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Articles from Homeboy's Skiing Blog

Sunday video: K2 Skis Highlights By Ski Expert Jim Fowler 2007-11-04 03:00:03 Check this one out! Ski expert Jim Fowler discusses the highlights of the 2008 K2 ski line. It is a promotional video for K2 and SierraSnowboard.Com and it provides good information on the 2008 K2 skis. See the new guns for ladies. Looking good! New K2 skis for your sweetheart to make smoooooth turns :). Probably good skis, but I am more into Coomba. Powder skiing weapon designed under the name of Doug Coombs, the deceased big mountain skiing star. According to K2, it has “balanced flex pattern and 102mm waist width offers excellent floatation and easy handling in tough conditions“. Hold on! See the next ones, Hellbent. Those are the fattest twin tip skis from K2, with an impressive 150 mm. tip and 122 mm. underfoot. Wow! I wish I had those back in 1999 when we crawled the backcountries of Chamonix! Heh.. instead I had to survive with my damn old Atomic super-G skis which actually had ski touring bindings mounted.. It keeps on raining here in Finland. Although they go skii ...

Funshapes - skis with decamber and/or negative sidecut 2007-11-02 19:10:18 Back in summer 2002 I bought a used pair of Salomon Pocket Rockets for a trip to Chile. I wanted to try something new and innovative - back then twin tips, lighter construction for tricks and airs and fat shape with a bit shorter lenght were something really cool. The concept was a winner. As much as pocket rockets got bad reputation as “blue noodles”, thousands of users were really satisfied - a easy-skiing fat ski was a hit for the upper-intermediate masses. Ok, I beat the s*** out of the said noodles and maybe even used them a little for the intented purpose (=bc freestyle), check e.g. this one: To be honest they were not good for all out speed, so called “ripping”, and/or hard surfaces. Anyhow, I always wondered how well the 90mm middle and 185cm lenght floated in soft snow. In tight trees of the Slovakian Tatras (see my earlier stories,1 and 2) I could easily “schmear” turns and completely throw the skis sideways here and there - kind of skid ...

Funshapes - skis with decamber and/or negative sidecut 2007-11-02 17:44:18 Back in summer 2002 I bought a used pair of Salomon Pocket Rockets for a trip to Chile. I wanted to try something new and innovative - back then twin tips, lighter construction for tricks and airs and fat shape with a bit shorter lenght were something really cool.  The concept was a winner. As much as pocket rockets got bad reputation as ”blue noodles”, thousands of users were really satisfied - a easy-skiing fat ski was a hit for the upper-intermediate masses. Ok, I beat the s*** out of the said noodles and maybe even used them a little for the intented purpose (=bc freestyle), check e.g. this one:    To be honest they were not good for all out speed, so called “ripping”, and/or hard surfaces. Anyhow, I always wondered how well the 90mm middle and 185cm lenght floated in soft snow. In tight trees of the Slovakian Tatras (see my earlier stories,1 and 2) I could easily “schmear” turns and completely throw the skis sideways here and there  ...

Resort Finder By Ski.Com 2007-11-02 09:36:28 Ski.Com provides a nice ski resort finder tool. Just type the parameters in and click “Search Resorts” and you will get a list of resorts suitable for your needs. Let’s me try it out. I am looking for a resort for me and my 4 and 13 year old sons. Number 1 for a parameter means “not important” and number 5 means “very important”. - I need pretty easy access to slopes, I put 4 - it must be family/child friendly, I put 5 - easy slopes? Well, my kids are cool, they’ll survive I put 3 - to intermediate slopes I put 3 - expert slopes? No need this time, I put 1 - terrain parks, hmm.. may be yes, could be nice, I put 2 - I am always into budget deals, I put 4 - no need for nightlife, a couple of beers at home is just fine. I put 1 - best cuisine? Not necessarily, I put 2 - kids need activities, I put 4 - same with events, I put 4 - exotic skiing? What’s that? I put 1, I am suspicious. - ethnic restaurants? no thanks, I prefer local food. ...

Aksel Lund Svindal elected As A Skier Of The Year By A.I.J.S. 2007-11-01 17:58:32 As WorldSkiNews.Com reports, Norvegian alpine skier Aksel Lund Svindal has been elected as a skier of the year by A.I.J.S. (International Association of Ski Journalists). Svindal was elected by a great majority of reporters. Earlier winners include Benjamin Raich, Bode Miller and Herrman Maier. It was a bit supprising that Svindal was eleced. Anyhow, I feel it is a good selection. Exactly the right man. Read more about this in WorldSki News. Share This ...

Christmas Is Coming - Looking For Junior Alpine Skis 2007-10-31 18:54:43 Yes, it is coming again. Christmas, the ultimate commercial triumph or the peaceful moment with your family. You name it. Anyhow, it is coming and I find myself looking for presents for my kids. What would you buy for a four-year old son? Skis, of course! Alpine skis, high performing guns for super-G racing. Ok, let’s take it easy. My son is now four years old and I need to find him good skis for the Christmas. I promised already months ago that “daddy will buy you good skis so that we can go skiing together every single weekend”. Yeah, may be I promised a bit too much. Anyhow, I am interested in skiing with him on this season. Actually, I would be interested setting up the tracks and standing there with my stopwatch. I hope my son likes the idea, not just me! Today I went to a shop managed by a friend of mine. It is a paradise.. Just imagine how does it feel to step into “the world of skiing” directly from my boring office. I would like to burn my suit an ...

DVD Review - The Tangerine Dream (TGR) 2007-10-30 10:28:07 The Tangerine Dream offers some retrospective feelings in the beginning but then the good old TGR stuff starts rolling. There is some very challenging backcountry skiing by Jeremy Nobis and others. Jeremy attempts some really hard core skiing in Alaska. The Tangerine Dream offers also skiing in Turkey, India, Alaska, France and Switzerland. Check out the trailer below. It is definately one of the best skiing movies I have seen. The retrospective part reminds me the goold old days in France back in 1999.. Buy The Tangerine Dream from Homeboy’s webshop! Share This ... Dvd

Featured Blogs - TheMountainWorld.Com 2007-10-30 04:00:14 Check out TheMountainWorld.Com blog hosted by Dougald MacDonald. It is a blog focused in mountaineering and climbing and it provides interesting articles for those interesting in mountain activities. Check out for example “Cursed in Chamonix” in which guys got into difficulties while climbing in the Mont Blanc area. Another interesting post is “Where Do I Clip In?” in which you can see few awesome aerial photos. Skiers, check out “Skiing the Eiger (Sort of)” for a bit different backcountry skiing in the Eiger. Very good blog. I definately recommend reading! Share This ...

Aksel Svindal Leading Male Alpine Skiing World Cup 2007-10-29 04:55:05 Norvegian Aksel Svindal took the first place in the alpine skiing world cup opening in Soelden on last weekend. Svindal, who skis with Atomic, won this tight race with time 2.17,87. Svindal won the whole cup and super-G on last year and he seems to continue with same goals on this year. Second place was taken by American Ted Ligety with time 2.18,19 and the third one was Finnish Kalle Palander with time 2.18,26. Kalle performed almost perfect skiing with a couple of mistakes in the beginning of the track, but it was not enough to win Ligety. I was a bit supprised with Palander’s third place because as Kalle says, training season has been difficult. American Bode Miller was 17th. after the first round but finally climbed to the fifth place. It will be interesting to see if Miller is going to stay among the top skiers. Image source. See American ski team preparing for the opening race in the video below. Share This ...

Denise Karbon Leading Female Alpine Skiing World Cup 2007-10-29 04:26:13 FIS alpine skiing world cup was opened on last weekend in Soelden, Austria. The winner of ladies giant slalom was Italian 27 years old Denise Karbon for whom this was the second world cup victory. Karbon, who skis with Fischer, has overcome her knee injury and is back in the top of alpine skiing. Her time was 2.23,21. American Julia Mancuso took the second place with time 2.23,54 and the third one was Austrian Kathrin Zettel with time 2.23,73. Finnish Tanja Poutiainen led the race in the beginning but was not able to keep the first place until the end of the race. She took the fourth place with time 2.23,78. Image source. See Denise skiing in Soelden in the video below. Interview is in Italian. Share This ...

Sunday Video: Teton Gravity Research - Lost And Found (teaser) 2007-10-28 04:00:41 TGR produces good stuff for old-school skiers such as me. I am an old fart already but I enjoy watching TGR movies on Sundays. Lost & Found is a skiing movie released in this year. Oh yes, you can buy it from our shop. Check out the teaser below. What makes this teaser nice is that it is a bit different from those traditional ski movie teasers. It is funny. Actually the narrator makes the teaser funny by his “story telling” approach. Another great thing is the flute music with mountain scenes instead of trash metal with freeskiing or rap with new school tricks. Another funny part starts in 0:43 when they asked the guys “what lost&found means to you”. And then.. in 1:01 it starts. Fabulous powder skiing on “powder fields” and in a forest. Check out that guy riding in 1:01-1:04. Goddamn I would pay strawberries to be in his boots on that powder field! Or how about that dude in 1:08 landing his board on that deep powder? Holy sh.. I’m in l ...

Heliskiing In Finland - Who Would Guess? 2007-10-27 04:00:33 Friday afternoon dreaming at the office. Heliskiing…isn’t it the dream come true for every skier? Despite all the enviromental issues & ethics I think every skier should/can be purely hedonistic once in their life and head for their dream skiing trip. For many it’ s the AK heliskiing for sure - which sounds quite far away for us at the moment, to be honest. Then I remembered something: couple of guys we know can arrange Heliskiing trips even in Finland…sounds pretty odd, doesn’t it? Wait…don’t stop reading yet. Technically one can even argue that those trips won’t happen in Finland. That’s because most of the best slopes are right on the Swedish side of the border. But there are even couple of ok fjells in Finland worth topping, even without the chopper btw. I got couple of pictures from my friend AZ. Doesn’t look too shabby, doesn’t it? If you’re intrerested, take contact to these guys: www.cohkka.fi They a ...

New Rivals Of Finnish Moguls Ski Team Doing Great Job 2007-10-26 07:48:11 The new rivals of Finnish mogul skiing team are doing great job already now before the competition season. According to Finnish Ski Association, the young guns are doing better than expected. Pekka Lehtikallio says the results of the training camp in Zermatt are among the best in his career. Training in the slopes has become more effective since Sami Mustonen, ex mogul skiing competitor, started as a coach. Training camp competition winner was Tapio Luusua, but the new rivals Juuso Lahtela and Arttu Kiramo are coming closer and closer behind. Pekka Lehtikallio does not want to set too high expectations for the skiers yet, but some medals these guys will most probably get. Next the team will continue training in Ruka in Finland. It will be interesting season and I am eager to see how Tapio Luusua will perform. We grew up in the same village and I recognized Tapio’s talents in skiing already more than 15 years ago. I wish all the best for Tapio. It would be fantastic to see him fi ...

A Must-Have Book For Chamonix Backcountry Skiers 2007-10-25 07:00:24 My first time skiing in Chamonix was back in 1997. I will never forget that day, it was a kind of dream come true. It was so staggering to finally be there, after years of dreaming. I had pretty high expectations and I never got dissapointed. It truely was my dream come true. I was a newbie in the Alps and I wanted to join the “club” of backcountry skiers. I was so keen on getting to the mountains but I was a bit afraid. I had a problem. I did not know skiers in Chamonix and I was smart enough to understand that I cannot go to the mountains alone. Additionally I had no idea where are the mountain faces I suitable for my skills. I was pretty good at skiing but certainly I was not ready to go directly to 55 degrees faces. I needed two things, friends and information of the off-piste routes. I needed to network and I needed books and maps. The first problem one was pretty easy to overcome. I knew a couple of guys down there, I met them in Helsinki a couple of months earlier. I ...

Skiing In Slovakia - Part II, Jasna Ski Resort 2007-10-24 06:58:41 This is the second part of the four part series about skiing in Slovakia (first one here), and especially in the Jasna ski resport in Low Tatras (Nizke Tatry). In this post I will discuss about the lift system, slopes and off-piste skiing in the Jasna area. In the next post I will give some practical tips of what to do and what not (IMHO). The last post of the series is some more thoughts about Slovakia in general. Again, couple of pics first. One of the side ridges of the main Low Tatra ridge Nice little chute Yes, there are steep and gnarly too…. The few pictures from the resort itself. Trees in the resort are pretty good after the dump too… Skiing slopes during the storm, not bad at all Jasna ski resort (www.jasna.sk) is probably the most developed in Slovakia. The resort has a vertical meters of about 1100 meters (~3300 feet) and quite modern lift system with four-person doppelmayer lifts. The new poma lift offers ride to the top of the Chopok mountain, linking ...