Saturday, November 28, 2009

First Ski Edit

Here's that short ski edit of my first day out that I have been promissing would be out.  I finally got "most" of the kinks out of the compressed file.  I think that it's not bad for my first edit ever, and using only about 90 seconds of ski footage to make it work.

Enjoy and please let me know what ya think:

Friday, November 27, 2009

'09-'10 Season Goals

Yep it's that time of the year again.  The time of year that I actually produce goals.  And with the third day of skiing for the season completed, here they are in no particular order of importance:

1. Ski at least 45 days; includes both frontcountry and backcountry
2. Ski at least 800,000;
3. Ski the south face couloir of Ben Lomond with Christian
4. Drop S&S
5. Ski Monte Cristo
6. Ski Superior
7. Put a couple video segments together
8. Shoot more photos
9. Call in sick to work at least twice for a weekday storm dump of 15 inches or more
10. Solo Willard Peak ice drainage and then ski down into Liberty
11. Throw more 3’s
12. Stick the front flips in all conditions
13. Start throwing back flips
14. Stomp my line at the blonde cliffs with the flip
15. Find a hot ski babe to date

Pretty much amounts to mannin' up and huckin' more

Thursday, November 26, 2009

Thanksgiving Ski Day - Snowbasin



Day two of my '09-'10 ski season is under the belt and boy are my quads feeling it from the groomers.  I went up to Snowbasin, my resort choice of the year, for a couple of hours prior to the Thanksgiving festivities to get my legs in shape.  The resort only had a single run open, which is standard for opening day.  I got in a total of 5 laps before I had to head back to get ready.  That's a good 11,550 vertical feet on hard, loud snow.

I can't wait until winter is in its full swing and the runs are filled in.  I'm pretty sure that I'll have a lot of fun at Basin this year.

I'll post my season goals tomorrow.  Here's my awesome Basin Season Pass pic for ya to enjoy:

Monday, November 23, 2009

My Winter Has Started

I finally got out on my sweet Icelantic Nomads.  It has been exactly 7 months and 5 days since I was last on these bad boys, and man it was sure nice.  As the snow was falling in huge flakes Sunday night, Christian and I hatched our plan to skirt our work for the day and head out to get some video footage and just get out for some preseason powder.  I will admit that I had a hard time falling asleep because I had the "Christmas Eve" jitters as I couldn't wait for the morning to come.

Christian and I decided not to get out there until the skies had cleared and we had good light for filming.  That meant we wouldn't even hit the trail head until closer to 10:00 am.  This was a nice change of pace as Christian usually likes to meet at his place around the wonderful hour of 6:00 am.

The day was great with beautiful bluebird skies and a foot of 5% Utah blower powder on a minimal snowpack of unconsolidated snow.  Christian did his usual "skirt the main path" routine and we ended up getting a little bushwhacking in.  Nothing like climbing through a tough thicket first day out to get you ready for a full season.

Now the skinning, on the other hand, kicked my butt as I haven't done any cardio in close to 2 months.  I knew that'd be the case, so I just pushed on.

I had a couple of good face shots and Christian had some sweet powder bursts. The snow, was great. All the hidden shark tooths, ie rocks, weren't.  I seemed to hit a rock on every turn and that sucked.  Fortunately my Nomads held up to the "Wasatch Tune" I gave them.  I did hit a pretty good rock right when I started a turn going at a decent speed and ended up face planting.  Luckily I didn't hit my face on hidden rocks. And for you, luckily we caught it on tape.

Look for my season goals and my first skiing video edit to come out in the next day or two.  For now, here are some pics:

Christian a.k.a "The Dude" now resorting to bushwhacking after deadending us
















Traci, The Dude's cool wife





















 Looking up at Flagstaff





















Me setting up the camera with a nice sun flare





















Wolverine Cirque in the Background

Sunday, November 22, 2009

The Real Man

Every once in a while I feel that I need to remind myself, as well as those around me, what a real man is and what he should look like.  To become a real man, it takes much time, dedication, and discipline.  For me it took about 3 weeks.

You might be wondering what standard I have become and now I'll show you.

The Real Man "Cool Man" Look


































The Real Man "Excited" Look