Kiteboard C.Slicks - March 3rd

I'll let the video do most of the speaking but wow, what a place!  

I felt right on, all the snowkiting over the winter really helped out to keep me into it. A good start to the year - but I am still a bit disappointed I didn't push it harder. 

Snowkite Canaan Vally, WV - Feuary 10th

Kited all day with my friend Kevin on the 12m Waroo - was gusty but were still able to keep the kite up in the lulls and awesome power in the gusts. We hit the same spot Greg scoped out. Awesome time...

Snowkite PA - Febuary 2nd

The spot and wind direction was awesome, kinda 'side-up' the mountain so you could just fly straight up the mountain then depower and ride the powder down. Coming down you were almost able to go straight up wind using gravity instead of kite power. Unfortunately it turned out we were on private property so we can't just freely use that spot.

Thanks for all the sweet pictures, of course it's always depressing to see jumping pictures of yourself cause it always feels like you're going 3 times as high as you actually are.

No video coming - I wasn't able to get enough footage cause Vali's Digital SLR was wayyyyyy too much fun to use! I did get a bit of footage so hopefully I can combine that with another weekend and put together a sweet video.

Snowkite PA - January 27th

First of all, the movie:
http://elliott.gould.googlepages.com/SnowkitePA1_27_2007.WMV

Sparky and I headed out to PA to find some snow & wind. We were getting concerned about 30min out of our destination and there was no snow. Then all of a sudden we climbed 1500 feet in about 10 min and the snow magically appeared! We ended up exploring a few back roads and found a piece of land in the middle of no where that would do just fine. Left our car in the middle of the road and went from there.


This was my first time snowkiting really, this was Kevin's first time with a 4 line kite! We traded off with the 9m waroo all day. I probably would have been better off on the 12 but no big deal - the 9 was enough most of the time.

I was incredibly impressed with how well Kevin did. He has been flying the 3m trainer and a landboard for a few months now - I had expected him to have a little trouble with the 4 line kite (as most do). First time I hooked him into the kite he flew it for 10min without crashing it. 2nd time he put on the skis and was RIPPING it up!

By the end of the day he had about 2 or 3 passes where he actually stayed up wind!

We brought out the rail about 1/2 way through the day - it changed things up a bit:


Overall it was an awesome day. We were on the snow around 10am and left around 4pm - both totally done! The place we went wasn't anything special, but we scouted a real sweet place on the way out - I'll write up about that in a separate post.

The rest of the pictures can be found here:
http://www.pbase.com/kgoneumd/snowkites1_27

(for some reason Kevin wanted to go with B&W on all these - don't ask me why)

p.s. big thanks to Bruno for lending me a waist harness and Bar & lines

Kiteboard Dewey Beach - Monday January 15th (5hr)

Another 65+ day in January... which let me have a great time but geeze... Global warming is here ladies and gents. Anyways, I pulled up to the beach around 10, two others were there. I put up my 12m but took it down almost immediately - a bit much. Rigged up my 9m and it was just perfect. I got right into it working on my Sbends, Unhooked railies, rolls and and occasional kite loop in the mix. Although I didn't pull off a kite loop today I definitely was pushing it harder than any other session and learning a ton - these were really my first attempts at powered loops. In the past I've been throwing them a little underpowered, which meant I'd only be pulled off the water a meter or so. Today I was unhooking, going up a few meters then pulling the trigger... I'm glad I was wearing my impact vest!

After a few hours the wind picked up, gusts to 40, which I wanted nothing to do with so I went in to warm up and rest. I returned around 1 rested, warmed up - the wind was still heavy but good. Went out and worked on boosting huge, but more importantly coming down soft, until the wind backed down to 30 or so around 2. For the next hour or 2 I was riding unhooked like 20% of the time. I was working on linking my unhooked tricks (mostly railies) together without hooking back it. I was huffing and puffing and for the first time since my windsurfing days my arms / shoulders / legs / body was just fucking beat - it felt great. I was planning on calling it a day soon when I went for3 or 4 unhooked railies in a row - on the 3rd or 4th (last one) I stomped it expecting to ride away and KABOOM my board blew up right under my feet :-(

Kinda sucks I gotta buy a new board but at the same time I once read "if you're not breaking boards you're not trying hard enough" on kiteforum. The hammersurf served me well, it was just about time to retire it anyways. You'll be missed buddy...

p.s. anyone have any good ideas of what to do with broken boards? It's actually still in one piece... Maybe we could get 3 or 4 of them together and build a slider out of them?

Kiteboard Cape Hatteras - Monday January 8th (1.5hr)

We had to leave the island by 1:30 so we got to the beach at 8am hoping to maximize our time on the water. It was nuking. I put up my 9 and took it down almost immediately. Brett did the same. We hunkered in the car watching the satellite on Brett's crackberry while 45mph gusts rolled through. Around 10 Brett and I got a good 45 min perfectly powered on our 9s before it dropped out in a matter of minuets. I then pumped up my 16 and was underpowered on that w/ the Jimmy. Ben and I switched off on the 16 & Jimmy until we had to leave. We left the beach with 12m steady winds still blowing.

Kiteboard Cape Hatteras - Sunday January 7th (2hr)

Sunday we got to sleep in a bit. No wind in the AM. Ben and I hit the surf on the surfboard... wearing just board shorts!! It was refreshing. With some hope for wind we headed up to an ocean side launch, pumped up and waited. Kites went up but were unable to generate the power to get us moving. We scoped out a few other launches, made a stop at REAL and headed back home. The wind came up around 5:00 and I was ready with my 16, the Jimmy and a glow stick on each. Got out till about 6:30 ocean side. The waves were small but good sized for the Jimmy. Once the light was totally gone the waves seemed to come from out of no where and eat up my board.

Kiteboard Cape Hatteras - Saturday, January 6th (5hr)

Saturday we got a late start and didn't get out of Annapolis until about 3:30. Brett made up for that on the road and got us into the Salvo Day use area around 9:30. We met up with Jay there and headed out on our 11s and 12s. We were lit for the first 3 or so hours but then the wind started tapering off. After a lunch break Jay took us on a tour through the Planet of the Apes downwinder. Brett put up his 15, Jay put up his 13 Ben and I stayed on our 12s even though we knew we should have pumped up our 16s. The downwinder was fun, but we were all underpowered by the end.