i want this word to be a LINK
Protect Our Winters is a non-profit devoted to the mountains and snow we love. By funding renewable energy education programs, changing consumer habits, and re-thinking how the winter sports industry does business, we are making a difference where we can. We’re not perfect—we know—but another thing we know is it’s all about Starting Somewhere. Like hiking in fresh pow, it’s all about that first step. We all love to ride it and we all can help protect it. Get outside, mean it, and start somewhere.
I met up with Jeremy Jones, Nicolas Muller, Eric Brandit, and Billy Summers for a commercial shoot to help raise awareness about POW. The commercial will be used in several formats, web, TV spots, and will be played before both TGR’s, and Absinthe films, new movies. I am excited to become more involved in this program, and to help spread the word.
For more info check out the link on the side bar of this page, or go directly to Protectourwinters.org.
Jeremy in the hot seat.
Mount Rainer, still loaded with snow.
The crater on top of Rainer, my flight home gave a unique perspective of this massive mountain.
Wyoming is awesome, big mountains, gorgeous rivers, lush flora, good people and home to Teton Gravity Research. Driving over Teton pass I was stunned by the bright hillsides covered in native wild flowers. And surprised by the amount of snow still clinging to the upper ridges, and bowls. But luckily as the road wound its way down the snow rapidly disappeared leaving the trail head of the famed “Jimmy’s Mom ” jump trail seemingly clear. While the mission to Jackson was primarily to work in the editing suite with the TGR crew, the alterer motive was riding the bike. I look forward to biking in Jackson all year long, the Jump/DH trails there are top notch, and there is a big community of riders that are super fun to shred with.
Sunsets in the West…
New tram under construction!!!
TGR headquarters…
Todd Jones and Corey Gavitt farming air
This is where it all gos down, edit one with Tate MacDowell. Countless hours are spent here pouring over footage, interviews, music, and at times Jack Daniels. It is a unbelievable task that goes on behind the scenes here, Mad respect to all those involved in turning hundreds of hours of raw footage into a 5o min snow masterpiece.
A critical roll in the post production team are the interns, they get a crash course in every thing related to making a ski movie from shipping to editing, here the interns and I are getting a camera loading lesson from Josh Nielson.
loading film into the camera is a delicate task made easier by interrogation style lighting, once proficient film loading must take place with littte to no light and in a cold winter environment.
Loaded up for some MTB good times!
Tate got this photo of me sending one of the funnest jumps on the trail.
Josh Neilsen unwinds after a day in the office.
A day at the beach…not a normal beach but the warm summer ski slopes of Snowbird Resort sure feels like the beach. People in tank tops, shorts, costumes, jerseys, and thin ski gear populate the tram deck, and scream down slopes. Melted snow patches dictate runs, lines and airs, forming pseudo couloir that are really just narrow strips of snow that are disappearing fast. Little ribbons of snow that connect some patches only last hours before turning into muddy, rocky gaps between snow. The mountain remains adventurous.
Its such a great time of year to be skiing, tons of locals hanging out, shredding, drinking beer, having barbeques everywhere, employees at the bottom of mineral basin cooking it up for there friends, patrollers cooking it up at the top of the tram, and friends with grills in the parking lot…
definitely a day at the beach!
Snowbird Ski resort, lots of snow, some dirt.
Ward and I enjoying the sun on the tram deck.
Top of the world!
tank tops, shorts, funny shirts… yes its the beach.
Jamie Pierre and I enjoy a cool one on the top.
The feeling of warmth, sun beating down, a warm breeze ripping by, is so relaxing. The road has been my home lately and the transition between winter and summer has been smooth. there is something awesome about hanging on the West coast, good vibes, good people, and good times. Winter was fairly wrapped up with the Targhee session, but when I returned to salt lake a large snow pack allowed for some late season recreation. Chris Collins called me up excited about his recent snowmobile adventures, with plans to do it again as soon as I arrived. Naturally I was pumped to get on the sled, and riding in the spring is great because you can access terrain that’s normally untouchable in winter. The weather is so nice that a hoodie is all that’s needed for warmth, and the snow is slushy, soft and grippy.
After a few days of riding with Chris I headed down to So-Cal to hang with some friends and check out a really sweet music festival called Lightning In A Bottle. It was a three day festival outside of Santa Barbra. I had assumed that California was going to be warm, so when rain clouds socked in the area I was not very well prepared. After a retreat to town, with breakfast, a movie and a shopping session we returned to the party and the weather improved.
So-Cal was great I hung out with my friend Pete at his house in Huntington Beach for a few days after the event and finally the feeling of summer really set in. Chilling on the beach was so nice, people watching was hilarious, and the only thing on our egenda was to hang out and eat. I rolled out, back to SLC for a few days before heading back to California again, this time to San Fransisco. SF was fun, I met up with the TGR crew and went to the premier of their surf movie called “Out There”. Hung for extra day in the city and now I am enjoying central Oregon hanging with friends, riding bikes, playing disc golf, and generally chilling out. -things aren’t so bad.
Lightning In A Bottle, Treehouse stage
California at night
San Francisco city scape
bustling California streets
TGR crew Steve Jones, Matt Herriger, and Corey Gavitt out side a dank SF oyster bar
Steve Jones and I in the venue
A Packed surf premier floor
After a “all time” day at Targhee I headed off for San Leandro California where The North Face’s main office is located. I met up with a large portion of the ski and snowboard team and the designers from the snowsports line. It is always really cool and exciting to work directly with the people on the design team, trading ideas, fine tuning of the gear, and on this particular trip seeing the new line for the first time. The line was looking great, the designers at TNF are extremely talented, passionate and dedicated to making next level gear.
While meetings were going well, I had something in the back of my mind that was demanding attention. Days had been spent sculpting snow to perfection, and the potential for another epic session was high. TGR had plans to call in a heli to get some unique filming angles, sun was on the horizon, and once again Targhee was blanketed with a fresh batch of snow, this time twelve inches had arrived.
At 12:29 am I changed my plane ticket to a 6:00 am departure, awoke at 4:28 am moments before my alarm and caught the flight. By 10:45 I was rolling towards Grand Targhee once again, 12:pm I pulled into th parking lot to hear the sound of a heli lifting, and after a quick ride from a snowmachine I was standing at the base of jump #1. Realizing that I hadn’t made a turn in days I suddenly had apprehension about hiking right up to the jump and stepping into tricks right off the bat. Tate McDowell, who had given me the ride simply stated that the heli only had a short time to film before it would need to make a long trek to re-fuel, and so he started singing lyrics from the song “8mile”. With that I dropped my back pack and began hiking.
After some high fives with the fellow riders I slid into the rotation and fired off a huge fly-away front flip.It was a perfect way to start off another session in paradise. We continued to session kicker #1 and then slotted into a sunset kicker #2 session before calling it a night over beers and food at the Royal Wolf in Driggs.
At 5:30 am the next morning, some 19 hours after touch down, I rolled out heading back to Salt Lake where another plane ride was scheduled, this time to Portland Oregon.
Dylan Hood= super smooth.
Sammy Carlson floats one.
360 , Photo By Pete O’Brian
Jump #2
Todd Jones, and Cory Gavitt sit on the flying carpet cameras in hand.
Whiley Miller floats one over jump 2 while taylor felton looks on.
Grand Targhee resort is home to some of the best terrain in the west, long cliff bands stretch their way across the back side of Freds Mountain and along the Peaked ridge. While Most of the lift access terrain is fairly mellow the backcountry has some sick terrain. The massive faces of the Tetons loom in the back ground of one of the most picturesque views in the west. So when I found out TGR was planing a spring session there I was super pumped to get back to the home turf. The plan was to find some terrain that we could inhance with the help of a large digging crew and some snowcats. We settled on two build spots, one below the long cliff ridge on peaked, and the other in a west facing zone that captured the late evening light. The crew slowly rolled in throughout the week and included Dylan Hood, Sammy Carlson, Taylor Felton, Wylie Miller, Dash long, and myself.
On the road, Tetons in sight… barely, through the bug guts!
construction of jump 1
construction of jump 2
working on jump two with a fleet of snowcats.
Sammy Carlson rolled into town, I was stoked to ride with him he brings mad energy and is super sick. While the cat crew worked on the jump Sammy sessioned this sign tap.
After several days of weather, building and shaping the jumps a fresh blanket of snow rolled in and coated the mountain in a six inch blanket making landings soft and lines shredable. We warmed up in the morning with a pow session, I hit three lines with a air or two in each one. The fresh snow was on top of unfrozen corn so it made for perfect conditions.
This is a classic line at Targhee, because the snow pack is so deep I was able to send it as a triple line including a cornice gap up top. Photo by Adam Clark
After warming up with some lines we were ready to hit Jump 1. Sammy guinnie pigged the jump and overshot on his second attempt, he bit through his toungh when he impacted, but toughed through it and hit the jump shortly after. Once we got the speed dialed the jump went really well, every one stomped a bunch of different tricks into a pow landing. Photo by Adam Clark
Jump 2, Photo by Adam Clark
Sammy Carlson gets some sunset air time
As the storm ended a north wind had picked up and our first blue day we realized that the perfect widespread stable pow we had, was no more. Wind had scoured the landscape, glaciers had hard wind rippled snow and faces that once looked cherry now had a rough scoured texture that was anything but enticing. After a half day of scratching around we decided to send one group back to base while the second crew hunted the range for a protected pocket. I went in early, frustrated, cold from the glacial wind, and seriously disappointed with my tail between my legs. Hanging back at base with blue skies above seemed wrong, so Ian, Adam and I went for a round of disc golf at the local Haines course. After our best round of 18 so far in the trip we had unanimously decided that all was not lost, we would go back out tomorrow and make the best of what we had. We were convinced that there was pow pockets stashed somewhere and we could find them.
The following morning we found ourselves flying into a small secluded zone we call Hotel room after a line that Jeremy Jones had ridden in 2005 after a long stint of laying low in the captains choice. we landed near the zone which is a massive spine wall that has only a few clean lines down, and tested the near by snow on a free run. To our surprise we found killer snow, but the temps were rising and the face was getting prime light. At the bottom after talk of interest in the line between riders I decided that I would ride the small flank and Seth was going for the horizon line.
Flying up we got a good look at the lines, and as we rounded the face and had a side look at the zone the true beauty of the line stood out. the spines of snow attach themselves to the east side of a thin flake of rock, the backside is so steep that its a vertical cliff but the front is slanted just enough to hold snow. The crest of the peak was a muffin top cornice hanging off the backside almost across the entire massif. in the middle of the zone the cornice was vertically supported enough that we decided we could get out onto the slope safely. The heli toed us in and we gingerly crept out of the ship onto the snow. As the Helli lifted Seth and I felt slightly exposed on what felt like a island. After some time to evaluate the snow we decided to move forward and commit to the line.
the hotel room
first light on the Hotel room, mostly rock, only a few lines go and even they seem like a fantasy.
Seth and I were both fairly gripped up top, and getting to the bottom felt so good. our lines after execution. Seth on the horizon, mine down the middle.
After riding a line like this I was blown away and fairly mentally spent, without much energy left I took it fairly easy the rest of the day and decompressed. The next morning we found ourselves in a similar situation, starring at another protected pocket of snow and another line pioneered by Jeremy Jones, this one called Dr. Seuss. Again I stepped out of my comfort bubble and stepped out on top of this line. Again, at the bottom the feeling of elation and amazement of survival overwhelmed me, adrenaline reserves tapped, I coasted through the rest of the day beyond content.
Dr. Seuss
Ian McIntosh moments after getting dropped off on a massive double drop pillow line in the Seuss area.
Fly on the wall, photo by Seth Morrison
Entering the shower curtain. At this point Ive made it above all the exposed lines and its now time to get into the knife thin curtain of spines. photo by Seth Morrison
Rarely does the forecast in Alaska predict sunny skies, not to mention forecasting a week of blue bird, but that is exactly what we saw on the horizon. Each person slowly confirming with some one else, “did you check the sat? The Roner forecast looks good. ” The “Roner forecast” is really just the weatherchannel.com’s super basic prediction, Roner constantly checked and called out blue holes with amazing accuracy during the first part of the trip. So we focused now on this becoming a reality, with only a week left in our trip we needed a break. Sure Enough just as projected the storm glassed off, moon came out and we kept our fingers crossed it would be clear in the morning.
To add to the pressure we decided to implement our secret weapon, a second helicopter with a Tyler mount camera rig shooting super 16. We had enough budget for three filming days within a 10 day window, and since we were entering crunch time we decided to bring it in. The Tyler was mounted into a Jet ranger and flown by Coastal Helicopters top pilot Jim Wilson, or as CG would exclaim, “OLD MANNNN WILSON!” The Helicopters only passenger, Todd Jones camera operator extraordinaire.
The Jet Ranger arrives, camera mounted.
The camera is balanced with weights, and has gunner style triggers that adjust focus and zoom.
Checking out Todd’s seat in his private heli.
Helicopters descend upon the fuel station at the Haines airport.
Parked in the shade, our magic carpets await.
When its sunny it seems like it will last forever, when its gray it feels like it will never be sunny again. Day upon day of overcast or rainy weather forces us to lay low, occupying our time with all sorts of activities, Indoor exercise, lounging, gaming and cruising around town. Every thing is in walking distance and there are some great locations to shoot photos, do interviews, and soak in the AK culture. With little road access most of Alaska is connected by air, and water ways, the car is merely a local transport vehicle. The harbor and the pier have been our favorite places to roast the day away.
The Pier
Contemplating where these massive snow chunks came from, did they wash ashore?
Pier sessions, from left to right, Cory Gavitt, Todd Jones and Josh Nielsen from TGR.
out to the Bar with the boys.
After many down days we finally got out for some turns, this is our lead guide Jim Conway getting out for a slope evaluation. We had a break in the weather and got in a few runs this day before a storm set back in.
Ready at a moments notice, the gear is stacked, radio and other electronics are charged, getting poised for it to pop blue. -self portrait.
Going mad???
