:: View topic - may 28-30, 2005, Mt. Shasta, CA

Kelvin and i, and a handful of other friends, drove from Seattle down to Mt. Shasta over Memorial weekend. we arrived Sat. morning around 10am, checked into the rangers station for current snow and weather info. at the rangers station we ran into Amar Andalkar and Corey, also from Seattle. the two of them decided to join our group. our plan was to skin up to Horse Camp to spend the night and climb Shasta early Sunday morning. from Bunny Flats it's ~1000 ft. to Horse Camp. Kelvin and i decided to bring along three-pairs of skis between the two of us. i skinned up on the Doinks and Kelvin skinned up on the Upper Krusts. we each carried one Kung Paoder ski. we brought along an extra pair of skis just in case something happened (keep reading). we arrived at camp around 4:30pm, set up tents, then went out for a ski on lower Avalanche Gulch. the snow was very nice, basically soft unconsolidated, granulated wet crystals. the snow didn't seem like it had went through a melt/freeze cycle yet. we also noticed some huge releases on many aspects. i skied the Doinks and they were excellent. they carve so well in soft snow and are a joy to ski. Kelvin carved on the Upper Krusts and he seemed to enjoy them in the soft snow, too. below is a photo i made of Kelvin skiing back down to Horse Camp.

on Sunday morning as i was jumping into my G3 bindings, the heel throw snaps in two! i was not to ski the Doinks today, but luckily we brought an extra pair of skis. at 6am we started climbing up Avalanche Gulch under clear and calm skies. a few hours later the weather moved in. the winds were strong and we were hit in the face by ice crystals. instead of pushing on, we decided to ski down to camp to wait out the storm and then go yo-yo skiing in the afternoon. the ski down on the Kungs was pretty fun, but i had to get use to skiing on ski with sidecut. the snow was pretty firm at first, and the Kungs handled pretty well. Kelvin skied the Krusts and he noticed he had to finesse them a bit. again, skis with sidecut do shine on harder snow.

at camp i fixed my G3 bindings on the Doinks with parts from the Hammer Head bindings on the Kung Paoders. around 1pm we started skinning from camp up Caseval Ridge. we ascended to ~9200 ft., just above a nice bowl. at the top of the bowl the weather moved in again, so we waited around for 45 minutes until it cleared enough to ski. surprisingly, a sucker hole opened up just long enough for us to ski down. the corn was amazing. here's a picture of Kelvin cranking a turn on the Krusts. notice the flexing of the ski and how it carves the snow:

i skied the Doinks for part of the time, then switched over to the Upper Krusts. the Krusts skied pretty well, however, because i was used to the "more" relaxed reverse sidecut of the Doinks, the Krusts caught me by surprise -- they swung around a lot quicker than i expected. but overall they were fun to ski. because the snow was so soft, the width felt nice.

anyway, it was a great weekend and i'm glad we got a chance to ski on our home-made rides again. i think Kelvin has some words to say about the weekend.

8D Thats the way it is done do you not think so.

A group of us took advantage of the huge dump of snow that Washington has gotten and check out steven's pass before they opened. It was also a good opportunity to test the stiff upper lips and the daddies little girls. There was about 4' of very soft snow and you would immediately sink to your waist if you took off your skis. Skinning in this deep snow made progress very slow and eventually got too steep and deep to make any upward progress. We were able to get 3 good runs in though.

Justin was skiing the SUL, for most of the day, but we were able to swap for the second run. The DLGs seem to want to submarine in the deep soft snow and made if very difficult to ski. I think this is due to the huge camber, slightly lower tips, and I also mounted the binding on running length center, which put the binding about 2 cm forward of chord center. I basically had to lean way back and parrallel turn to keep from face planting. Justin had the same experience with the submarining.

The SULs were completely different and did not dive. These skis have normal camber, and the binding were mounted on chord center. They are a very fun ski.

Pic of Justin working the Stiff upper lips. Sorry for blurry picture, lighting was bad.

Kelvin Wu and i produced our first pair of skis on Monday, January 23, 2005, in the new press we built. our ski press took us about 3-months to build, only because we took our time. anyway, our first pair of skis is the Ahma, shown below:

the dimensions are: 135:108:125mm and length: 178cm. the skis have an asymmetric sidecut. the radius of the inside edge is 25 meters, and this side i call "good". the "evil" side (outside edge) has a 21 meter radius cut.

shortly after pulling them out of the press (4-days later), i flew to Salt Lake City with Michael, Corinne and Kristina to meet up with other friends to at Alta and Park City. The Ahmas' first day on snow was at Alta on Saturday, January 29th.

here's a short movie (*.asf format) of me skiing the Ahmas in 6" of new snow

40 mph!! isnt that rather fast for tele

I am very intrested in how the ahmas held up as i am in the process of making my skis

no, not really...

speed is relative...

the ahmas are great!! they skis very well. i'm amazed at how well they perform on the hardpack. i skied them a couple weeks ago at whistler. whistler/blackcomb hadn't received much snow and so some runs were bullet-proof. surprisingly, the ahmas held a strong edge. they even handle high speed skiing well too. the only thing i would add to them is more damping elements. at very high speeds they do resonant a bit.

Cool they sound like a solid ski

how did you guys get the white writting and the black K to look so sharp on those skis?

the lettering was cut from card paper, using a sharp utility knife. (thick cardpaper does not become translucent when soaked with epoxy, otherwise the lettering doen't stand out.) the letters were placed beneath clear topsheet.