What can I say? I'm speechless. It was by far the best snowboard experience I've ever had. I'm not sure if I can settle for anything less from now on. I'm now permanently spoiled. ^^

I did have a small incident on the first day of boarding which put a bit of a damper on my boarding experience (blister on one of my toes), but all in all I really had a great time. It snowed every single day!! The mountain... er... mountains were friggin' huge!! You just have to go there to experience it for yourself! I met two great Irish lads whom I shared rooms with for the week. I also met a lot more people at a potluck training to either become pro boarders or instructors. Lot of folks from the UK and Europe. Of course, the good ol' random encounters on the chair lift are always fascinating as well! *SIGH* So many things to do, so many places to go to, so many people to meet, and so little time.

One of the things I learned while I was there was how out-dated my gears were. I had bought it back when I was a junior in college and have been sporting it until now. Yeah, I'm a frugal bastard, kill me. I just didn't feel like I needed a great set of gear when I obviously wasn't nailing any backside 720s. But now I'm finally feeling that I've outgrown my gear. I can feel that my bindings don't give me as much support when digging in with either edge and my board feels too stiff to do quick ollies and nollies. Then there are my boots that get loose after two runs. So I'm going to look into some closeout gears from 2006. Recommendations anyone? I'm looking for something in the 154-156cm range with an all-mountain core that has a bit of a freestyle bias. Right now I'm thinking of Ride delta bindings (black) and Option Redline 154. Possibly a pair of boots from Salomon. Thoughts?