Perfect North Slopes in Lawrenceburg, Indiana is where I'm spending the bulk of my free time these days. At least once a week, I make the lonely, one-hour drive (Or hour-and-a-half, depending if I'm leaving from my place, or Pandi's...) down to my wintertime camp-out spot. Here's a fairly typical day out:
Driving down I-74, on the way to Lawrenceburg. This day was extremely foggy, due to a warm front coming in after a pretty cold week. This is a fog-socked exit, near Greensburg- about halfway to my destination.
Here's the main run at Perfect North from the peak to the base: Center Stage. The fog is so thick, you can't even see the top of the lift. And, the vertical at Perfect is only 400'. So, that shit is thick, buddy...
On this day, we had some really warm temperatures, which made for extremely soft snow. And, being a holiday weekend, it was also really, really crowded... even more so than your typical day at Perfect North, which is usually pretty damned crowded, anyway. I appeased myself and my crowd-hating ways by spending some time on one of my favorite snowboards from my collection, my Burton King 162.
I bought this board last season, as a close-out special at my work (It's an '08 model). I originally bought this to use as my jib-board, as they had sold a King 158 (my intended jib-board) out from under my ass. A few weeks later, the 158 came back on a return... just my luck! So, I bought that as my jib-board... and this, I was left with as a sort of red-headed stepchild in my quiver. I did take it out once... and immediately hated it. Figuring it was a total waste of a few benjamins, I ended up writing it off, and hanging it on my wall as super-fancy wallpaper...
Here she is, from the top...
And, from the bottoms up!
This year, after spending a full seven months in the gym (which helped a lot more than I would have ever imagined), I took this out on my second day of the season... only to find that this "stupid waste of money" fucking shredded all of a sudden...! Nimble, fast, and wonderfully responsive, it quickly became the Ginsu board of my quiver. I was so confident on it, in fact, that I actually left my brand-new Ride Fleetwood 165 at home, and brought this to Mt. Bohemia, instead. Which says a ton about the faith that I have in this board...
Each year, I've make a point to take out every single snowboard that I own, at least once. And since I still have every single snowboard that I've ever owned, that's usually a pretty damn good trip down memory lane. Note that I said "usually", as opposed to "always". Thing is, sometimes trips down memory lane aren't as fun as you originally imagined they'd be...
Take in point this board right here: My first-ever snowboard! A 5150 Mike Ranquet Signature Series 158. Back in the day, Ranquet was the shit. And, the fact that this board featured artwork by the one and only Mark Gonzales gave this board extra-obvious-appeal to a skater like me. It's from approx. 1995, a time when I was doing double-duty sales at 50/50 Snow & Skate in Concord, NH. Obviously a snowboard and skateboard shop, I was prodded and poked into snowboarding by my boss, Andy Sanborn, who pretty much required that everyone on his staff snowboard, so as to make selling the product a bit easier. Of course, I protested: There was no way in hell that anyone in the world was gonna make a skateboarding hard-ass [read: purist] like me ride one of those fucking poof-sleds. In hindsight, I'm glad that Andy somehow found a way to kick my ass into it. How he converted me, I can't remember. All I know is, I would've missed out on soooo much, had I stubbornly stood my stupid-ass ground...
The base. Note the boss-ass-hell, aluminum tip and tail protectors, inlaid into the base. Neat-o 1995 technology...!
Look at that! That right there, is bona-fide Mark Gonzales artwork, folks! All you jealous people...!!!
This board is a directional-shaped cap construction. Back in the day, caps were neat and novel new things. I suspect that they were also quite a bit less expensive to produce. The woodcore on this board goes almost from tip to tail... but, not quite. Plastic inserts fill in the raised tips, which made a real convenient breakage point for a lot of boards of this generation. The cap was supposed to giver better edge hold and response, by directing the topskin forces directly to the edges. Given the rarity of caps these days, I'm thinking that it didn't work quite as planned...
Note that the hole pattern is sort of a bastardized cross between a 2x4, and a Burton 3-D. Weirdness. What does that mean? Nothing really fits this board particularly well...
The board is set up with some pricepoint Nitro bindings. I usually ride it nearly centered, which goes to show how little I knew back then; most directionals are stanced back an inch or two, to take full advantage of the [obviously] directional shape. Hey man, I was a skater! This "snow" shit was all new to me back then...
Today, of course, this board is a smidge too short for me, and my advanced weight as I head into my middle years. It's also entirely, waaaayyy too skinny! Wide boards were still a couple years down the road at this time, of course, what with the first Burton Floaters and all. [Note: Although the K2 FatBob may have been around at this time, no skater worth his shit was gonna die having ever supported a fucking ski company, of all goddamned things...!]
It's also woefully flexible. Riding it down a mountain is much like propelling yourself downward on a giant, wet slab of lasagna. It's fun to reminisce about, and frickin' awesome as hell to look at on the wall. But, to actually set it up, and ride it...? Ummmm... well... not so fun. Great for about three runs. Then, it's right back to modern technology for me...
