Sunday, March 15, 2009

Jump time

After a hectic trip to the west coast chasing snow I made a 10 hour stop at home and repacked my bags and headed to Idaho in search of more snow. AJ de Saint Phalle, Ian Cosco, Kyler Cooley, and I arrived to the trailhead mid-storm to find over a foot of snow. The snow didn't subside until the following evening, leaving us bottomless landings and incredibly fun snowmobiling.


We spent the next couple of days skiing powder and finding natural take-offs, waiting for blue skies. Once visibility improved, the four of us picked up our shovels and began shaping lips.
After all was said and done, we managed to hit our share of jumps, spending the majority of our digging hours on a gap (we named it the McCall Jump) that would have made Ostness proud. I hope the pictures do it justice, and I'll keep anyone who reads this updated on my whereabouts in the coming weeks.

Best chairlift ever!


Monday, March 9, 2009

Driving along in my automobile

After a long weekend with my mom and brother in Salt Lake City I said my fond farewells, dropped them at the airport, and promptly began my journey to the west coast. After forecasts of two to four feet in Oregon's Cascade Mountain Range I was excited to get out of Utah. While it was great to take some runs with my family, get fed delicious food, and play tour guide for a few days, Utah's conditions made it a no-brainer to get as far away from crust layers and ice as possible.

After nearly 700 miles in my truck I made it to Oregon to find an updated forecast calling for just less than foot of snow over the next few days. We tried our luck the next day and ended up hitting a jibby rock hoping the snow would pile up.

Later that day I was back in my truck driving to California. While Tahoe was getting hammered with a storm that shut ski resorts down we tried our luck four hours to the west, and hit the jackpot. We landed in a zone in the middle of nowhere, battled no crews (other than a group of partying slednecks), and found both great terrain and snow conditions.

As the wind and sun began to affect the snow, some of our crew went back to Oregon, while Cosco, Kyler Cooley, and myself made our 13 hour drive to Northern Utah just in time for another 18-30 inch storm.

While I ended up behind the wheel of my car far more than usual, this past trip turned out to be pretty successful by the time it wrapped up. I think we all bagged a few shots for Rage's new movie (insert movie name here) and I'm hoping to get a few more bangers in the coming days. And to put a positive spin on the almost 2000 miles I drove in the past week or so Nica Dev will be seeing a few more trees donated to their efforts of improving life in Nicaragua. Prior to this trip the whole Rage crew had been doing a great job making conscious efforts to reduce all of our carbon footprints.
I'll keep you all updated on as this trip pans out, but until then, enjoy the pictures below. I hope you're all getting plenty of good snow in your neck of the woods and that Spring takes it's time getting here.


Is that Chug on his new XP? In both pictures!?
I just realized how much I played out that volcano in every single pictures background.
And I promised my brother I'd put a shot of him in one of these blog updates. He's almost grabbing, but by the end of the weekend he had 720 mutes on lock (his rail game could use a little work though...)