explore the mountains with your friends
The week before Halloween some friends and I made an annual trip to southern Utah for one final bike mission. the location was Virgin, and the zone was the old Red Bull Rampage site. We headed down for 5 days of camping, riding, scaring ourselves, catching air, and hiking up cliffs. This was one of the larger moves we hit, the wind was always a battle as gusts were strong enough to push you over as soon as you became airborne. we would wait for a gust, look down the line and drop.
Voting is now live for the 10th annual Powder Video Awards and Reader Poll.
Go to http://www.powderawards.com right now to vote for your favorite, (hint hint) 10 male and five female skiers.
Winter is here. The second in a string of storms to hit the Wasatch just dumped 15-20 inches, blanketing the mountains with a tempting dust. At Alta there was a high concentration of skiers and snowboarders, boot packing, skinning, and snowshoeing their way up.
While things look nice and white, rocks, sticks, and bushes poke out everywhere, plenty of gnarly “shark teeth” lurk under the surface ready to punish the early season riders. the mountain is a wild horse, not used to people climbing up looking for a ride. P-Tex and metal edges grind in to rocks, roots, and bushes as people traverse into the tops of runs. Scoured spots, and ridges, are “summer like” but mid-winter lurks in the protected, drifted, chutes,and gullies. Tread lightly in the right spot, and you can reap the rewards of slow motion, waist deep turns, that feel as if it could be January.
Jack Pilot and I stoked to shred
Dustin Schaad treading lightly…
Summer has come and gone, fall lingers, and snow is on the way. Time has a way of racing by, but there are many memories that last forever. This summer was interesting, fun, exciting, had its ups and downs, but remained full of love, and positive vibes. Traveling around the west, hanging with friends and family I spent time capturing some of these moments with photography. this is the first selection: the following shots are from an annual trip to the Black Rock Desert.
TGR just posted the new Teaser. The new movie is called Re:Session! check it out and be sure to find out when it is premiering in your town!
Dana Flahr in Haines AK
Excerpt from the commencement Address to the Class of 2009, University of Portland, May 3rd, 2009 By Paul Hawken. For the full address, (highly recomended) click HERE.
Working for the earth is not a way to get rich, it is a way to be rich. The first living cell came into being nearly 40 million centuries ago, and its direct descendants are in all of our bloodstreams. Literally you are breathing molecules this very second that were inhaled by Moses, Mother Teresa, and Bono. We are vastly interconnected. Our fates are inseparable. We are here because the dream of every cell is to become two cells. In each of you are one quadrillion cells, 90 percent of which are not human cells. Your body is a community, and without those other microorganisms you would perish in hours. Each human cell has 400 billion molecules conducting millions of processes between trillions of atoms. The total cellular activity in one human body is staggering: one septillion actions at any one moment, a one with twenty-four zeros after it. In a millisecond, our body has undergone ten times more processes than there are stars in the universe exactly what Charles Darwin foretold when he said science would discover that each living creature was a “little universe, formed of a host of self-propagating organisms, inconceivably minute and as numerous as the stars of heaven.” (Continue)
some of my favorites from the year…
Pete O’Brien
Todd Jones
Adam Clark, and Steve Jones in Haines AK
Stevens Pass WA
Seth Morrison, Haines AK
Wiley miller, above and below….
second installment in the AK POV series. Join Dana, Seth, and I as we get dropped off, and then shred the steeps.
Things are great… clear skies are the “diamonds in the rough” while posting up in small fishing villages. Waking up to blue skies feels great but one thing after another seems to have thrown a wrench into our plans. So one cannot help but wonder if the stars have aligned? Will the weather hold? Hows the wind? Is the snow stable? is it warming up? if all gos well we will shred… as confidence grows we will step into bigger terrain, scare ourselves, push ourselves, and feel the rush of excitement.
One of the greatest feelings out here in these mountains is the solidarity of the landscape. one feels small and yet a part of it all. This photo of Seth gives me that feeling.
Seth Morrison charges out of the slough after ripping this line to pieces! I was blown away to see him rip this face like he did. Truly a full throttle run, two huge turns up top, crossing multipul spines, then ripping the bottom into a nice air.
Photo by Seth Morrison with Tilt shift effect This was another moment of total blindness right before the roll over. I used a tilt shift effect to get the “miniature” feel. I recently found out about this cool style from Tate.
Photo by Dana Flahr, This was a super fun run that was crazy deep!
After sitting through day after day of bad weather… watching radar, pacing back and forth, and snacking non-stop, it can be confusing what we are doing here. But glimmers of blue skies keep us hungry and focused so we occupy our time with “the little things”.
1. Go for a “Ripinsky” mission
Haines America
2. Go Maddd at the pioneer bar
3. Over produce some “head shots”
4. clone yourself
5. Ring the bell
6. Go out on a Fishing boat
7. Eat fresh crab…and salmon
8. Shotgun some beers
9. check out a totem pole
10. Dream of places like this…
