using digital camera on the mountain

Unexpected tax refund made me thinking.. What's a good camera to
take on the mountain, and more importantly, what's the technique?

I did get a couple of decent snaps with my digital Minolta F-100 (4MP,
3x optical zoom). I was setting everything to manual - this camera
actually allows that. Minimum aperture (f8 I think), fixed focus (~20 feet),
fixed shutter (minimum), ISO 100. Then gave the camera to my friend
and instructed her to not use LCD but use an eyepiece, and just press
shutter release and hold it keeping the rider (myself) in frame. This
produced a series of shots, and out of about 8 a couple were actually
pretty good. Here's one:

http://www.azazello.net/misc/sb.jpg

Now that camera is gone for good and I'm thinking about getting a
new one.

Having a big zoom is desirable I guess, but at the same time
would you be comfortable riding with big hard objects in the
backpack? This just doesn't seem to be a good idea to me,
back injuries are among the worst. Something slim and easily
pocketable seems to be the ticket, but those cameras only
have 3x zoom at best.

Also, manual controls are a concern. I'm not sure even the
latest consumer cameras can handle focusing on fast moving
targets on the snow. Snow usually throws their metering off
and they overexpose like crazy.

Maybe a pocket-size camera and a telephoto add-on lens would do
the job?

Anyway, if you have any positive experience with taking
action shots while snowboarding, please share. TIA!

--
Dmitry