Don't Eff With The S.S. Snakehead

last sunday i got to ride on the s.s. snakehead with tighty, snowman, and swappy. the s.s. snakehead is a ski boat that belongs to mr. swappy. riding on the s.s. snakehead is serious buisness, you can't just get on and ride around lake washington with the other boating sissys. nah, this crew is tough, you gots to get jumped in, and by getting jumped in i mean ya need to do your time in the sumo suit.

the sumo suit is a death-trap inflatable that you wear while the boat driver whips you around the lake. except for the brief moments that you're airborne, you're getting water pushed down every orifice in your face (mouth, nostrils, tearducts, ears, etc.) and sometimes orifices not on your face. unpleasant. i lost both contact lenses while getting jumped-in, my last pair too. fart.



up-skirt shot

SHHHHH**************************TTTTT. rdrr

after that crap was done we went wakeskating (i.e. binderless wakeboarding), drank ran-yeahs, and shot off bottle rockets! killer slash brah.

Off The Grid

2.5 months without a post, what the hell? ok, i've been off the grid for a while. SAWEE. still doin' rad stuff, just not bragging about it on the nets. got a backlog of old pics and stories for the summer. it'll be just like a magazine, reading about stuff that happened months ago! highlights include: snowboard crash that resulted in blood in my tinkle and possible a cracked rib, splitboarding 6 miles in the rain and to get to a yurt, loosing my contacts in lake washington while in the 'sumo suit', snowmobiling and shootin' guns on memorial day, etc., blah, blah.

above is a cell pic of a fawn i found on a hike this weekend. i didn't pet it, but i could have! little guy's legs fell out from under him twice when he finally decided to run away. cute.

Hyak 03.08.09

Tony and I went snowboarding last Sunday. Met up with Nat & Cody and rode the Silver Fir lift for 2 hours and got some real good runs in. Apparently all the people who know how to ride went to Alpental and the rest of the goons were at S.F. Suckers, no lift lines and untracked lines in the trees for 2 hours. Once again the lift lines got retarded, intellectually challenged, or whatever they're calling it these days so Tony and I switched to plan B. Well it wasn't really a plan, but we knew the lines would get terror-ble so once again it was up to the snowshoes to get us to some good stuff. To avoid parking nightmares, we wound up at Hyak which is where they had a landslide/avalanche that took out the main lift back when I was in Utah in January. The hike was challenging to say the least, all the snow we've gotten in the last few days made things light and deep. Splitboard would have been a much better way to go, maybe next time.

killer butt check, man i suck.

slash to stop, shoulda kept goin'. doh.

03.05.09 to 03.06.09

Last Thursday night I went up to Snoqualmie for the last day of the season for the Burton CHILL program. This is my third season volunteering with Chill and I love it. These kids are so stoked/excited/etc. to go snowboarding and their excitement rubs off on you. Last season was tough because the few days I volunteered (before my guts decided to act up for 6 weeks) I was working with a real young dude didn't know too much English. Kid wasn't interested in turning, just mobbing down the magic carpet run with only one foot strapped in. This year I shredded with some 5th graders that liked the A-Team and a girl from Uganda.



Anyways, during the day on Thursday a sort of surprise storm pooped all over Snoqualmie Pass. Something like 11 inches fell in a few hours. The kids liked the softer snow but when you're still a beginner and the pow is deep it can get a little frustrating. After the volunteering was done I met up with Nels and Zach over at Alpental for some faster-paced night shredding. The snow was awesome, light and fluffy, total opposite of the typical NW pooh. We took a few runs, split a pitcher, and the night was over by about 10:30. This is when I was faced with a tough decision, lemme break it down: 1)There was at least 18"of new in the Alpental BC and the gates didn't open all day 2) I had the day off of work 3) It was supposed to be bluebird 4) I would spend about 2.5 to 3 hours driving if I went home and drove back up at the butt crack of dawn 5) Zach had a sleeping bag I could borrow.



So..........I spent the night in my truck. Only problem was all my avy gear was at home. Quick phone call and Hoen agreed to bring it up first thing Friday morn. It was cold that night, something like zero degrees. I woke up several times througout the night and got pissed cuz I couldn't feel my toes. In the morning I went to put my contacts in (glasses were in Seattle) and the saline solution friggin' froze soild! I'm blind so this kinda freaked me out but 20 minutes on the defroster fixed the situation. After getting some coffee around 8am friends started rolling into the parking lot. By 8:20 we were on the lift (advertised start time is 9am) and by about 8:30 we were out the backcountry gates. This is unheard of, the upper chair typically doesn't even start loading till well after the lower one has been spinning, and to have the BC gates open on first run is like hitting the lotto. Did I mention it was bluebird (!), another NW rarity. Rode a bunch, it was deep & rad, blah, blah, blah.



The lifts got PACKED after about 3 runs so Hoen and I put our contingency plan to work. The previous Sunday I went on a little snowshoe recon mission to scout some stuff I've had my eye on for a while. We grabed the snowshoes & poles and headed out for some adventure. Right away I effed things up by trying to guide by my memory & instincts. I wouldn't say we got lost but we did take the long way. It was cool though, my guiding error helped us find 2 new zones that hopefully we'll get a chance to film at this year. We got some REAL GOOD turns in and had to billy goat a few spots. The hike out went ok, but i'm sure we can find an easier way back next time.



OK NOVEL OVER, PICTURE TIME



>This slash sent pooh all the way down to I-90 below.



>My squiggles, Hoen waiting to 1-up



> Neat











SORRY WILMOT YOU GOTS NUTHIN ON THIS


>




PS: HAPPY BIRFDAY BRUDDAH!

b-day party in the woods

took the day off for my b-day and headed up to alpental with al & hoen. i was on my splitboard, hoen on snowshoes, and al was ski touring. initial plan was to skin up chair peak in the alpental back country cuz reports from the day before said the snow was still damn good. by the time we got out there chair peak was in the clouds. the sunny forecast for the day was bs so we came up with a new plan and skinned to pinapple pass with the intent of riding back down our ascent route. once we got to the pass we were teased with all the untracked stuff on the denny creek side. we had to make the decision to take the easy way back to the base of alpental or go deeper into the backcountry and hike about 6 miles back to get to the car. up at that elevation there was prob 6 to 9 in of pretty light snow in the good spots. i know 6 to 9 inches of snow probably doesn't sound too impressive, but we've been very snow starved in the pacific NW this year so any pooh is good pooh right now. we studied the map and figured we had enough supplies between the 3 of us that if the sh*t hit the fan we could spend the night (if need be), geared up and dropped in. holy crap! the upper 1/4 of our descent was RAD! clouds even broke a bit as were heading down. below the pow level we got into some pooh that was just as fun to ride. found some mini cliffs to stunt on on the hike out. all in all, we took about 8 hours for one run. traverse out got kinda rough and frustrating, we even got split up for a bit. didn't get back to the car till 6pm. the hike out was LONG. it didn't help that we didn't know exactly where we were going so we played things pretty conservative to avoid cliffs 'n such. we've been debating if it would have been faster to just skin (i.e. hike) back up to where we dropped in.

there was added pressure to get back to the car because i'd scheduled a b-day burrito party in ballard at 7pm. pushed the dinner party back to 8pm and we made it back just in time for a quick shower and dash to the mexican joint. food & margaritas were great, sorry i was so sleepy.

I.O.U: banked slalom photos, hoen b-day photos (from a different burrito joint), random snowmobile and snowboard park pics. snow season has been kinda weak this year but we've been staying positive and having tons of fun.

shout out to cousin dea! keep it real in rochester!! rdrr.

board collection

sometimes people ask me how many snowboards i have. the answer is 22, for now. some are 'collectors items' (at least to me), some are crap that i haven't gotten rid of, and the rest are part of the current quiver.

FIRE CHICKEN

ok, so the sled's back in one piece and has been BRAP'IN around the mountains the last 2 sundays. here's a few pics. i'm so stoked on how it looks now, so RAD. THANKS HOEN!! snowmobiling is kind of an obnoxious/loud/smelly way to access the backcountry for snowboarding, but as much as i like to play it down in my head, it's pretty damn fun. i got mine up to 75mph on the way out yesterday and i didn't hit top speed. mountain sledding is WAY different than the midwest snowmobiling i was slightly exposed to in WI. it's scary being in spots where your $$$$ investment can easily roll down the hill and be gone till spring (don't worry Ma, im super careful).

the backcountry has been pretty crappy out here for the last few weeks, but it has been pretty good as far as snow stability (i.e. bomber). that means it has been great for exploring on sleds, so we've been riding around and studying our maps/gps/google erfs. it's funny, the only reason i've got some map and compass skills (even though said skills are kinda weak) are because i wound up with a geology degree and now it's helping my snowboarding. neat.

anyways, it's gonna snow/dump/puke/pooh in the NW this week, so beacons on and let's shred!