The Carver's Almanac

SES 2006 - Saturday

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February 11, 2006


The SES started out at Snowmass on Saturday, with the Bomber demo tent in full operation.


Ken tries out the F2 Speedster


Bob Jenney rigged up a camera mount on his TD2s, to record a boot buckle's perspective of the groom.


I headed out to snap some photos of Crave2Carve, Ken Lao, and Jim.
Here's Crave2Carve doing his relaxed angulation technique.


Note the angulation. Note the relaxed pose.


Crave2Carve gets big air off the lip at the bottom of The Slot.
I totally missed the air shot of Jim. Oops.


Then, Ken demonstrates his push-pull style.


You know you are getting really good when the aspect ratio of the photo is more than 16:9


Now up is Jim, who does some incredible railing on the Prior.


The Photoshop challenge: modify this shot to show Jim carving his Prior on a lake with a huge water ski roostertail.


Ok, back at the demo tent, we admire the selection of Madd demos.
This year, Madd has gone back to using brass inserts, which provide more dampening.


Time to go carving with Shaggy.


Shaggy pushes the Madd


Plus, Kevin and Tom join in. Kevin rips it.


Tom uses a lock-n-load technique on the Prior demo board: He locks the board into a hard carve, then
loads up the tail for a bounce into the next turn.


Now, for some high drama: On a full-on carve, Shaggy pulled the inserts out of the Madd on the back binding, then went flying. Thankfully, no injuries resulted. As it turns out, the inserts of the Madd are recessed by about 2mm. Plus, the carbon fiber topsheet is 1mm thick. So, you really need insert bolts that are 3mm longer than normal in order to get at least 4 turns of thread engagement, otherwise, you could be rip'n the cord, and rip out the inserts.


Back at the tent, Bob Jenney models his helmet cam, so there should be gobs of helmetcam video.


Michelle, Kim, and Fin run the Bomber demo tent.


Then, back for some more carving - this time, with Rodney (from Australia),
and Mike, defending limbo champ from England.


Rodney works the Donek on the late-afternoon chop.


Meanwhile, Mike practices getting low.


There is a mushroom cloud coming off of Mike's board.


Now it's time for the apres-carving party at The Blue Door in Snowmass.
I did not have any trouble spotting the bar.


Time to mingle with the carving celebrities. Bola, Ken, and Scott talk sidecut.


With lots of Pureboarding carvers in attendance.


Raffle time! At the SES, swag is de rigueur


The crowd is transfixed on the raffle swag.
The party was a blast, with carvers from all over the world, plus tasty snacks and Avalanche Ale beer. Way cool.


That's a wrap for Saturday.
Snowmass served up good groom and sun today. Definitely a primo carving experience.
Tomorrow we're at Buttermilk, where the Pureboarding guys are going to give a clinic on their toe-grab style.
Should be fun!