For this blog, I’ve got a goal of putting up at least one new post a month or if it works out, one a week–or better.
But if you’re still interested in reading more, check out a “non-gray” rider whose site I’ve praised before. Shannon at Shayboarder is putting together (among other things) a series of profiles of various people in the industry, such as a professor of the ski business.
If you will need or want a new snowboard, bindings, or boots for next season, this might be a good time to go shopping. You can save a lot of money off retail.
One place that may be worthwhile is Sierra Snowboard. I’ve never bought anything from them, but their site has several features that could be useful. There are user forums, a Wiki, a chat, and helpful videos, to start with.
There are many places where you can buy snowboards, so look around.
GraysOnTrays.com has a directory of North American ski and snowboard resorts. It lists most if not all places with a web presence, sometimes giving a snapshot from Google Earth so that you can see where the places are in relationship to each other.
But here’s a tool that may be even better: the Ski Bonk directory. (Here’s a look at Colorado.) It uses Google Maps to give you a map of a given state, with icons representing some lift-served terrain. It even gives, for each area, snow conditions and the number of lifts open. Click on the icon to get even more goodies, such as trail maps and a weather forecast.
The About page says the service is “a mashup of SnoCountry, OnTheSnow, Weather Underground, the National Weather Service, and several other data feeds to provide a graphical view of worldwide skiing conditions on a Google map.”
The service appears to use your Internet address to provide the default map, but you can type in the name of a state, city, or even a ski area. (Be sure to put the name of the resort in the appropriate box, or you’ll get invalid results.)
Try it out!
Like most people who manage a web site of some sort, I look at traffic-management software to see what other web sites are bringing people to the Grays on Trays site. The other day I found something a bit unusual: Snowboarding for Tourettes.
The about page explains the origin of the site, and introduces the publisher, who might qualify as a “Grays on Trays” person–if he had hair.
Bob is a 41-year old man who has Tourettes, “a neurological disorder characterized by repetitive vocal and motor tics affecting about 200,000 people in the United States.”
Here’s what he says about himself–and why the site showed up on my radar: “There are many older snowboarders than myself.” He gives a link to GOT and then says “I am not gray since I am bald, besides I enjoy the younger more hip look.”
Not to worry, Bob, or anyone else. You don’t have to have gray hair–or any hair–to enjoy snowboarding in the adult years. Some of us are more hip; some of us are worried about our hips. But we all enjoy sliding down the snow on a board. Thanks for the link!
If you’re looking for new snowboarding equipment, clothing, or anything else related to sliding on the snow, you can get some discounts if you shop now.
I’ll be heading out to a local shop later this week as they start to clear out their winter gear and turn their floor over to summer goods. It will be a bittersweet experience, I’m sure: a chance to save some money, but a reminder that we’re heading into the cruelest month when the lifts close, the ground is soggy, and the winds blow.
You can supplement your in-store shopping by going online. The other day I mentioned Steep and Cheap (SAC). You can find similar deals at Whiskey Militia and The Daily Steal. Whiskey Militia offers up yet another version of the pseudo-gangsta feel that plagues snowboarding, while TDS is more of a conventional shop. SAC, meanwhile, has more of a “I’m a fan of the Hitchhikers Guide” feel to it. If you know what you’re looking for–or at just lucky–any could serve your needs.
Many ski areas offer online trail maps, but only a few do it right.
Some places require you to down load a PDF file. For the resort’s staff, that’s the easiest and least time-consuming approach. Vail, offers as PDF, as does Michigan’s Boyne Mountain. If you don’t have a color printer, a PDF map loses some of its value, and on some computers, it takes a while to open the Acrobat Reader. A nice supplement to PDF maps is to give site visitors the option to view a JPEG map as well. Ohio’s Mad River Mountain does this.
Not quite as desirable is a JPEG map. Jackson Hole, Wyoming presents an overview map that is fairly useless for anything but drilling down to a smaller area of terrain. But even then, the result is unsatisfying. Zoom in on the Gondola area, and you get an unreadable JPEG file. You can zoom into that file, but only once.
Flash technology can be useful; with that, you can click on, say, a blue square to see all the blue slopes. Click on another icon and all the lifts show up. (Minnesota’s Afton Alps gives an example of this approach, but the results don’t work out too well. The trail names are printed in a very small type size.)
Some resort maps let you zoom in quite a ways. Aspen/Snowmass uses this approach. The company offers three versions of maps: low- or high-resolution JPEG, or Flash. But again, the maps can be hard to read if you look at a large section of the map, and if you zoom in too much, it’s easy to lose perspective of the rest of the mountain.
How about having multiple options? Mammoth Mountain offers three choices: a PDF map, an interactive Flash map, and what the resort calls a “static map.” Actually, it’s better than a static map; you can scan and pan the terrain, and the fonts are a reasonable size.
I’ve been experimenting with the trail map at Gunstock, New Hampshire. (Here’s the page from which you can launch the map.) It’s interactive, meaning that you can select from trails of various colors. That’s fairly common.
But Gunstock goes one better by giving you pop-up windows that dispense more information. See that squashed little oval icon at the base? Hover over the icon and you’ll find out that it’s the tubing area.
Then head to the slopes and Gunstock shines. Want to find black diamonds? Easy enough. But then click on a specific trail and you’ll find some commentary on that trail. The note for Upper Recoil says “A couple of steeper pitches, but wide.” The intermediate snowboarder looking to advance to diamond slopes might find this to be a good place to start. On the other hand, the notes for Tiger Steeps reads “like skiing through Volkswagens.” These notes–assuming that they are accurate and are not merely marketing fluff–make the map more valuable than most.
Today I’m adding a new feature to the sidebar, a list of some worthy destinations related to snowboarding. (It’s called “Other destinations.”)
The first one to go up, today, is “The World of Snowboarding Through Fembot Eyes,” or more simply, Shayboarder.
Shayboarder, or more formally, Shannon, is a young (in her 20s) Internet professional with a passion for riding and an ability for writing that surpasses that of many snowboarding enthusiasts. Rather than simply dreaming of trips to the mountains, Shay can easily reach the slopes; she lives in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. Not a bad place to start a career, wouldn’t you say? I’ve known of her from other online forums, and eventually stumbled across her blog. We have exchanged a few pleasant and informative e-mails.
Currently, Shay’s blog has lots of photos from SIA 2008, a big tradeshow of the folks who bring us snowboards, skis, and the like. If you ever wondered what a “splitboard” looks like, you’ll find a photo of one on her blog.
Shay’s blog deserves some recognition here because it has some great photos, insightful comments, and well, she links to this blog. Her blog has an RSS feed, of course, so you don’t have to actively go out and find new content; it will come to you. In the coming days, I’ll comment about something she said that could, not to be too dramatic about it, could save your life.
Welcome, Shay!
I’ve get up a Google News alert with various terms related to snowboarding, so I can keep up on the news. This morning’s alert pointed me to a web site that gives a review of this blog. It’s called Blogged.com. According to the “About Us” page, “Blogged.com is a blog directory that offers reviews, ratings, and comments on a categorized list of popular blogs.” (Here’s the page for the GraysOnTrays blog.) A pop-up screen says that ratings are “based on professional editors who evaluate a blog based on the following criteria: Frequency of Updates, Relevance of Content, Site Design, and Writing Style.
I’m happy to find that the Grays on Trays blog scored an 8.1 out of 10, which translates into “very good.” Of course, a 10 would be even better, but that just gives something to shoot for. “Site design” could certainly use some help. Design has never been me strength, and I recognize the wisdom of division of labor. I’ve never been satisfied with the look of this blog, so if you’ve got some ideas for spiffing it up, send me an e-mail.
Are you ready for yet another social networking site?
One development on the web in recent years has been the proliferation of social networking sites. Some, such as Facebook, are geared for high school students. Others such as MySpace, cast a wider net, and others, such as LinkedIn, are less social and more for professional networking.
In the age of niche marketing comes Go211.com, a new networking site for “action sports athletes and enthusiasts.” It has the usual features, allowing users to upload and view each others photos and videos. You’ll find the usual hip hop and clipped English that you might expect.
The site, which skews to a younger demographic, claims to be the place where you can “watch rad clips and listen to killer tracks. ” Those killer tracks include genres that some grays on trays may not even be aware of, such as crunk, dub, and happy hardcore. Say what?
On the other hand, its portfolio does include some professional riders, including “old” riders Shaun Palmer and Seth Wescott. Whether any of the pros actually write, we can’t say.
All in all there seems to be little to attract at least some older riders. But it is a sign that snowboarding continues to be an attractive business, as well as a recreation.
Colorado Ski Country is worth looking at. It’s a mix of a traditional web site and a blog.
