Nick Drake

I wrote a huge review on this and closed the window before my photo had loaded, loosing everything. Here is an abridged version. They had good ideas, but they missed important points.The bad:It is not one size fits all. The hip belt is fixed and it only fits properly with torso lengths in the 19.5"-20.5" range. It was too long for me at 18.5" and my friend at 19", yet to short for another friend who is 21.25".The hip belt is huge. I have a 35" waist and had it cinched fully trying to get weight on my hips.Base of the o flex frame hits my glutes.A FRAME SKI CARRY WILL ONLY WORK WITH NARROW TAIL WIDTHS OVER 135mm.Snowboard carry is cumbersome and ineffective. Base of the board is attached to the ice axe straps with a female piece that clips around the board. Straps tighten down and out away from the center of the pack. Due to the length of the extra strap they give you the buckles end up right on the sidewall of a normal width snowboard. This makes it impossible to properly tighten the strap down.Top strap attaches to the compression straps and again is cumbersome and difficult to tigthen.The hydration sleeve is in the back panel, tube goes through the shoulder strap which is sewn into the body of the pack which means that the tube blocks full access into the back panel and makes it difficult to open. On top of this the tube does not go through the shoulder strap, increasing the chance of freezing and requiring you to rely on clipping it to a shoulder strap to hold it down. Nice reciepe for getting smacked in the face when you have to straightline a chute.The "helmet carry" is an absolute JOKE. It's just an elastic piece of fabric that is supposed to clip into loops on the top of the pack. It's sized properly for a low profile bicycle helmet. Clips don't hold solidly and can easily be knock out of place.The good:Avy pocket is extremely well designed, quick to identify (red zipper pulls) and inside is well laid out. There was a little ziper pocket perfect for a first aid kit in with them.Ice Axe carry is a good design on the bottom, little tabs on the top for the handle seem questionable. Didn't get a chance to try them since I only did one mellow trip up to camp muir with this.Tie downs on the top and bottom of the pack are great for attaching your rope, crampons, sleeping bag, etc...I ended up returning this pack for an Osprey Kode 38 and couldn't be happier. That pack was extremely well thought out and attention was paid to the details. With this pack I was left wondering whether the designer had done anything beyond backpacking.

Is better den ya pack. My pack parts the seas. Your pack farts and queefs.
My pack rumble in the jungle. Your pack got touched by ya uncle.

Ok sorry enough Mikey Avalon lyrics. In a nutshell Osprey is awesome. I've had a couple backpacks before this. Last try was the ortovox haute route 45 which is a "one size fits someone with a torsoe length of 20-21" and this is all we make". Aside from actually having proper sizes I was very impressed with the molded back panel. It has a proper curve for your lumbar, too many packs I've tried seem to be deigned believing that your back is a vertical line.

Back panel access allow you to get to things easy and quickly without spilling everything onto the hill like a traditional top loader. The shoulder straps unclip at the load lifters so the hyrdation tube stays in the back panel and doesn't block gear (like the ortovox did). The hydration sleeve zips into it's own compartment on the back panel, and it has a metal grommet on the bottom to drain any potential leaks! That's a great bit of attention to detail.

The dry and wet pocket seperation is great. Having a drain for the wet pocket as well will come in handy for skins on the spring/summer days. I used a pocket in with the avy equipment to put a small first aid kit, fits perfectly.
Great a-frame, cross carry, AND snowboard carry. Most packs only seem to be effective on one to two of those accounts. Ice axe carry is very simple and effective.

Top panel holds my helmet perfectly and it has a small zippered panel on the bottom, so you can store food etc. and have someone be able to get it out quickly for you.

The a-frame carry straps make a z line up the side of the pack, reef them down and thing compresses to wafer thin. Top panel can be tightened down and the pack compresses to 20l type size.

Oh yeah and they also HAVE A LIFETIME WARRANTY. I'm completely sold.

I had previously used the bca tracker mainly and tried a few other transcievers as well. I picked up the S1 after reading multiple reviews mainly hoping for a much quicker search time.
After a quick skim of the manual I was able to recover a burried beacon within 5 minutes on my first try using this transciever. In comparision I averaged around 8-9 minutes with a BCA. I hadn't used the BCA extensively and I'm sure I could get my times down with it, but not to the same degree.
The intial search is very easy and quick, it follows a flux line well even moving quickly. For your final grid search remember to slow down and do not go to small on your final grid (as you would with any other transciever). I had a back pack burried on the downhill side of a tree well on one search and was only looking at around a 5' square, I decided to go a little wider only to find the readings go down even futher on the downhill side of the trees. The pack was stuffed in the branches on the downhill side. Doing a proper search was much quicker then digging through a tree :)
I really like the circle diagram and the faint outline during the final search, it beats trying to memorize your lowest reading. I can see that being very handy in a real life situation where you are more prone to panic.
Battery life was great, after going through an afternoon of searches I was still at 98% battery life.

Overall I'm very happy with the S1, it is well worth the extra money.

A boot that actually fits and LOCKS even the narrowest heels down! Getting a boot that actually locks my heels down has always been a PITA for me because I have a very narrow heel. From 91-05 I've always had to deal with some amount of heel lift since I could never find anything that really fit. I got my first pair of salomons back in 05, the dialouge wides. They were a lot softer then I would like, but they held my heels down and were wide enough in the front (the std Salomon last was too narrow).

Last season I tried out the F22s when they came up on steep and cheap. They had the support I wanted along with the heel hold, unfortunetly like the older salomons they were just too narrow. After three runs my right foot started to fall asleep :(

So this year I figured I would get the synapse wide. I went to a local shop and tried them on and they just didn't seem that supportive even though they were rated a 7 just like the F22 was. The guy at the shop recommended that I try out the F24 and said that they made the front of their last a little wider this year.

Hell yes they did! These things are great, the width is just right in the front, still great heel hold, and just the perfect amount of support. I've got a pretty normal width foot so I don't know why they had made all their older boots so narrow, but it seems that they fixed that.

Ok so enough about that, the features on these kick ass as well. The insoles are quality with real arch support (although I think I will keep on using superfeet insoles).

The lacing system is the best out their IMO. The inner liner is ready to go with one pull, and quickly locks in. THe upper tightens super easily as well, and on the F series boots each of the three upper tabs locks in place independently. This means you get to set the tension on the lower part of the boot, mid ankle area, and top completely separate. Leave the upper a little loose for runs through the park, while being able to keep the lower tight to lock your foot in place! It works much better then a boa system in terms of adjustment and it is every bit as quick to tighten down.

The memory foam does the trick, they mold to your feet very well, and are very comfortable.

The deal with the F series is that the lower portion of the liner is built right to the outer portion of the boot (the upper portion of the liner is separate). This cuts down on the weight of the boot (these are super light) and significantly in the length of the boot, they say it is around one full size shorter then a standard boot. This is especially important for you medium to big footed guys.

I just got the 162 as my new powder stick and finally got a chance to try it out today. It was only around 6-12" on top of some pretty hard pack, so nothing too crazy, but enough to test it's ability to float... which it does. I think this actually should be called the Zeppelin because it might as well be filled with helium.
The good:
It floats like nothing I've ever riden, no effort on the back leg required at all with the stance only back ~1.25". Since you can ride a more centered stance you can also ride switch really easily.
It pops off of anything, I went off a little mound in the powder that was the begining of a mogul today and popped nearly chest high. Flat out ridiculous. Since you don't have to flex the tail out to get it up you can pop really well off what would normally be a small roller, or off of narrow traversing track bumps.
It is LIGHT. I have last years 158 Jibpan for my hardpack board and it feels like a lead brick compared to this board. The jibpan had their lightest core last year, but with this new honeycomb core they came out with, the Gyrator is just ridiculous.
If you want to do spins in powder, it has NO swing weight, the thing feels like it's 10cm shorter when you spin.

The bad:
This is definitely not a quiver killer. You can ride hard pack with it, but it is, ummm..., well kind of interesting. Stability is not a way that I would describe it, since the only part of your base which touches the snow is in between your bindings. It stays that way until you are hard on an edge (which I don't recommend; it wants to turn too sharp to actually carve hard).
This also means that it is a little bit sketchy on steep hard (ice) run ins. Just edge hard and you will be fine, but just keep in mind that it may not hold as easily as your old powder (ie large) board did.
When it is choppy, warms up, and gets heavy the board is a little bit soft. If it's all been tracked out (like it was this afternoon) I would go back to my normal board after lunch.

Basically if you really enjoy powder, want to be able to ride it very easily, and you can afford two boards (or just don't ride hardpack - you lucky bastard) then this is the board to get IMHO. Forget about the tapered boards that just try to sink the tail and ride a board that is actually designed to float.

Notes on me if you care; I started riding in 92. I have ridden more boards than I can remember. Before this board I had a K2 Recon Riser 165 for my big mountain / pow board. It really is not a very good board for powder (spring slush is a whole other story). I still have the Recon and will probably ride it once in a while if I want to just haul balls.
My normal board is a K2 Jibpan 158, which is not at all a jib board, as the name implies. Think narrow Zeppelin with carbon torsion forks instead of metal.
After demo-ing a Lib Tech TRS 159 with magnetraction and banana tech the Jibpan will be getting replaced. Seriously banana tech is flat out amazing for normal all around stuff..., but full rocker still kills it in pow. :)