the Women’s Sports Foundation.
• Women’s Park & Pipe Camp, Breckenridge, CO - Feb. 9-10, 2008. Open to ages 13 and up, a camp for intermediate to advanced riders. Gnu pro riders will be there too.
  
• Nikita Chickita USA - Mammoth Mountain, CA - Feb. 9, 2008. A chance for amateur women snowboarders to compete for cash or a one-year Nikita Clothing sponsorship!
• Roxy Chicken Jam, Mammoth Mountain, CA - March 28-30, 2008. Part of the TTR World Tour, featuring champion and pro female riders from around the world in slopestyle and superpipe competitions for a total $150,000 purse. Weekend-long event also features a free concert by the Silversun Pickups on March 29.
• Burton Women’s Learn to Ride Camps - various locations in 2008. Women-only snowboard weekends where females can learn to ride or just improve their skills in a program featuring smaller classes, personal attention and knowledgeable instructors that cater to female learning.

These are some of the bigger or more notable events out there.  Many other women-only snowboarding events and snowboard clinics can be found at the What’sOnSnow web site.  Now go ride!