Trip Report: Mud’s Hotham 2012 Trip Report

Mud’s Hotham 2012 Trip Report with Bonus Gear Review

About Me

I’m a father of two in his mid-forties from Melbourne.  I first tried snowboarding around 1990 at Thredbo.  Shortly after that I gave up skiing and dedicated myself to boarding only, buying my first board in 1993.  Unfortunately due to work and life constraints, I typically only get a few days per season on the snow, if that.  This year, however, I had an opportunity to spend nearly two weeks at Mt. Hotham with my daughter, Little Mud.  I have been increasingly keen on snowboarding over the years, even more so since joining Boardworld last year and learning so much.  After buying a whole swag of new gear (see gear review section), committing to a Hero Pass, buying the excellent Snowboard Addiction freestyle videos, wasting too much time on Boardworld and with nearly two weeks of boarding in front of me, I had been super keen to get to the snow this season.

Disclaimer

I think I once described myself on these forums as an “advanced” rider. This was based on group lessons I took at Hotham, Group 4, “advanced”.  Since riding with some of the Boardworld guys I think I am going to downgrade myself to “intermediate”   Please bear in mind that all parts of this trip report, including the gear reviews, are told from this point-of-view.

Note: if you’re looking for a trip report with triple rodeos, 50 foot airs and broken bones, you’d best look elsewhere.  In this report you’ll find a description of my riding progression, Little Mud’s progression in skiing and boarding, the mountain, the people I met including some Boardworlders, and a gear review.  I decided to include the gear review as I had a lot of new gear this year and trying it out was part of the experience over the two weeks.

The Mountain

General

For those who don’t know Hotham, the main road runs along the top of the mountain and connects the Hotham Central resort village to various snow areas, accommodation and parking stretched out over a couple of kilometers.  Most of the snowboarding and skiing is therefore down from the road area into the valleys below.  The key areas are:

<ul>
<li> Big D, the kids’ beginner area, located separately and requiring a bus ride from Hotham Central</li>
<li> the summit and Australia Drift, beginners and blues, located just near Hotham Central</li>
<li> the Village and Heavenly Valley area located below and north of Hotham Central</li>
<li> the Orchard located east of Heavenly Valley and accessible by connecting lifts from Heavenly Valley</li>
</ul>

The Orchard:

Most non-beginners would ride the village and Heavenly Valley (“HV”) area.  The “village loop” is a couple of runs from the top of the village lift at Hotham Central connected by cat-tracks down to the bottom of village lift.  This loop is something like the backbone of the HV area.  The HV lift intersects the village loop and provides access to a range of blue and black runs along one side of the Heavenly Valley.  The Orchard is made up of some steeper blue runs and only opens when the cover is good, as there is no snowmaking there.  There is some black and extreme terrain between HV and The Orchard, and also further around on the steeper side of The Orchard.

Our accommodation was in the Davenport Village area along with most of the other club accommodation.  Big D is the main kids’  beginner area, located about 300m from our lodge, and maybe 1 Km or so to the main village.  Free shuttle buses run every 5-10 minutes to connect up all of these areas.  My routine for most days was to pick up tickets for Little Mud at Jack Frost in Davenport Village, take the bus two stops to Big D, have a couple of runs with Little Mud to warm up then drop her into her lesson.  I’d then ride until about 3:00 then head back to Big D to pick her up again. 

The view from our room on the first night:

Here’s a trip down Big D with Little Mud (warning: includes skiing) [1:36]:

For the first couple of days I hung around Heavenly Valley, riding with skiers from the lodge and getting a feel for my new gear.  It’s mostly groomers at HV, however there are some nice gully-shaped runs that suit boarders well.  Once The Orchard opened, I headed over there and preferred to ride there for most of the trip due to the good mix of little hits at the top, fast groomers in the middle, and a half-pipe shaped gully at the bottom.

Views to Mt. Feathertop from near Gotcha chair:

Tickets

I had already organised a Hero Pass for myself so I was set for tickets.  I bought some bulk-buy vouchers for all-day lift and lesson for Little Mud.  These provide a slight saving over buying, say, a 5-day consecutive ticket and are more flexible as they can be used anytime during the season.  This is handy as it allows for rest days and bad weather days.  They are not well-advertised by the resort, so you may need to enquire directly with Ticketing if you are interested in these.  Each day, you need to exchange one for a day lift/lesson ticket.

On the Thursday of the first week, Little Mud declared a rest day.  I needed to do some washing and cooking so I let her off for most of the day but wanted to get her outside for a couple of hours, so I bought her a 2 hour private lesson at $260.  It’s a shame these are so expensive as she got good value out of it.  If we ever do another of these, I may add some more kids to the lesson to spread the cost.

The Lodge

We stayed as guests at Wongungarra, which is a comfortable, older-style lodge very close to Jack Frost in the Davenport Village area.  We had a small 2-person room, but at least it was our own room and we didn’t have to bunk in with strangers.  It’s BYO in terms of food, and I carted up a heap of stuff, with enough for two weeks of breakfasts, dinners and snacks.  I mainly went for pre-cooked and frozen stuff for dinners, just to reduce the hassle of cooking from scratch each night.  The people at the lodge were universally friendly and Little Mud and I both made a number of new friends.  I visited some friends who were staying The Arlberg, and I have to say I greatly preferred the shared accommodation of the lodge.  Bathrooms and kitchens were shared, however this was never a real issue, and in my view the social aspect far outweighed any drawbacks of shared facilities.

The Drive Up

We headed out in good time on Sunday morning, with rain, showers, fog and a very cold 4 degrees all the way up the Hume Highway.  We did the traditional stop at the Benalla rocket park, then at Bright for a hearty lunch at the pub, some last-minute items from supermarket and visit to the toy shop.  The drive up was pretty gnarly, with the snow level much lower than the same time last year and chains being fitted at the earliest chain fitting bay.  We saw several cars fishtailing and one stuck in an embankment.  The visibility was absolutely terrible at the top, and it was hard to make out the edge of the road.  Fortunately we made it in safely.

The drive up [3:14]:

The Weather

After we arrived, cold, overcast conditions with snow showers continued for several days.  The cover was very good with fresh snow to be had over at The Orchard once it opened on the second day.  Following that, the sun came out and we had nearly a week of beautiful, sunny days with little or no wind.  The snow cover held up well, although it was very firm under a light cover of softer snow.  On Tuesday in the second week the rain and fog came in and continued on and off until Friday evening.  Visibility was mostly pretty bad, and the snow was wet and heavy, but not too bad to ride on.  The cover had clearly deteriorated after a couple of days of rain and the waterproofness of our gear was tested - and boots and gloves aside - passed with flying colours!

Fresh snow and blue skies:

Progression

Carving

I had always thought I had my carving pretty much dialled and I hadn’t really set any goals to improve it, other than getting my body position really sorted.  After riding with Azz, with him on a supposedly less carve-capable board (Banana Tech) he simply blew me away and I came to realise my carving actually had a lot of room for improvement.  I also noticed other good riders just bombing straight across large bumps and chop at speed without any issues.  Riding down Mitchell’s, Bushwacker and Zirk’s at the Orchard area of Hotham, I was going pretty much as fast as I dared, leaning over nearly enough to get my hand on the snow, but still there were people going significantly faster with longer turns.  In earlier runs I had some chatter on my heelside turns, which was solved after I cranked on a heap of forward lean on my bindings.  I think maybe I need to bend my legs some more and might take a lesson to get some pointers on improving my carving at speed.  I think I’m also a bit lazy on my toe-side turns and don’t finish them off well enough, resulting in too much speed going into the heelside turn.  I was mostly pretty happy with riding on the steeper stuff with short-radius turns using “steering” working pretty well.  Here’s a small video, feel free to offer constructive criticism.

Some video of me riding [2:28]

Jibbing

I had watched the Snowboard Addiction videos on jibbing but hadn’t really planned to try it.  One day when it was a bit foggy and hard to see up high and I still had some time before heading off to pick up Little Mud from ski school, I thought I’d try the easy box in the rail park outside Swindler’s.  After watching several other noobs fall on the box, I remembered the key points from the SA videos; board absolutely flat on the box, body perpendicular to the box.  Banishing thoughts of failure from my mind, I dropped in, put in a turn to control speed, then rode up onto the box and 50-50’ed that sucker right to the end, noted the large hole in the landing, coasted off and pulled up to an easy stop.  My heart was pounding and I left the snow that day feeling pretty stoked.  I tried three more times the next day (last day of trip) and did not fall on the box at all, although I did fall on the landing once which was a bit messy due to a big dirty hole that had developed.  I had hoped to ride off the box and onto the next easy box a short distance downhill, however I was not able to control my speed enough between them to get onto the second one.  Maybe I need to ride onto the first box a bit slower?  Next I might try the “shuffle” recommended by Nev in the SA videos, leading up to some boardslides.

Jibbing video [0:20]

Jumps

I have always been terrible at jumps, mostly I think because I have had issues getting my body position properly aligned with the board.  I have been working on this and was able to land most of the small hits I found at the tree maze at the top area of The Orchard.  I was hoping to maybe move up to some slightly larger hits, but didn’t find too many of the right size around.  The only constructed jumps I found were the little ones built by the photographers or the huge booters over at the summit parks, and one of those parks was always closed.  I’d also been keen to try at least a frontside 180 but didn’t end up trying that, except popping off flat snow.

Jumps video [0:29]

Switch

I need to do a lot more switch riding and had planned to do a fair bit.  I did manage to do a little, but still need way more.  I made it all the way down Big D (a long-ish green) switch, but I really had to concentrate and was doing a lot of beginner/intermediate style turns with slow, deliberate upper-body rotation.  It did feel good at the end of the run, though, and I think with a bit more practice my switch riding will improve quickly.

Stance

As already mentioned, I have had stance issues for years, probably as a result of being a skier and never having done other boardsports before.  I think I am finally mostly on top of this now.  In my daughters ski class, the instructors get the kids to do little pops off the snow as they are riding along as this forces them to keep adjusting their balance into the correct position.  Doing little pops and jumps while riding my board also allowed me to keep checking for proper alignment, as any twisting would result in the board going sideways in the air.  I also felt fine flat-basing on cat-tracks, the first time I have felt anywhere near comfortable doing so.

Flatland Tricks

My only real flatland trick is spinning flat 360s (chained into a continuing rotation) on the snow.  I was able to manage this fine on both boards, pretty much until I got dizzy and nearly fell over.  I can also do a weak manual (tail press).  More work required!

video of some flat spins [0:13]

Forward Lean

I have already mentioned this, but I thought I’d make special mention here because I found it really helpful.  Basically it forces you to bend your knees more, which is important when riding.  I was washing out my heelside turns with the board chattering sideways across the snow.  After a bit of research I learned I should be bending my knees more and that forward lean was a good way to help with this.  It worked really well and the heelside chatter was gone.  If you haven’t tried putting on a bit of forward lean, I’d say give it a go and see what happens.

The People

The Lodge

I arranged to stay at the same lodge as another family we have known for a while from when our kids went to creche together.  This worked out well with cooking and occasional child-minding duties shared.  It was nearly all families at the lodge, and the all the kids just seemed to be in a really great holiday mood and played together at all sorts of activities from drawing, cards, and building a snow fort and an amazing igloo right outside the lodge.  They worked really hard for hours in the snow on the igloo and fort.  Then there was of course the requisite collection of iPads, Nintendo DS and iPods that every family seemed to have.  Needless to say, these got a fair flogging and were a good ice-breaker (in the social sense!) for the kids.  Following some hassles with a commercial system last year, the lodge had decided to try an open-slather approach to the wi-fi Internet connection this year.  Unfortunately once the password got to the kids, it spread like chicken-pox and half a month’s Internet allowance was blown in 2 days.  The password was changed and another commercial system tried, which seemed to work really well, even enabling me to upload some short HD videos onto youtube and Google Docs for my wife to view at home.

Awesome igloo built by lodge kids:

Most of the adults at the lodge are skiers, and I rode with them on several occasions.  They are mostly very good skiers and it was great to follow them around the mountain, although they mostly tend to go for fairly standard terrain.  Two of them have downhill skis with telemark bindings and they were absolutely flying down The Orchard runs.

The telemarkers [0:34]:

Billy, K2 and The One Tree Hill Incident

I also rode with another group of family friends who are intermediate skiers.  The guy, Simon, seemed to have pretty good form on the easy blue runs, so I took him over to The Orchard on his first day there.  Just as we were about to hop off the chair for our first run, I spotted Billy and K2 with another boarder heading under the rope towards some harder blacks, Spargos and One Tree Hill.  After some pleasantries were exchanged, I decided we’d better let them go and tear up the black stuff while Simon and I pottered around the Orchard blues.  Simon, however, had other ideas: “I’ll give it a go.  What’s the worst that could happen?”  Unfortunately he was soon to find out.  After a long traverse while yakking with Billy, we got to the top of One Tree Hill.  There were just a few tracks on it and the fresh snow was just begging to be ridden.  We clipped in and rode down the first part, a wide open bowl that sloped down towards the creek beyond a crest at the bottom, and towards a smaller creek to the left.  It was fairly steep, but the powder was deep and soft and there was no issue turning or carrying a bit of speed.  Billy and I followed K2 just past the crest and waited for Simon to appear.  After about 5 minutes, he appeared on the crest above us with one ski off.  He struggled for a few minutes trying to get it clipped in, but couldn’t manage it in the deep snow and the ski plunged off towards the small creek before fortunately getting stuck in some trees.  Simon hiked down and got it while Billy and I waited, with K2 and the other boarder further down.  Simon decided he’d better walk out and made it to a row of trees just in front of a steeper section that drops down to a cat track and bridge over the creek.  As it got steeper, Simon elected to slide on his butt, which went OK until the little cliff at the end, where he picked up too much speed, slid out of control, rag-dolled head-first off the cliff and landed in a bit of a yard sale on the cat track.  I was holding my breath at this point, but fortunately Simon got to his feet all OK.  Phew!  K2 led us out on the cat track and I’d like to offer him and Billy a big thanks for staying with us, when they must have been itching to keep riding. Simon was OK but exhausted. Sorry no video footage as Gopro battery #1 was dead by this stage and I wasn’t game to change in #2 outdoors (I have since learned to do it).

Azz and Clan

Before the season started, Azz had spotted a post I’d made about my kids.  He very generously contacted me and offered some snowboarding boots for my daughter.  We agreed to meet up on the mountain and this happened on the middle Sunday of the trip at The General.  Azz is a pretty classy guy and was knocking back wine while watching the V8s on TV.  I also got to meet Fisher and Wildman who seemed like champs, Azz’ little girl, his big girl and his missus, Tambo, who all seemed really nice.  We met up later for a bit of a ride around The Orchard and Heavenly Valley.  Azz’ riding just blew me away, with speed and style in spades.  He absolutely put me to shame carving on his Banana Tech board, and he was pulling off little hits and spins all over the place.  He showed me some runs I didn’t even know existed (hello, Pumphouse Drop) and I also learned some pro tips on snaking the lift lines

Azz [1:08]:

Little Mud

Little Mud is a 7 year-old girl.  She had her first taste of skiing last year for a week at Hotham and made it into the middle of Level 3 (Hotham has 6 levels for kids).  Over the course of our stay, we had 12 available days for skiing/boarding.  We ended up taking two rest days, leaving 10 days we actually rode/skied.  Little Mud skied for 9 of those, taking full day classes at the Kids Klub.  By the end, she was at the top of Level 4, nearly ready for Level 5.  She moves along at a good pace and mostly parallel skis and I’m really proud of her progress.

Little Mud expressed an interest in my board and was keen to give boarding a go, so on one foggy day we hired a tiny little board (I think 106cm) and off we went.  Once we got to the lesson, there were 10 other kids there waiting for a Level 1 board lesson, all boys and all much bigger than Little Mud.  The instructors were both guys.  LM immediately wanted out, but I got her to stay after I promised to stay with her for the whole day.  During the morning session it became apparent that while Little Mud didn’t have the strength of the boys, her co-ordination was really good and she managed some exercises better than the boys (who were mostly concerned with snowball fights).  After lunch, 8 of the boys left so we went down to 3 students and one instructor.  He pushed the pace fairly hard and we moved on from “falling leaf” on both heel- and toe-side, to “chicken turns” and finally C-turns (regular turns).  Little Mud struggled a bit on the C-turns but she did manage to get one in by the end of the day.  As you can see, there was a lot of falling and getting up and LM was very tired by day’s end.  She slept like a log that night.  Her enthusiasm for snowboarding had unfortunately gone by that point, even more so when she woke up sore the next morning.  I’m pretty sure that last year Hotham required kids to be 8 before trying boarding, however this year they dropped it to 6.  I wonder whether that was a good thing, especially for girls.

Little Mud boarding [2:36]:

The Gear

At the end of last season, after an instructor had a gentle go at my gear (2000 Burton Custom), I decided it was probably time to upgrade.  I had a bit of a splurge at the Melbourne Snowboard Centre’s September sale and picked up a Signal OG 157 2011/12 (regular camber, stiffish board), Nitro Raiden Zero bindings, Nitro Team TLS boots and some Billabong Aved pants (my old QS pants from about 1993 were starting to leak).  I also picked up some tuning gear and rubber gloves from Snow Monkey.  After researching bindings some more and following some advice from Boardworld people, I learned the Raidens were probably not a great match with the Signal OG.  Rider hooked me up with a great deal via Amine on some Flux SF45s that also resulted in me picking up an ex-demo YES Tasman 152, the same one some of you may have ridden at last year’s Shred.  I swapped the Raidens onto the Tasman to make a softer freestyle set-up, and put the Flux SF45s onto the Signal for a freeride/carve set-up.

Board: Signal OG 157 (2011/12 new)

The OG is a pretty traditional regular camber board.  Signal describes this as “all-mountain freestyle”, which I take to mean freeride.  It has a set-back stance, directional twin shape and carbon stringers.  I set this board up as my freeride/carve board with Flux SF45 bindings and a medium width +18/+6 goofy stance.  Some of you may remember earlier threads where I was trying to work out the base bevel angle and was advised by Signal it was zero.  After chucking a straight-edge across the base once the summer wax was scraped off, I am not convinced this is the case and I suspect a 1 degree bevel.  I rode the board on about 4 days over the 9 days of riding I had in conditions varying from icy to loose snow on a hard base.  The board carved nicely with noticeable pop out of turns and held a reasonable edge on ice.  It felt stable at the speeds I was hitting, although I did notice a bit of chattering over rough surfaces.  The base felt nice and fast.  I had no issues flat-basing on cat-tracks.  The board was nice and light and wasn’t too much of a dead weight on my legs on the lifts.  Since I was only tackling small jumps, I can only say it seemed fine on those.  I was interested to compare it to my old Burton Custom 2000; it had a similar stiffness and overall feel, but was lighter, poppier and a had a bit more chatter over the small bumps.  I look forward to spending more time on this board as my carving improves.
Rating Signal OG 157:   

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Board: Yes Tasman 152 (2011/12 ex-demo)

The Tasman is a true-twin, medium flex board with differing heel and toe side-cuts and a Camrock profile (camber between bindings, rockered outside of bindings).  My intention with this board was to make it my “freestyle” board, or as close as I’ll ever get to freestyle.  At a shortish 152cm and paired with the softer Nitro Raiden Zero bindings and a wider +15/-3 stance, I was not expecting too much in terms of carving ability.  Well I was wrong; this board carves amazingly well, at least to the limits that my riding was able to push it.  I was motoring down the steeper blue runs on The Orchard with no concerns and was able to readily mix up short and long radius turns with good response.  I really couldn’t say that it carved any worse than the Signal OG, although a better rider may well see a difference.  It had good pop out of the turns and off jumps.  It was fairly easy to pull the nose or tail up for butters and spinning flat on the snow felt fine.  I rode my first box on this board and managed not to fall off, so I guess that’s a plus.  I rode this board 5 days out of 9 and it felt great in all conditions - ice, hard snow, slush and heavy powder.  It did have some chatter over the small bumps, but maybe that’s the price for a light board.  The only thing I could ask for in this board would be the Ultimate Grip edges to improve hold in ice, as per the Great Beauties on which this board is based, but this is not a huge issue.  Heading into the board storage room at my lodge each morning, I found myself grabbing for this board often as it seems to suit a lot of Australian conditions well and was just fun to ride.  I passed an instructor who was riding a YES Basic and told me he had three Tasmans in his quiver!
Rating Yes Tasman 152:   

Bindings: Nitro Raiden Zero (2011/12 new)

The Zero is a soft binding and I was easily able to squeeze the highback into a curl with my hand.  The binding seems to be constructed in a fairly basic way.  This is good in terms of simplicity, but unfortunately the build quality was not up to par as you will read below.  Adjustability was pretty decent but not totally tool-less. The straps felt fine with no pain even when cranked down fairly hard.  The marketing descriptions for this binding are annoyingly vague, however from what I’ve read it’s meant to be soft laterally but still responsive edge-to-edge.  Having ridden it, I’d have to agree.  The binding did feel soft but not in a bad way, in fact I enjoyed the softer feel of this binding, and it did seem to allow decent carving.  Unfortunately those are probably the only good things I have to say about this binding.  I had strap and highback screws come loose, ratchets slip and a little logo tag fall off all in the space of 5 days.  Worse, however, was that once I cranked on a bit of forward lean, I found the slim metal heel loop behind the heel cup would slide under the forward lean block, resulting in no forward lean, some paint chipping on the highback and a highback stuck upright unless punched down.  I fiddled with the heelcup adjustment to get it as snug as possible against the metal loop thingy, but it didn’t seem to help.  I wouldn’t mind some of this stuff in a cheaper binding, but full retail for this unit is over $300 and it’s just not good enough.


Rating Nitro Raiden Zero:   

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Bindings: Flux SF45 (2011/12 new)

Pulling these bindings out of the box was like opening a treasure chest and finding a glittering treasure inside.  Ok maybe that’s a bit much, but the quality of these bindings is very apparent as soon as you pick them up.  The whole thing just looks and feels really solid and purposeful.  And shiny.  They are much stiffer than the Raidens and I was unable to bend the highback in my hand.  Nearly everything that can be adjusted tool-lessly, which is nice.  I thought the footpad was a bit fiddly and kind of a hassle to get on and off, especially when the bindings were screwed down on the board, and maybe a bit more damping underfoot would have been nice.  The straps are bulky and weird-looking, but they felt comfortable and worked fine.  There was no slipping of ratchets or any screws coming loose.  The forward-lean adjuster is a simple dial which works quickly and well.  The bindings seemed to perform well in carving with strong response as you might expect, and didn’t cause me any trouble over the small jumps I was hitting.  I don’t really have too much more to add, because these bindings did everything I expected without fault.  I would be interested to swap them onto my Tasman and see how they feel.  It is also possible to swap the high-backs, which are asymmetrical, to suit either carving or freestyle-oriented riding, but I didn’t get a chance to try that.
Rating Flux SF45:   

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Boots: Nitro Team TLS (2011/12 new)

I have owned three pairs of snowboarding boots.  The first was a pair of Sorrell Mt McKinley(?) boots circa 1993.  These were basically a ski boot inner stuffed into a pretty standard Sorrell boot outer, and were very soft.  The next were 2000 Northwave boots which were a proper snowboard boot, but still pretty soft and with plenty of heel lift (damned comfortable, though!).  My current boot is the Nitro Team TLS.  I was looking for something stiffer and responsive and obviously with a good fit.  After trying on quite a few boots at the Melbourne Snowboard Centre, I picked these as the best fit.  I went half a size down from my normal shoe size.  They were initially a bit grabby around the lower ankle, however that has packed out nicely and is not painful now.  When laced tightly, the boots are definitely quite stiff.  There is virtually no heel lift or ankle slop and I am really happy with the fit now they have packed out.  The boots have a dual-zone speed lacing system on the outer with a single speed-lace on the inner.  This works pretty well, although on several occasions I had to stop and re-tighten the top zone on the outers.  I first rode these boots in spring last year and some water got into the little airbags under the heels, however that did not seem to happen on this trip despite some very wet snow.  Maybe some gunk from last season plugged up whatever little hole was letting the water in.  On the last few days of the trip we had a fair bit of rain and wet snow.  The boots got really wet on those days and my toes were sloshing around.  I’m guessing that’s fairly normal, though.  I can’t say these boots let me down, so I’d be happy to recommend them to someone looking for a stiffer boot, as long as they fit well.
Rating Nitro Team TLS:   

Goggles: Torpdeo7 Anex Hi-Roller (2011 new)

These are Torpedo7’s cheap rip-off of other brand-name goggles, presumably Anon in particular.  They have double-layered spherical lenses which are photochromatic ie. they get darker or lighter according to how bright the light is.  The foam and strap were comfortable and visibility was decent.  The lenses did appear to be a bit less than optically perfect with some small distortion apparent above the nose and some internal reflection visible, but still quite acceptable.  In brighter conditions these goggles were just fine and were dark enough to remove any eye strain due to brightness.  They were less stellar in the shadows and especially in flat light or fog and I would not recommend them in those conditions.  Wiping moisture off the lens seemed to be a bad idea, causing big colourful streaks across my field of vision.  Overall, these would be fine for bright conditions and for the price they’re pretty decent value, just don’t take them out on dark or wet days.
Rating Torpdeo7 Anex Hi-Roller:   

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Gloves: XTM Loader (2011/12 new)

My main gloves are XTM Goretex from a few years back and they worked fine, however when the rain came out they got very wet on the outside.  I bought the Loaders on special at Snow Monkey as general-purpose gloves for duties such as loading stuff in and out of the car and fitting chains.  When the rain came, I decided to give them a go for snowboarding.  The Loader is basically a thick rubber glove with a separate thermal insert inside.  Breathability is zero, but as I discovered that’s actually quite fine in cold wet conditions.  On the wet days, everyone else on the lifts was moaning about their wet hands, while mine were perfectly dry and warm.  There is probably not enough insulation to go anywhere really cold with them, but they’re fine for Australian conditions.  Dexterity is a bit reduced from normal gloves, but I was still able to clip and unclip without worry, and turn on/off my GoPro (just).
Rating XTM Loader:   

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Tech: Aldi Compression leggings (2012 new)

I’ve never been too sure about whether compression tights really do anything except pull your undies down, but based on some assurances from other Boardworlders I decided to try again.  I wore these from the moment I got up until showering just before bedtime, the idea being to reduce soreness the next day.  I didn’t leave them off any of the days I rode (I had two pairs and access to a washing machine, ok!) so I can’t really say whether it helped or not, but I can say I didn’t have significantly sore legs at any time, even after the days when I was putting in a fair effort.  I think they set me back about $15 a pair, so I reckon I’ll continue to use them.
Rating Aldi Compression leggings:   

Pants: Billabong Aved 15K (2011/12 new)

These are big, black, moderately baggy pants 15K/15K waterproof/breathable.  Standard pockets, velcro waist adjusters, some small amount of insulation I think.  They also have zips under your crotch in case you get sweaty ‘nads.  They were comfortable and functional enough, but nothing to write home about.  When it rained the outsides got plenty wet but the insides were still nice and dry.  Would like some better grabs on the zippers for use with gloves.
Rating Billabong Aved:   

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Stomp: none!

I decided to go stomp free on both boards and it worked out fine.  I think I fell off maybe once getting off a lift.  That was on the Tasman which has a very shiny deck and on a rainy day when the board was wet.  I don’t think I’ll go back to using a stomp.

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Leash: some generic mini-leash

Back when I started boarding, leashes were pretty much just surfing leg ropes.  It kind of made sense, because you could leave the leash on while walking around with your board, and if you dropped it the leash would stop it running down the hill and killing someone.  Somewhere along the way, someone decided that any old thing securing your board to your foot would be fine, so we have ended up with this little 10cm leashes that tie your boot to your binding.  I don’t think this offers any value at all.  You can pretty much only wear it while strapped in, so what’s the point when you have two straps already holding you in?
Rating mini-leashes:

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Layers: superfine Merino wool

In past years I used polypropylene thermal tops under polar fleeces, which worked fine.  This year I used IceBreaker Merino t-shirts as the first layer, optional Aldi Merino long-sleeved top as second layer, then a light polar fleece and shell.  This worked great.  The advantages of wool are that it retains some warmth when wet, and even better, you can wear it for 2-3 days without it developing a stink!  Great for cutting down on washing and gear in your bag.
Rating superfine Merino layers:   

Camera: GoPro HD Hero 2 PoV Camera

The first thing to say about this camera is that they were everywhere this year, on little kids, big kids, dads, helmet-mounted, pole-mounted and even chest-mounted (hard to see how that would work on a snowboard?).  I got many comments and questions, mainly about whether I was getting any good footage, or occasionally “what’s that thing on your head?”.  There was also plenty of interest back at the lodge while I was copying and reviewing each day’s footage, and many comments like “I’m looking at getting one of those”.

The video image quality was the main reason I went for GoPro and I was in no way disappointed there.  On sunny days the image was brilliantly sharp and clear and still very good on overcast days.  I played with several video modes and mostly settled on 1080p 30fps.  In this mode, the field-of-view is adjustable to wide (170 degrees), medium or narrow.  Wide is nice because you can capture someone you’re following without having to worry too much about keeping them in your field of view.  It does show a fair bit of fish-eye effect, and people tend to look smaller.  When capturing my own riding, I noticed that Wide did not give as much of a feeling of speed as the other modes, or maybe that’s just because I ride pretty slowly   One slight annoyance is that video modes other than 1080p do not support the medium or narrow fields of view.  Image quality of stills was also very good, although the fish-eye effect is definitely something to watch depending on which mode you have it in.  I did not try the other photo modes (burst, time-lapse, self-timer) at the snow, however I did shoot some burst mode stuff at home earlier and was able to combine it into a sequence image without too much hassle.  I found the inside of the case fogged up while shooting at the snow and required the use of the anti-fog strips, which resolved the fogging without issue.

The camera chews pretty hard on batteries, especially when stuck out on your helmet or pole in freezing conditions.  I had a spare battery with me but still found I couldn’t quite get through the day with it.  I was leaving it on but not shooting between runs.  I did miss some really great moments as a result of flat batteries, which was disappointing.

I wasn’t sure how much memory I would be using.  I brought a Macbook and portable hard disk with me and at the end of each day I would transfer images and video from the SD card to the hard disk.  In the end, I shot about 30GB over about 8 days of shooting in various modes.  Note that it is recommended to charge the camera’s battery with the camera off so as not to confuse the lithium ion battery smart charger, and similarly to remove the SD card to read the data off it without using the camera’s USB interface for anything other than charging.

The camera was pretty easy to use once you have it in your hand, although I found it easy to get into that syndrome where you press the wrong button and skip past the menu item you wanted - frustrating.  When helmet mounted, I would also sometimes reach up to turn on the camera and find that I had bumped it into another unwanted mode, requiring helmet-removal and swearing.  It would also have been nice to have a way to shoot a still image while the camera was in video mode.  I am really looking forward to the wifi backpac to solve these minor usability issues.  It will allow control from a wrist-mounted panel and smartphone.

I used a helmet front-mount most of the time.  I had a standard curved mount on top of my daughter’s helmet.  Both worked fine, although the front mount did cause a little bit of downward pressure on my goggles.  Most people rode with a standard mount right on top of their helmets.  I saw one person with a mount halfway between the top and brim of their helmet, which seemed like a good place to have it.  I also made up my own pole mount using and old extendable walking pole and a GoPro bike handlebar mount.  The footage from that was surprisingly good and all the more interesting from having a subject front-and-centre in the frame, however it was a bit heavy to hold at longer extensions.  Another drawback of the pole is having to carry it around.

It was nice to be able to import the video into the Macbook each night and edit it in iMovie, then upload the edits every few days to Google Docs for my wife (stuck at home due to work) to see.  I have an older Macbook, circa 2009 and was surprised how well it was able to perform while editing the HD footage. 
Rating GoPro HD Hero 2:

Summary

I always like a holiday where I’ve learned something or improved in some way.  My boarding has definitely improved in the 9 days of riding I had, and while there is still a lot of room for improvement, I’m fairly happy with my progress in most areas.  I’m hoping to get up to Hotham again in September, snow permitting.  It was also great to have met some awesome people, especially Azz, Billy and K2 and I hope I get the chance to ride with you again sometime soon.

Great TR, mudhoney! really enjoyed reading it and like your style of writing a lot. Thanks for going to the effort & sharing with us!

Agreed! Thats a solid effort to put all that together ... excellent!  bty Mud, I’ve got my 9 and 7yr old onto boards this season!!  Just having a bit extra trouble convincing the wife to get a board….