Another Great Weekend Come and Gone

Today marks the end of another awesome weekend of skiing for me.  I was lucky enough to get another 4 day weekend to ski, hit some fresh pow, ski new terrain, drop a few cliffs, test out some new sticks, and get above and out of the nasty inversion in the valley.

Friday started out with a film day at Snowbasin.  The new PR Director, Jason, had scheduled a shoot with some local pro and up and coming riders. It was my first shoot with solely snowboarders, and I enjoyed the riding differences and opinions on terrain that they brought.  The plan was to show the early season riding promoting Snowbasin, and to send the video to Transworld Snowboarding Magazine. Unfortunately the weather wasn't on our side and we shot in a grey bird setting.  The footage turned out decent despite the lighting, but we're planning on getting a reshoot later on.  We'll use the reshoot footage to send to Transworld.

Saturday was great with Snowbasin finally opening up the John Paul lift.  I was so toked to finally get off the flat groomers and be able to ski the steeper terrain.  The snowpack was only about 12"-24" deep but it still allowed for some great riding.  After a short session I headed to Scout Steed's brithday bash up in Farmington Canyon.  Her two year birthday party was a sledding session high up in the mountains.  It was a lot of fun playing in the snow, eating chili, drinking wassel, and sitting by a fire with friends and family.  I built up a jump for the sled and ending up launching everyone, including myself, about 10 feet off the ground, which made for good laughs and heart pounding excitement.

Sunday brought in another full day of skiing followed by a good game of hockey.  Boy do I love my Sunday night hockey games.

And yesterday was spent skiing at Solitude.  I had good company and good snow which made for a great day.  I skied all over the mountain, enjoying all that there was to offer.  The snow was soft and deep enough in some places to hit some cliffs.  I finally dropped my first cliff of the season on a series of three 10 foot cliffs. 

Now after all of that, of course I'm in a great mood.  Here's to my last week of work. 
Sunday was

Spring Fling

The month of April always seems to bring some of the best storms of the year. I always look forward to this time of the year as coverage is usually good and the snowpack is pretty consolidated and safe.

This edit is up there for the level of fun had during editing.  It definitely isn't the best of skiing I've had all year, but the edit is fun to watch. 

Here's a little bit of the spring madness.


Spring Fling from Free 2 Be Productions on Vimeo.

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