Full Part from 2016 video Grilled Cheese – “The Debut” but cut some stuff out and filled with others.

In April, my friends at Vitality Films in Grand Junction, CO, set out on a mission to do as many sports as possible in one day within the 20-mile radius of Colorado’s Grand Valley. They managed 7 – from skiing at 10,000ft in the morning to biking the desert in the afternoon and paddleboarding a lake by sundown.

Check out the full adventure at www.GrandDayCO.com. #GrandDayCO

Here is my 2014/2015 season snowboard edit from this past year. I am 16 years old. It was filmed by Jacob Levine, Jack Wiley, and Peter Day. This edit was filmed at Park City, Canyons, Mammoth, Breckenridge, Keystone, and Seven Springs.

Had an epic Christmas slaying pow at Canyons in Park City, Utah!! Check it out …

A few friends and I headed up to Beaver Mountain in northern Utah, not quite sure what to expect. We ended up having an amazing day shredding pow with great friends. Please watch and share!!!

After a two week drought and a horrible start to the 2014/15 snow season, we are asking ourselves what does it all mean.

After a four-year stretch at other resorts, I returned to Solitude Resort this year. I missed the lack of lift-lines and amazing backcountry access. So far I haven’t been disappointed.

Last Sunday after two weeks without snow, we found the most amazing line of inbounds fresh powder!

I know what your thinking. Bullshit, no way! I assure you it is all-true.

Now we‘re not talking blower powder up to your eyeballs, after all it is the beginning of December. We are talking knee deep, soft and slashible powder. The kind where you charge down the mountain without much worry. Core shots or being harpooned by a hidden stick are far from your mind. The kind of powder where you just get lost in the moment, feeling the snow moving and spraying under your board. Where you’re weightless and floating on nature’s frozen cloud.

We charge down the mountain and slashing deep backside turns that sent snow arching though the air like surfing at pipeline. Then popped off a buried tree stump and landed on what felt like a new down pillow. Cruising, linking, from one turn to the next, one stump, then a log, and finally down a natural half using the transition to boost higher.

It didn’t last long though, only a few hundred yards. It was so amazing that when we reached the bottom and looked back at the line, we said to ourselves, “Holy shit that was fun!”  I looked over at my friends and everyone was just looking back at the line. You could see it in their eyes, that kind of satisfied hunger. Everyone knows that might have been the best run of the season. Yet, it’s only the beginning.

Now I have that hunger growing again. How long will I have to wait for one more amazing, life changing run?

All Snowboard Films Ranked

Not really all of them, just the ones I own. Riding, music, skits. I am going to write how I remember them, then I am going to “live diary” each one while watching them and eating Cheetos. Some of these films are the reasons I got stoked on snowboarding in the first place.

This is the first snowboard movie I ever watched. I think I was a sophomore in high school. I lost my copy of the movie, but it’s on YouTube now!

Technical Difficulties, As I Remember It

My first ever snowboard movie. My first ever sticker pack – oh man, were there a lot of stickers. They were from all the cool brands: Forum, Foursquare, Special Blend. The Foursquare sticker went right on the back of the old Accord. JP, Jeremy and Kevin Jones, Jason Brown, Peter Line, Lagwagon, Swingin Utters, and Hieroglyphics. I am surprised this movie didn’t break, me and my buddies watched it so often. Technical Difficulties introduced me to everything that was late 90′s snowboarding, and I never looked back. I was already into punk rock, but Heiroglyphics and Del were just awesome.

0:30 – Rocking first song with Kevin Jones jibbing off the cornice and the double mickalchuck! Mickalchuk!

1:24 - Jason Borgstede!

1:35 - Rockin song becomes mellow. It’s almost like it’s over already.

1:56 - First ever chair lift rope jib I ever saw.

2:32 - Tara Dakides! What!

2:50 - The whole reason we had snowskates.

3:07 - JP and Heiro. First underflilp or what we call a cork these days. JP is the jib ninja, but he is also killing the jumps in this opening segment.

4:52-  Some kind of awesome roll.

5:11 - A bloody Peter Line with a heavy rock track. Almost hit the camera man.

7:00 - Mikey LeBlanc rockin to punk rock and killin everything.

7:45 - Tweakit

7:54 - Barely made it.

8:03 - One of the first rodeos.

8:25 – Wheel chair donuts by Jeremy Jones. I didn’t even remember that this was him. So crazy to think that I live in Salt Lake and could be seeing these dudes in the streets.

9:15 - Longest 50/50 ever! One of the best snowboard tracks. I got a few Enkindels songs after this song, but they never got much more play in my rotation.

9:21 - First guy I ever saw wear a helmet in a video, and hold a boom box

10:01 - Keir’s standard 3 pipe tricks for about 10 years.

10:29 - Yeah falling off the house.

10:37 - Those rails with the beat of the song.

11:25 - I don’t count spins well, but I know that was huge and I wanted his board from his teleportation shot.

12:00 - New song, kinda loses my attention, but good riding brings it back.

12:22 - The slide rock, and the song starts rocking again.

12:45 - Such non-corked spins.

13:10 - Get M3 at Scheels now

13:54 - ”Here’s to swimming, with bow-legged women”. My favorite part of the movie. Kevin Jones and these rails and flips.

14:40 - Nice fishing scene, then some crazy rails.

16:00 - Huge!

16:05 - Ow

16:16 - ”Hear we go” – yeah Del.

17:44 - I  remember that van.

18:08 - Yeah Lagwagon. Maybe this was my favorite part. So much spring skiing in this video. I forgot when videos had some much park in the spring.

19:26 - Is that a subaru? JF Pelchat jumping that car.

15:50 - That cornice is huge

20:35 – Crash section. These don’t happen much anymore either. Poor Joni.

20:55 – Poof

21:04 – These are rough

21:38 – Oh no. That’s what i am afraid of.

22:30 – That guy running in. It’s so crazy what sticks and what doesn’t.

22:53 – JP trying to swim that around, then Englesman dying. Did he die?

23:20 – New song. Foo fighters? Never reallly dug this part.

23:51 – Tara doing back flips. She married Kevin Jones.

24:27 – Tara Dakides was damn good.

24:57 – Mr. one-foot.

26:12 – These guys are doing sweet single corks.

26:45 – Method Man.

28:00 – Joni looks really slow-mo. Like, extra slow-mo.

28:43 – Devun ripping across the pond.

30:34 – I used to remember this as like all giant 180′s. There are a bunch more tricks in his part. Some of the biggest of the movie, because it was the ending part.

31:16 – I got into the Bouncing Souls because of this song. Still listen to it to this day.

32:35 – “Punch you in the face”

What a great movie, and it still has watchability. I am glad I dug this up. I’ll probably watch it a few more times this year since its on YouTube and I learned how a Chromecast works. I think this is going to be fun going back and seeing what got me and my buddies into this in the first place.

Here’s some pictures from a quick splitboard tour up Little Cottonwood Canyon, Utah.  Conditions are thin, but still felt good to get back on the snow.

My season edit for the 2013-14 snowboard season. 15 years old. Filmed at Park City, Brighton, Mammoth, Sun Valley, and Mt. Hood.

Song: Evil Love- Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats. Song Inspiration: Chandler Hunt

Nov 2nd was a kickass day in Utah. It was the first rideable amount of snow and a bunch of us got after it. Snow, friends, dogs, campfires, jibs, rails and more fire!

Watch the edit here!!!

First snow edit!

Thanks to the following companies for the support: Nectar Sunglasses, SANDMARC, Discrete, Gnarly Nutrition, Smith Optics, Goal Zero, Rossignol, 3B, Ski Utah, and Hit Case.

My buddies and I shredding the last few seasons! Here’s a winter teaser! Get Stoked! Pray4Snow!!!

Remember Indian burns when you were a kid? My brother and I would give them to each other for fun. We would grab the other’s arms with both hands and twist, quickly in opposite directions, and then we’d fall over laughing about the brief pain it caused. Now imagine having that feeling all the time in your shins along with intense stabbing, like a toothpick was boring into your leg. I came to call this stabbing pain my “tiny, evil-elves.”  I could see them laughing and poking me with little pitch forks.  This is chronic nerve pain.

It was spring of 2011 and the snow season was a good one! We had just come back from a trip with out of state friends to Vail, CO. The back bowls were so heavy with snow our friends got stuck. It was one of those trips that keep you chasing fresh tracks and dreaming of cold smoke.  I was starting to notice that I had low back pain, sciatica in particular. That’s the hot, radiating pain from your low back that spreads across your butt cheeks. I thought it was just from being at a desk for 8+ hours each day since I had been working at my 1^st sedentary job in years.

Being a person who is pretty proactive when it comes to health, over the next 2 years I tried everything from chiropractors, massage, acupuncture, exercise physiology to prescription anti-inflammatories and pain medications. Everything helped, for a little while. I would feel great and the pain would go away, then it would slowly start to creep back in. These were elves I could live without.

In June of 2013, after dealing with my elves for over 2 years, I decided it was time to see a specialist. An MRI revealed a herniated disk. What caused it? Good question. With an L5, S1 herniation it’s really hard to say. That’s the joint in your low, low back that connects your pelvis to your spine. It’s the most common place to get a herniation. Disks are made up of spongy, crab meat like material. A herniation is when the lining that holds the crab meat in, ruptures and the crab meat pushes out into your spinal canal that holds all your nerve roots, thus the nerve pain in your legs and sciatica in the low back. It’s this particular area of the spine that the nerve roots come out of the spine and run down into the legs. So I had disc material compressing my nerves.

Can this be healed on its own? Yes, in many cases this is possible. However, since I had already done just about every conservative treatment available the less invasive methods were looking grim for me. More physical therapy was prescribed and then a cortisol steroid injection into my spine was tried. This was partially to diagnoses the kind of surgery I would need, as well as to relieve pain. Since sleeping was becoming sporadic the pain relief was welcomed! The decision to proceed with a micro discectomy surgery to clean out the herniation was made. I felt thankful for not needing a fusion.

I spent New Year’s Eve 2013 on pain medication recovering from surgery. Not an ideal party, but at least today I’m mostly pain free. Although it’s proving to be a long and challenging road to recovery, I am thankful for my health and know that it can always be worse. I was saddened to miss the season last year. But I’m super stoked for the coming one!

I’ve come to a place with my snowboarding and my back pain that has made me appreciate quality riding over quantity. I’m no longer a beginner just trying to improve on a groomed run. I’ve been there already. So what’s next with my great love of snowboarding? I believe the answer is backcountry.

As I spent my disability recovering from my tiny, yet huge, 2” incision I started to look into backcountry riding. I found tons of information and sites that offer everything from avalanche education, gear, guides to snowcat and helicopter tours. Wow! It’s overwhelming in fact. Intimidating is somewhat of an understatement. Do I need to be a professional to do this kind of thing? The information was not very centralized. I’ve spent hours researching and combing through all the sites.  I feel like I have just as many questions as when I started. Then I had an ah-ha moment! What if I came up with something to centralize all of this information? I’ve always wanted to be self-employed and I am passionate about snow play. The idea for Snow Minions was born.

My vision for Snow Minions is that it will become the hub of backcountry resources and education. A central location for people to connect with what they need to fulfill their passion for powder. Why not share my learning with others so that they can progress too? So I’m building a website and blog that will create a place for people to learn and grow into the backcountry experience. This backcountry concept feels elusive, like it’s something meant for professionals or adrenaline junkies only. Snow Minions is the bridge between those that want to drop off a 30 foot cliff face and people like me, who are simply looking to have quality days on un-groomed snow. This is my chance to do something that both me and my body love.

I see an opportunity to reach out to all of the other people like myself that want more out of their skiing/riding experience than lift lines and crowds. I mean, there’s no way that I’m the only person seeking this change in their snow experience that’s feeling a bit lost in the backcountry conversation. I’m just not that unique. This seems to be the right idea at the right time. I hope I’m right.

So this is my shot at getting out of the “cube farm” career path and onto something more active. Something that will help my back get better and stronger, not possibly cause another surgery. It’s crazy to me that sitting could be the culprit. I may have to learn to live with some intermittent nerve pain for the rest of my life anyway. As I sit and type this story, my elves are back. I can hear them laughing maniacally. Ironically, this motivates me. I’m on a mission to heal my body, get stronger and happier even if I have to accept that these elves could be my life-long friends. At least I know they love to snowboard. Maybe one day I can consider them my friends, warning me of when I have done too much.

This is my journey on the path of health and recovery. Overcoming the Evil Elves has opened my eyes to dreams I was unaware I wanted to chase. It may not be pain-free, but I guess life isn’t either. I’ll see you at the next peak, chasing that cold smoke. Race you to the top?!

We’ve finally been blessed with some snow here in Tahoe. There’s snow on the ground at the end of March and I never expected dumps like we’ve had in the last few days. This particular clip is from last week on March 26th, the day after a solid foot fell on the slopes of Kirkwood Mountain Resort.
It’s definitely a favorite mountain of mine out here and when you can get a weekday pow dump, it’s some of the best riding I’ve been able to do.

Enjoy!

Nothing technical as far as editing or titling goes. Just a super fun day at Kirkwood, CA after 3″ of fresh snow in the morning opened up to a perfect bluebird day. The hike I did at Thimble Peak was the first one done there for the day.

We are mountain people. Born in the alpine, our souls soar with the eagles and our hearts are clear and run with the purpose of cascading creeks. For us, the season of winter is a gift, blanketing everything anew like a canvas, which calls for an interaction with the slopes of the world.

In winter, snow is our purpose for existence. Like the bubbling stream, it is our source of water- our source of life. The health of our forests, and our happiness is intertwined with it. Driven by stories of the mythical “Deep Snow Awesomeness!” of Niseko Japan, The Life Cosmic Project went in search of the wonderful. What we discovered was a fountain of youth, a prayer answered endlessly.

This film is our totem to that spirit.

About the Flow Riders:

Aaron Lebowitz  created The Life Cosmic Project as a collective of mindful individuals focused on our relationship with the elements. His favorite medium is the snowboard, of which he explores an intimate connection with mountains. His lines are a conscious calligraphy upon the snow-covered slopes.

Lefteri Alexander (Alx) is a third generation photographer and teacher of consciousness through a multidisciplinary and dimensional lens, transcends the literal and allegorical, weaving spiritual exegesis into the practice of spiritus itself, the thread of the many garments into one.

We wish to thank Niseko United for the hospitality and plenty of fresh “Japow” for us to explore. Thank you to Taro Tamai of Gentemstick Snowsurf Designs for sharing with us the consciousness of creating a life honoring our relationship with nature through the lens of snowboarding. Special thanks to Sweetgrass Productions for inspiring our own dreams with their film Signatures 4 years ago.

Respect to the spirits of the snow, mountains, and forests of Japan. We hold you in reverence.

And to everyone we met along the way…We carry you in our hearts- Thank you.

The Life Cosmic Project is dedicated to the exploration, cultivation, and perpetuation of “Stoke!” as a virtue by which happiness is experienced and shared.

http://www.lifecosmic.com/
https://www.facebook.com/lifecosmicproject

With the fresh pow in the Wasatch backcountry shredded and sun baked beyond recognition, as well as the minimal amount of snowfall in Utah throughout January, I thought it would be a great idea to head to Park City to ride some super-pipe. I hit the mountain solo which seems to be a trend for myself this season. I was excited right away to see my buddy (born and raised Park City local) Jayson Thiros a.k.a Shortbus, causally taking laps in the pipe with a few ladies. I hurried to catch up with them and our bluebird park day had begun!

Brett Hillyard from the new company Ello Gum was on the scene and managed to snap a few shots of our super pipe shred session.  At the end of the day I felt grateful for this gorgeous Utah afternoon.

Jayson and I were ripping the sunny pipe all day with small part of our day spent in Neff Land where Chris Shields was bumpin some music in the DJ booth for us to shred to. I almost forgot how fun snowboarding can be even when it doesn’t snow a substantial amount for weeks at a time. I felt really rejuvenated after this day, one that felt like there wasn’t enough time in the day; the kind of days I live for. Cheers!

Mt.Superior

Some photos and video of my 1st trip to the “beast” with friends Alex Gavic, Phil Parrish and Abe Dintaman

This was my “recon” photo. I like to get an idea of the line I want to ride, then take a photo of it to use as a reference when I get near the top. In this case I was looking at multiple lines down the middle of the mountain near the top then making my way lookers right for an exit.

 Making our way up to the main ridge line while looking at Flagstaff Ridge.

Another “recon” shot. After making it to the ridge and traversing past Flagstaff, Mt. Superior came into view. I snapped this as I noticed a pocket of powder about 3/4 of the way up the west ridge. The conditions on this day are known as ‘sh!t-f&ck conditions’. AKA sun-baked and icey-chunder. It was the first time in a long time that the avy conditions were low danger. The thought of having an actual powder turn 2 weeks after the last storm was driving me wild.  As you can see we still had a long ways to go!

Abe chillin’ on the ridge. We’re gaining in elevation. Such a beautiful feeling!

Photo Credit: Phil Parrish

As the elevation got higher the risk became a bit greater. This is one of the toughest sections of the climb. A true no fall zone….

Nearing the top, Cardiac Bowl comes into view. This is definitely  a “recon” photo. I will be back for this!

Looking east from the top!

Standing at the top looking west at Monte Cristo and the SLC valley way back there in the sad smog.

Check out this quick video of what it’s like to hike a ridge 3,000FT off the base of the canyon.

The rest of the line wasn’t worth including in the video. ICE, chunder and more ICE. Great for experience. Not so great for video!

After 5 hours , 9 miles and 3,000 FT elevation change it feels great to be down.  I had an excellent time. I highly recommend the journey to anyone with the skills. Time to celebrate!!!

]]> http://spreadstoke.com/snow/mt-superior-utah-lcc-feb-2014/feed/ 1 http://spreadstoke.com/snow/january-rehash-snowboarding-park-city-utah/ http://spreadstoke.com/snow/january-rehash-snowboarding-park-city-utah/#comments Thu, 30 Jan 2014 22:16:40 +0000 http://spreadstoke.com/?p=1426 The month of January has been an interesting one in the Wasatch. 2014 kicked off with rollover powder from the previous year. Old Town, Park City Champagne pow gradually fluctuated to mostly sugar and cream. Lack of freshies led to getting creative with local terrain.  Transit Center Pillows Shred the Bush Creamy, Sugary, Butter Just when Old Man Winter’s local approval ratings began to dip, a series of storms pushed into the area dropping classic Utah snow. Stashes were shlarped.* Nighttime Powder Thievery  Old Town Night Moves Riding the White Wave Pitted Braj** Yet another high pressure system pushed itself into the Wasatch area shortly thereafter, apprehending all hope of continued powder terror. Instead, sunny, spring like conditions prevailed for the past 2 weeks, lowering team morale. In times like these, succumbing to frustration seems to be an easy excuse not to ride some snow, however, a backyard sunset session never hurts when the powder is nowhere to be found. Get creative and make the fun happen. Because the next storm is right around the corner. Sundancing with Chemtrails  And remember, keep it weird.   *Shlarp - To shred and shralp at the same time. **Braj - Urban Dictionary  ]]>

The month of January has been an interesting one in the Wasatch. 2014 kicked off with rollover powder from the previous year.

Old Town, Park City

Photo credit: Colter Wade 

photo credit: Colter Wade 

Champagne pow gradually fluctuated to mostly sugar and cream. Lack of freshies led to getting creative with local terrain. 

Transit Center Pillows

Photo credit: Ben van Avermaete

Shred the Bush

Photo credit: Ben van Avermaete

Creamy, Sugary, Butter

Photo credit: Colter Wade

Just when Old Man Winter’s local approval ratings began to dip, a series of storms pushed into the area dropping classic Utah snow. Stashes were shlarped.*

Nighttime Powder Thievery 

Photo credit: Colter Wade

Old Town Night Moves

Photo credit: Colter Wade

Riding the White Wave

Photo credit: Ben van Avermaete

Pitted Braj**

Photo credit: Ben van Avermaete

Yet another high pressure system pushed itself into the Wasatch area shortly thereafter, apprehending all hope of continued powder terror. Instead, sunny, spring like conditions prevailed for the past 2 weeks, lowering team morale. In times like these, succumbing to frustration seems to be an easy excuse not to ride some snow, however, a backyard sunset session never hurts when the powder is nowhere to be found. Get creative and make the fun happen. Because the next storm is right around the corner.

Sundancing with Chemtrails 

Photo credit: Ben van Avermaete

And remember, keep it weird.

Photo credit: Ben van Avermaete

*Shlarp - To shred and shralp at the same time.

**Braj - Urban Dictionary

]]> http://spreadstoke.com/snow/january-rehash-snowboarding-park-city-utah/feed/ 1 http://spreadstoke.com/snow/breckenridge-colorado-perfect-day/ http://spreadstoke.com/snow/breckenridge-colorado-perfect-day/#comments Sun, 08 Dec 2013 23:49:26 +0000 http://spreadstoke.com/?p=875 As the Colorado Rockies have been seeing some early snow, Joel and I sat down and nutted out a trip to Denver to make use of the resorts on offer with the epic pass. Originally we had planned to drive, but the 16 hour drive there and back had us leaning towards flying, and fly we did. We arrived in Denver last Sunday after riding opening day at Heavenly. Tahoe hasn’t had a great deal of snow so only one run was open at Heavenly but to finally ride down that mountain looking over Lake Tahoe was really something else. There’s a lot of satisfaction involved in getting somewhere and doing something you’ve always wanted to do. That aside, we were psyched to be on the road and in the air and to get to Denver and ride some open terrain. Denver copped a few inches of snow the night before we got here and snowed steadily the first day we rode. It set us up for a super fun week, of which we’ve got a couple more days to get a few more good rides in before we head back to Tahoe, hopefully to more snow. By chance on the way out for a few beers we ran into an Australian couple in a store we were checking out. The accents really catch your ear when you’re around nothing but Americans and they gave us a few tips as to where to head for a cheap drink. We ended up catching them between rides the following day and we’ve spent a chill couple of days hanging out with them. Today, Dom and his girlfriend Adele came along to Keystone with us and it’s been nothing but good times with these two people. The snow they got here on those first couple of days set us up for a perfect week of nothing but clear blue skies and fast, fast riding. The T-Bar had opened and we got plenty of untracked lines through the glades close enough to the peak here at Breck, but not without a hiccup. As it was all fairly new snow, the third day of use I had on a brand new board resulted in a base puncture and a trip to the tune shop to get some P-Tex and a base grind to get her back to good as new. The fifty bucks was well worth the fresh turns we got on those few runs. Keystone today was super fun. Some of the longest runs I’ve ever ridden, Whistler aside. They really make the longer trips up the chairs and gondolas worthwhile. We were misled as far as how long the free bus trip to Keystone would take, in the end it was about an hour and a half. Under estimated by approximately an hour and ten minutes. Brilliant. The trip wasn’t without it’s characters though. We stopped at a hospital and met a skier who had just left after receiving a total of 84 stitches taking a tomahawk tumble down a cliff. An old guy, presumably drunk, handed him quite a decent amount of marijuana saying “My friend, you look like you’re in pain”. It’s very legal in Denver, but you can’t drink a beer anywhere but a bar. Go figure. It was a funny trip none the less. We’re looking forward to a chill last couple of days here in Breckenridge before heading back home. A buddy Adam will be at our place by the time we’re home and is staying for about a week then it’s not too long til my little brother heads down to spend Christmas with us. The next few months are shaping up to be super fun. Will be sure to keep updates coming. Cheers amigos! G]]>

As the Colorado Rockies have been seeing some early snow, Joel and I sat down and nutted out a trip to Denver to make use of the resorts on offer with the epic pass. Originally we had planned to drive, but the 16 hour drive there and back had us leaning towards flying, and fly we did.

We arrived in Denver last Sunday after riding opening day at Heavenly. Tahoe hasn’t had a great deal of snow so only one run was open at Heavenly but to finally ride down that mountain looking over Lake Tahoe was really something else. There’s a lot of satisfaction involved in getting somewhere and doing something you’ve always wanted to do. That aside, we were psyched to be on the road and in the air and to get to Denver and ride some open terrain.

Joel lining up at the Rocky Mountain Express.

Denver copped a few inches of snow the night before we got here and snowed steadily the first day we rode. It set us up for a super fun week, of which we’ve got a couple more days to get a few more good rides in before we head back to Tahoe, hopefully to more snow.

By chance on the way out for a few beers we ran into an Australian couple in a store we were checking out. The accents really catch your ear when you’re around nothing but Americans and they gave us a few tips as to where to head for a cheap drink. We ended up catching them between rides the following day and we’ve spent a chill couple of days hanging out with them. Today, Dom and his girlfriend Adele came along to Keystone with us and it’s been nothing but good times with these two people.

Yours Truly, Top of the World at Breck.

The snow they got here on those first couple of days set us up for a perfect week of nothing but clear blue skies and fast, fast riding. The T-Bar had opened and we got plenty of untracked lines through the glades close enough to the peak here at Breck, but not without a hiccup. As it was all fairly new snow, the third day of use I had on a brand new board resulted in a base puncture and a trip to the tune shop to get some P-Tex and a base grind to get her back to good as new. The fifty bucks was well worth the fresh turns we got on those few runs.

Keystone today was super fun. Some of the longest runs I’ve ever ridden, Whistler aside. They really make the longer trips up the chairs and gondolas worthwhile. We were misled as far as how long the free bus trip to Keystone would take, in the end it was about an hour and a half. Under estimated by approximately an hour and ten minutes. Brilliant. The trip wasn’t without it’s characters though. We stopped at a hospital and met a skier who had just left after receiving a total of 84 stitches taking a tomahawk tumble down a cliff. An old guy, presumably drunk, handed him quite a decent amount of marijuana saying “My friend, you look like you’re in pain”. It’s very legal in Denver, but you can’t drink a beer anywhere but a bar. Go figure. It was a funny trip none the less.

We’re looking forward to a chill last couple of days here in Breckenridge before heading back home. A buddy Adam will be at our place by the time we’re home and is staying for about a week then it’s not too long til my little brother heads down to spend Christmas with us.

The next few months are shaping up to be super fun. Will be sure to keep updates coming.

Cheers amigos!

G

Everything so far with regards to planning for this trip has gone absolutely seamlessly. It’s almost as if Joel and I are waiting for something to go absolutely HORRIBLY wrong.

It’s a good thing, we had a great trip over from Sydney right through to San Francisco where we met the couple that we have leased the apartment off for the season. Two super nice people who have done a lot to make this apartment so comfortable to live in. They’re the same people who have let us use their truck for the season, which has proved to be such a help, especially on a day like today. Our trip to Reno.

Before we left I’d arranged a supply of beer from PBR. Today, we went to pick it up. 20 cartons of 24 16oz (473ml) cans.

480 cans of beer.  227 Litres.

We drove out to Reno in our truck, a 2001 Ford Ranger XLT. Aptly named ‘Ranger Stacey’. The drives around here are absolutely stunning. The mountains drop off on the North Eastern side of Lake Tahoe and the decline opens up to the dry desert area of Carson City, Nevada. A perfect day for a great road trip.

This was also the first time I had properly been able to give my filter set a good go and see some results I’m reasonably happy with. I’ve got more coming and really looking forward to having those for this trip.

I’d also like to thank everyone for the birthday love from back home. They’re a day ahead and the flood of messages and well wishes from friends and family was really nice to come home to see. None more so, than the message I received from my girlfriend.

So cheers to free beers!

G