DIY Split – Jamie Lynn 160 cm
After several years of abusing my first Lib Tech Jamie Lynn splitter, it was time to move it to rock board status and make another one,if for nothing else than I find the art of turning a solid board into a splitboard rather fun. Like my previous Lib split, after spending the past couple of years using the board for ski patrol, it was a good time to turn it into a splitter. I find Jamie’s board to work really well in most conditions, and for that reason they make good homemade splitboards. A project like this can take as little as a day or so to complete if you get after it, but I like to work on them over the course of a few weeks as time allows. Below is a picture of the board before cutting it.
Although one can get pretty involved with precision tools to cut a splitboard, I find using a straight edge and a circular saw to work just fine. I like to make sure I measure and mark the center of the board in multiple places, and then connect the dots using a straight edge and a sharpie marker. Before using the circular saw, one thing I find helpful is to cut the first couple centimeters along the line from the nose and tail with a hack saw, which helps to keep the board from splintering at the ends during the cut. Then, after carefully placing the straight edge on the board with clamps, it’s ready to cut. Slow and easy does it…
Following the cut, the next step for me is to tape the board halves back together with masking tape, and then measure from the tip and tail to drill for the split hooks. After measuring, I apply the split hook templates and center punch where the holes need to be drilled, followed by the actual drilling. After drilling, it’s time to counter drill just the right amount from the base in order to set the screws so that they are flush with the base (or just a little beyond flush). A little bit of epoxy goes in the holes next to keep the wood from getting wet during use, and then the split hooks can be installed.
Next up, it was time to drill and install the touring brackets and heel risers. As usual, the first step is to center and tape the Voile templates over the board, after measuring where you need to put them.
Following the application of the templates, I will center punch the holes and drill through board with the appropriate sized bit for the touring bracket screws and heel lifter screws. The next step is to flip the board over and carefully counter drill the holes for the t-nuts with a paddle bit. Easy does it here, since you have to be extra careful to keep from drilling too deep. I like to drill just deep enough to only barely get into the wood core, so that the t-nuts are just 1/16 of an inch or so below the base of the board when installed. It’s easy to drill too deep if you get too aggressive.
Below are a couple of shots of the t-nuts after installation, along with the epoxy I like to use to fill the holes after installing the t-nuts, as well as to seal the edge along the board cut.
To actually fill the holes, I mix a bit of black pigment into the epoxy when mixing, since I like the look of black holes in the base of the board better than the color of regular epoxy after it dries. A small paint brush usually does the trick to applying the epoxy, and then I come back the next morning and cut/scrape the excess off with a razor blade. Of course it always helps to have a beer or two on hand when doing a project like this, and for this project I was glad to have a tasty Incredible Pulp Blood Orange Pale Ale from Boneyard Beer on hand.
Once the hole were filled with epoxy, I sanded down the epoxy along the cut line of the two board halves, and my new split was ready to ride. Below are a couple of shots of the finished product looking at both the base and top sheet sides of the board.
Detailed instructions that I like to consult when creating a new split are the DIY Voile Split Kit instructions, found here. Overall, this was another fun project, and it’s been great getting this split out on snow for both touring and riding the past several months.
December 31, 2021 – Final ski day of the year
The final day of the year had arrived, and Shaun wanted to make some turns for his first day of the season, so we headed to the Pass for a day of lift serviced riding. I wasn’t on duty, but after checking the schedule it looked like it was going to be a light day for patrollers, so I threw in my coat and pack to give P4 a hand. We pulled into the patrol lot around 9:00, and shortly thereafter were geared up and ready to go.
We took a first lap on Twilight, since EPA was iced up and not quite ready to spin yet, and cruised down By George. By the time we got to the bottom, it looked like EPA was ready to go, so we joined in the big line to catch a lift to the top. Given that it was a holiday weekend (with the 31st being a holiday for many since the 1st fell on Saturday), I wasn’t surprised to see a ton of people at the mountain…
We met up with Dan and Cindy, and caught a ride to the top with them. At the top, for some reason, the area had a snowcat parked out past the unloading ramp, and it made for a nice spot to snap a quick picture. After that, we skied down and made a run on Good Time Charlie, which was in really nice shape. Shaun skied it nicely, and I was happy to see his skills gained from the year before were still there.
Another long wait in line at the bottom followed, and then Shaun and I made several more laps on the frontside runs, starting with Eagles, then High Lead and then Timburr.
Around noon, it was time to head to the car to enjoy some lunch, and we got to visit with Carolyn (a former patroller) in the lot. The snow, which had started falling earlier in the day, kept falling, and there was nearly 3 inches of new by the time we headed out for some afternoon turns.
As we headed back towards EPA, I noticed a sled that needed transporting to the top of the hill, so I had a patroller load it for me and then we headed up with it in tow. Shaun wanted to ski Success, so after taking care of the sled up top we dropped in over the edge and skied some surprisingly decent snow under the chair.
The rest of the day was filled with turns, and Shaun did really well for his first day out of the year. We called it a day a few minutes before sweep, and headed to the car to change into more comfortable clothes. Shaun was content to get into a video game on his phone, while I was content to get into a tasty Rippin’ NW Pale Ale from Sunriver Brewing Company.
I finished my beer as I cleared the car of snow and ice, and we were ready to hit the road. All in all, it was a great day, especially considering I was able to spend it with Shaun, and definitely much easier that my previous patrol day a few days earlier, with a lot less work!
December 26, 2021 – A day deeper than any other?
Having missed my regular patrol day on Christmas, and knowing P3 was looking super thin for the 26th, I was looking forward to heading up to the Pass to give them a hand and also hopefully score some fresh snow in the process. The forecast was calling for 8-10 inches overnight, and I was shocked when I called the snow phone while heading down the road from my house to hear the report of 24 inches overnight and still snowing heavily. Traveling up the highway to the Pass was a bit slower than normal, with snow on the valley floor, but I managed to pull into the parking lot around 7:30 am. Toby and a few others pulled in shortly thereafter, and everybody was pretty excited for the day.
It didn’t take me long to gear up, and soon I made my way to the patrol room. It was clear a significant amount of new snow was present, with at least two feet of fresh, on top of the several feet that had fallen over the previous three to four days.
While we got ready for the morning meeting, I set about clearing the snow off the patrol room roof, and Ian happened to catch a photo of me from under the roof — the pic below reminds me a bit of being on the back side of a waterfall, or in this case, snowfall!
By 8:00 am, we had the morning meeting, and discussed plans for the day. It looked like there would be a significant amount of digging to start with to get the base area dug out, as well as a bunch of tower pad work in addition to other deep snow related activities.
After the morning meeting, we headed out quickly to help the area dig out from the significant overnight dump. Our first task was to dig out the EPA ramp, and then we gave the lift operators a hand digging out and setting the fencing around EPA. It was difficult work, but eventually we found all the fencing and were able to reset it, and we had the ramp looking good.
The next priority was to dig out under the chair at the base, since a significant amount of snow had fallen/blown in overnight there as well. Sam, who was back for winter break, donned a sled vest and gave us a hand…
By 9:40 or so, things were looking good, and the lift started spinning to the delight of the significant number of folks waiting in line. Below is a pic of Toby and Sam showing our nearly finished shovel job….
As soon as the lift started spinning, patrol hopped on and headed for the top to gear up for opening the hill. Toby and I donned our avalanche gear and headed over to RTS to do control work, and it was deep. Thankfully, Ian closed the run while we were working, and even though it was super deep, we only saw minimal movement. It did look like a small natural release had occurred earlier, but for the most part we were able to control it without incident. Then it was time to call the run open, and head down to get some of the goods. I dropped in first, and then snapped a few pictures of Toby tele-skiing through some of the deepest snow I’d seen in awhile.
We worked our way down the run, skiing one at a time for safety, and then headed over to Amber’s to see if we could work our way through the deep snow to exit to Twilight. Fortunately for us, several other folks joined us after about 5 minutes, and we gang skied the run (which wasn’t groomed) to get a track in for an exit. It took about 10 minutes with about 8 of us, including Jensen and a few others, but we finally made it out.
I headed down George, and then loaded EPA to make one more run, this time on Timburr, after checking on a stuck skier up top. After riding the deep blower pow, I saw Toby working on tower pads on Midway, and decided to give him a hand. It was ridiculously deep on Midway, and getting to the tower pads presented a significant challenge, but eventually we got them done. I snapped a few photos of Toby “skiing” between the tower pads, as shown below….it was literally waist deep with skis on.
After working my ass off for most of the morning, I caught up with Dan for a few runs in the early afternoon. We spun a couple of laps on RTS, and Dan was kind enough to take a few photos of me getting into the white room, even after the area had been open for over half the day…
After skiing RTS, I grabbed the camera back and returned the favor of shooting a few photos of Dan on Timburr, and then we worked our way back to RTS for one more lap before heading down to the base to get some well deserved lunch.
It was really refreshing to enjoy a hot microwaved lunch of leftover Pad Thai on a cold day, and I wolfed it down quickly. The snow was great, and there was still work to do, so I headed out to the truck to drop my lunch box back off before we headed out. While there, I grabbed a quick pic of the beer I’d brought for the day, a super tasty Dark Star stout from Fremont Brewing. Although I would enjoy this beer after the day was done (and I did), I can say without a doubt that this is one of my favorite stout’s of all time.
With lunch over, Dan and I headed back out on the hill, and headed up to RTS. Our plan was to get a crew together to work on tower pads on Twilight, and to take care of fencing that was still up at the bottom of RTS (from earlier in the year when the area got a cat stuck). We were successful in getting the fencing picked up before it was totally buried, as well as getting some good turns in the process. When we got to the bottom of RTS, I took my board off to work on the fencing and immediately sank up to my chest!
Next up, Dan and I fielded a crew and headed down Rough Cut to work on tower pads. This was easier said than done, since Rough Cut hadn’t been groomed, and also hadn’t seen a skier all day. We started down, and it was brutal. Our crew consisted of myself, Dan, Mike, Ken, Stefan and Jan.
I ended up having to walk down the entire run (turns were impossible) in chest deep snow. After me, Dan was able to keep his skis on and basically skin in waist deep snow. By the time the third or fourth person came down, they could (slowly) ski in our track. This system worked pretty well, and allowed us to be as efficient as we could given the super deep conditions.
By the time we reached the groomer at the base of Twilight, all of us were dog tired, and super happy to get out of the deep snow. I must admit, after 12 years of being on patrol, that was probably about as hard as I’ve ever worked.
After the brutal tower pad work, I had time for one or two more laps before heading up to help with sweep. I got to share a ride with Jen on one of the rides up, and it was really nice to get to chat with her since she’d been out for quite awhile with health issues. I snapped the below photo of her on the ride up, and it puked on us while we visited, like it had done all day long…
By 4:00 pm, I worked my way to the top of EPA to help with sweep, and it was starting to get dark. I drew a closing run of Timburr, which meant more work to take care of the fencing around the snow gun, as well as the race shack. No worries though, I still had a little energy left in the tank, and was just super grateful for all the new snow.
We swept the mountain clean without incident, and took care of the fencing at the gun and the race shack, then gathered around the patrol room for the evening meeting as it was getting dark. Everyone was beat after working like dogs all day, but it was super nice to be able to score such deep powder and to take advantage of the lifts that I don’t think we even cared.
After the evening meeting, we headed to the cars, and I enjoyed that super tasty Dark Star stout while changing out of my patrol gear. My truck had over a foot of snow on it, which made for over 36 inches of snow in the past 24 hours, and probably 60 inches of new snow in the past three days. After digging out and heading down the road, I thought to myself that while it may not have been the deepest day I’d ever been a part of, it had to rank right up there at the top. One thing’s for sure, winter is here, and I couldn’t be happier about it!
December 23, 2021 – Willamette Pass
Dan and I had been planning on taking Thursday off to make some turns at the Pass, but it didn’t look like the lifts would be turning. Not to worry, we threw in the packs and skins and headed up to the Pass early, leaving Dan’s around 6:00 am. The drive up went quickly, and we stopped off at Gold Lake to change into ski boots and gear. After a quick chat with Jensen, who was also heading up to make turns, we made the short drive to the Pass, dug out a spot to park the truck, and headed out.
There was about 6-8 inches of fresh, heavy snow at the base, and it took us 20 minutes or so to shovel out a spot for Dan’s Toyota. Then, after a quick jaunt across the highway, we followed Jensen’s skin track up Timburr Glades…
The snow on the front side of the mountain was in decent shape, but there was a pretty firm crust under the new snow from the the rain from a few days earlier. Once we topped out at the top of High Lead, we decided to head over to Peak 2 to see if we could find some better conditions.
As we made our way over to Peak 2, the snow felt better, and when we arrived at the top, there was about 10 inches of fresh and it appeared there wasn’t the persistent crust that was on the front side. The snow stake was at 42 inches, and we wasted little time ripping skins and making our first run down Northern. I dropped in first, and the turns were really nice, and Dan followed as I snapped a few pics…
We worked our way down to the bottom of the run, and the coverage was excellent. At the bottom, we were both stoked, and quickly transitioned over to skins and started up Escalator. The wind was ripping up Escalator as we headed up, and soon we worked our way to the top and up Boundary.
Back at the top of Peak 2, it was time for a snack, and also time to enjoy the beer we’d put on ice a little earlier. My beer of choice, and also Dan’s since I brought one for him, was a super tasty Big Winter barley wine from Good Life Brewing. The notes of caramel and chocolate definitely hit the spot, and we enjoyed a few drinks before putting them back on ice so we could enjoy another run.
Northern was so good on the first lap that we decided a second was in order. This time, Dan grabbed the camera, and took some shots of me as I ripped through the powder. As before, we made turns down to the bottom of the run, then headed back up our skin track, which was mostly filled in, back to the top of Peak 2.
Back at the top, we took another brief break, and enjoyed some more of our beer before heading out for a third lap. For lap three, we decided to head down and check out June’s Run, which proved to hold even better snow than our first two laps.
We took turns with the camera shooting pics of each other making turns though the primo pow, and worked our way down June’s and then over to the lift line for some more turns before traversing over to the Northern/Escalator runout.
We put in a skin track back up to the base of Northern, and then back up our existing, and yet again filled in, skin track up Escalator.
Back at the top of Peak 2, we enjoyed what was left of our beers, and decided that one more lap on June’s was in order. For our fourth lap on the backside, we determined the snow was as good or better than it had been all day.
Like before, we skied out to the bottom, traversed over to our skinner, and headed back up one more time to the top of Peak 2. At the top, we collected our gear, and headed over to the top of EPA. After spending all day in the wind and snow, we were a bit cold by the time we reached EPA, and decided a brief stop in the patrol bump shack was in order. It sure felt good to take a nice break in the shack with the heater going to warm up and dry out some of our gear…
After enjoying a warm space and a good break, it was time to head down the front side for some more turns and then make our way back to the truck before the light waned too much. At the top of EPA, we stepped into our bindings and poked over towards RTS to check it out, but it was super wind scoured and the wind was blazing, so we opted to ski Success, which proved to be a good choice…
Success was in superb shape, and the snow was fast. We did hit the crust we’d encountered on the skin up, but only a couple of times, and both of us were super happy with the run when we got to the bottom. After skiing Success, we cruised down George and the turns were awesome — reminiscent of some of our April days from years past after the Pass was closed and after a big cold, late season dump.
At the bottom, we made our way back to the highway quickly, and then over to the truck, which had 4-6 inches of fresh cold snow on it. Clearing it off didn’t take long, and then we headed back down to Gold Lake to grill some ‘brats and enjoy a cold beer. As usual, both the ‘brats and the beer hit the spot, and made for a great way to end the day. I washed my brats down wiht a tasty Orange Kreamciscle Ale from Pelican Brewing, and soon it was nearly dark and time to hit the road.
The drive down to Oakridge was uneventful, but after Oakridge it turned into a bit of a mess. A five car pile near Dexter involving a hay truck had sent several folks to the hospital, and the road ended up being closed for about three hours. Rather than sit on the highway, we decided to head back to Oakridge to Jensen’s house, and were able to visit with him and Hilary for a couple of hours until the road opened. It was good to catch up with Jensen, and even though we didn’t get home until around 10:30, it was still a superb day getting some earned pow turns in at the Pass!