Homeboy's Skiing Blog Homeboy blogs skiing tips&tricks, technical information, road-trip stories, competition watch, reviews, news resorts and photos Statistics Unique Visitors: Total Unique Visitors: Outgoing: Total Outgoing: 0 0 10 1188

Articles from Homeboy's Skiing Blog

What You Need To Know About Avalanches: Part 4/4 - Fighting With an Avalanche 2008-02-08 17:53:18 The first part of this article series introduced us to the basics of avalanches. In the second part we discussed about avoiding avalanches, and in the third part we learned how to examine the snow profile in order to understand the risk of an avalanche. This fourth and last part discusses about fighting with an avalanche. This article provides you information on what to do if you notice that an avalanche has just been triggered. When you have found a good place to ski, examined the snow profile and test skied the area, it is time to choose the safest line and ski the slope. Of the easiest and most efficient route is the safest line. Because avalanches usually occur in slopes around 30 degrees, it is best to choose either the steepest route or the easiest one. Anyhow, skiing slopes more than 50 degrees is very challenging, and therefore you should not stick to the steepest slope if you won’t be able to ski it. Usually ridges are also safer to ski, even though sometimes they can be ...

Jimmy Petterson: Skiing Around the World -The Book from the Father of All Ski Bums 2008-02-07 17:30:26 Jimmy Petterson is one of the world’s most published ski journalists, with photos and stories having appeared in fifteen countries. In this book, he takes readers around the globe in a fascinating and unique journey through 47 countries and close to 200 ski areas. This 440-page, richly illustrated book is filled with exciting and interesting experiences that will inspire skiers, snowboarders, adventurers and travelers alike. In how many countries you have skied? Two, three? May be six? Imagine yourself skiing in almost 50 countries. Would that be a one great journey? Jimmy Petterson, an American hard core ski bum, has done it. Jimmy Petterson has been skiing in places you probably have never even heard of. He has naturally skied in North America, Canada and France, but also in countries like Albania, Bolivia, Croatia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Lebanon, Macedonia, Serbia-Montenegro and Uzbekistan. Jimmy Petterson has now turned his journey into a book. This article tells you more about J ...

February’s Question - How Old Are Your Skis? 2008-02-06 02:55:57 Days go fast. Soon the ski season is over. Am I pessimistic? Well, may be? The reason is that I have too too busy with my work and therefore I haven’t been skiing much. Ok, I know, this is what I have chosen. Hopefully Finnish schools have soon one week “skiing vacation” and we are going to ski in northern Finland. Later in the spring we are heading to France and Switzerland once again. This is our life with three kids in a city. Not as much backcountry skiing as some years ago.. Heyy, check out the new question in the right sidebar! In February we ask you “how old are your skis?”. We are interested to know with how old skis people go skiing. I have a feeling that most people have 2-3 years old skis, just like me. Am I right? We’ll see it in the end of February. Please drop your answer, it’s quick and easy. In case you haven’t seen the results of our January’s question, please click the link and see where most of our readers are g ...

Show & Prove - a Ski Movie Must See Quick! 2008-02-03 01:30:15 It is Sunday again and guess what? I am watching some ski movies as all the others are still sleeping. I love this.. I just discovered a movie I MUST get in my hands quick. It is Show & Prove from Poor Boyz Productions. I checked the teaser in YouTube (see below) and I really got interested in it. I am a big fan of Seth Morrison and Tanner Hall and they both are in this movie. See what is said by the marketing people of this movie: “Show & Prove, Poor Boyz Productions. Shot over a 6-month period during the winter of 2005/2006, Show And Prove chronicles the lives of professional skiers Tanner Hall and CR Johnson as they each struggle to overcome the greatest challenges of their lives. Follow Tanner across North America and Europe as he pushes himself and the boundary of the sport to a new level. Witness CR as he recovers from a life-threatening head injury and makes a comeback that is nothing short of miraculous. Ski bottomless powder, spin off huge cliffs, go behind the s ... Amp

What You Need To Know About Avalanches: Part 3/4 - How to Examine the Snow 2008-02-02 04:00:24 In the first part of this avalanche articles series I discussed about the basics and the behavior of an avalanche. In the second part I discussed how to avoid an avalanche. In this third part of the series I dig into the most interesting part, examining the snow. This is an important skill to have up in the mountains and backcountries. The best way of finding out the risks is examining the snow profile using a snowpit. You can use a snow shovel, a snowboard and the tail of your ski. It should be approximately 30 inches (75 cm) wide and as deep as possible. Naturally it should be on the same slope you are planning to ski. Clear the sides in order to see the structure of the snow. Then start examining the snow. First prod the snow every few centimeters with your bare finger. Try to get an idea of any hard and soft layers in the snow. By examining like this, you are looking for radical changes in the snow profile. If the area is safe for skiing, the snow profile should not have radical ch ...

January’s Question Results - Most Visitors Are Going to Ski in Europe 2008-02-01 06:38:26 January 2008 is history and February has just started. It is time to take a look at the results of January’s question, which was “In 2008 I Will Ski In..” and the choices were 1. Europe 2. Northern America 3. Australia 4. Asia 5. Southern America 6. Other According to the results, most of those who answered this poll are going to ski in Europe (40%). This is interesting because 64% of our readers are from United States, 3% from Canada and the rest from Europe and other continents. May be some of our American readers are planning to ski in Europe and are looking for information on European skiing from this blog. Second position in this poll was taken by Northern America (30%) and third position by Australia (10%). Some people will not go skiing this year (10%) and only few are going to ski in Southern America or Asia (5%). Below you can see the detailed results and a graph. Location Votes Percentage Europe 8 40% Northern America 6 30% Australia 2 10% I will N ...

What You Need To Know About Avalanches: Part 2/4 - How to Avoid an Avalanche 2008-01-31 17:06:18 In the first article of this series I provided basic information on avalanches and their behavior. In this second part I will talk about protecting yourself from avalanches. As it was mentioned last time, avalanches are the single biggest danger threatening the skier. The more time you spend in the mountains, the greater is the likehood that you will be caught by one. As we know already, avalanches kill people every year. Instead of wondering the power of an avalanche you should think what you should do in order to minimize the risk of being caught by an avalanche. It all starts from checking the previous weather. The avalanche risk is highest during and for about 24 hours after a new falls of snow. Most of the backcountry skiers in crowded ski resorts, such as Chamonix in France, rush to the mountain as soon as the lifts are opened. Many times they enter the powder fields when the avalanche risk is highest. Fortunately many of them are professionals and they know what they are doing. ...

Freeskiing Star Jon Olsson Opens the Door to His World - Jon Olsson Videoblog 2008-01-30 04:26:12 Jon Olsson, the pretty boy from Sweden, has joined the blogosphere. Jon Olsson, the awesome new-school skier who is always surrounded by beautiful ladies, has started a video blog. Jon Olsson posts videos to his blog almost in daily basis. I have to say that Jon’s videos are damn good! Just watch Mocano Cribs and you know what I mean. Tell me who Jon Olsson is. I bet most of the readers have never heard of Jon Olsson, so let’s find out who is Jon Olsson. Long, long time ago when new school skiing was just starting to emerge; one shiny boy from Sweden came with great talent. The boy was Jon Olsson, a young radical who was going to (get all the ladies and) become one of the best known freeskiers in the world. Nowadays Jon Olsson IS one of the bright stars in the freeskiing sky, and is very well known and respected in the freeskiing scene. Jon Olsson was born in Sweden. He grew up and started skiing in Sweden, but now lives in Monaco. Jon Olsson has won ten Winter X-Games and ...

What You Need To Know About Avalanches: Part 1/4 - Basics of Avalanches 2008-01-29 06:22:28 An avalanche is a phenomenon that causes a number of deaths yearly. It is a phenomenon every skier should be aware of, especially backcountry skiers. Avalanches are common phenomena in mountains, even though most of the on-piste skiers never see them. Even though you might now see an avalanche, it is very important to understand what it is, how it behaves and how you should behave in case of an avalanche. This article series provides you information on avalanche as a phenomenon, behavior of an avalanche as well as instructions to avoid avalanches and what to do if you or your fellow skier gets buried in avalanche. This first article describes an avalanche as a phenomenon of the nature. As stated in Wikipedia “An avalanche is a flow of snow or rocks down a mountainside. Avalanches are among the biggest dangers in the mountains for both life and property“. There are several factors that together trigger an avalanche. Most of the avalanches are triggered by the weather conditi ...

New Things Coming Up In HomeboySki.Com! 2008-01-28 07:45:52 Let me appologize this couple of days break in our blogging pace in HomeboySki.Com. I lost my hard disk (crashed) and I was not able to write articles on weekend. It all started on Saturday when I realized my laptop goes into cyclic restart. I had just woke up, made some coffee and I was about to write my second article on adjusting ski bindings. I turned on my laptop, waited awhile.. and realized that it boots again. Eh, what’s wrong? Then it booted again, and again, and again.. I realized the drive is crashed. Damn! I was a bit nervous. I want to write daily because I like writing, but I was not able to do it. I became angry.. Well, I realized I cannot do anything, so I started to read a book, which was a good decision. It was a good book, related to my work. I brought my laptop to service and I am now waiting to get it back. Meanwhile I use a computer I borrowed from a friend of mine. Life is life. This is a little problem in my life, but annoying one, because I love writing. ...

Yo! It’s Friday Night’s Blabbermouth Talking Here About This and That 2008-01-25 10:00:42 Finally! Finally we received lots of snow here in Hel(l)sinki! It has been a strange winter. We live here in north and we had “black Christmas” and no snow in early January. It doesn’t require being Einstein to figure out that the climate is changing. I don’t like it. Janne is going to hit the road tomorrow morning. He is heading to Flachau for skiing with his family. As Janne said, it will be mostly on-piste skiing with kids, but there might be a change to check out some backcountry trails. Janne’s trip sounds good. I have never been to Flachau and I would join him right away if it was possible. Unfortunately I am stuck with my work right now as we are almost done with my project. My quality time (read SKIING) will come later this spring. I hope so.. Last few days have been really dramatic. Almost a week ago Scott Macartney had absolutely a staggering crash in Kitzbühel in Austria. First it looked like Scott is going to die or at least suffer serious inj ...

Salomon 1080 CR Lab Ski Review - C.R Johnson’s 05/06 pro model 2008-01-24 08:28:52 First - this is a few years old model (namely 2005/2006). So if you’re only into the newest and most innovative gear, skip this. However, if you are  interested on solid gear that you can trust…and solid gear you can find cheap, read this. I scored a pair of these from German E-bay. There has been good offers in e.g. Steap and Cheap  The dimensions are on the narrow side: 113-79-106mm. Lenghts 168cm and 180cm (tested). Essentially this is also the same ski as Salomon 1080 Candice Lab, just the top-sheets differ. I was looking for the replacement of my beaten up 05/06 Völkl Dogens. Völkl usually has really good skis but the Dogens were a failure - too much quality problems. Otherwise the pair I had was ok but the bases just didn’t glide anywhere, even with waxing every time before hitting the slopes. Also, I wanted slightly stiffer skis with some more “pop” in them. Dogens were kind of lazy and dead feeling from the beginning - you get used to tha ...

Extreme Skier Billy Poole Killed While Filming 2008-01-23 07:17:34 Scott Macartney’s crash in Kitzbuhel looked bad but he survived with no injuries. Now much worse has happened. One of the top extreme skiers, Billy Poole was killed while filming a jump near the the top of Big Cottonwood Canyon Tuesday. Billy Poole was known from his long jumps. He started skiing up in the cold mountains of Montana but had lately spent time in Alta in Utah. Billy Poole became an extreme skiing star by mixing up powerful big-mountain style with very smooth moves and turns. Billy Poole was leading the modern wave of progressive freeskiing. The 28-year-old Poole was sponsored by Salt Lake City-based Black Diamond Equipment Ltd., maker of ski and climbing gear. Billy Poole was filming with a crew when the accident happened. Billy jumped off a cliff and hit rocks while landing. Billy Poole was taken to hospital in extremely critical condition about 12:30 p.m. A hospital spokesman confirmed he died at 1:30 p.m. Billy Poole’s accident happened in the backcountry b ...

Dalbello Krypton Il Moro 08/09 Ski Boot Review - a Boot of a Legend, Glen Plake 2008-01-23 03:00:31 Dalbello Krypton Il Moro Ski Boot in Review It’s been a while. Marko has taken much of the job here while I was having too much work in the actual dayjob. And we’re having a very bad winter here in Southern Finland again (climate change?). I’ve only got to ski my home “glacier” five times. Still, I’ve got some interesting gear to review. First one is a ski boot - namely Dalbello Krypton Il Moro, model 08/09 (yes, you read it right). Second one is my new park ski but more on that later, stay tuned. You rarely find any good ski boot reviews. And in general the rule still is: find something that fits you, and buy it. And if nothing fits go to a bootfitter…that’s pretty simple. Krypton is a different animal though. If this fits you, it is also something totally different. In this review I will tell you why. But first something about the reviewer for reference: Height/weight: 184cm (~6?) 83kg (~160lbs) Ability: very experienced, not the best/ ...

What Did We Learn From Scott Macartney’s Crash in Kitzbuhel? - The Importance of a Helmet in Skiing 2008-01-22 06:24:13 American alpine skier Scott Macartney crashed in Kitzbuhel downhill race in last weekend and lost his consciousness. Even though his crashes look very bad and he was taken to hospital unconscious, Scott Macartney is recovering with no injuries. He only suffered concussion, even though a serious one. Scott Macartney was very lucky. The results of Scott Macartney’s crash could have been much worse. Scott Macartney has regained his consciousness and has given an interview to SkiRacing.Com. Scott said he remembered his run but has no memory of the crash. He is looking forward to returning to races. Scott says “My run felt pretty good. I nailed the sections up above that I wanted to and I carried good speed. I think I was fifth up there and, overall, I had a really good run. But I’m not sure what I did on the last jump. Maybe I didn’t move forward enough or something, but I got out of balance in the air and crashed (Source SkiRacing.Com)”. I was a little bit sh ...