Air Bag Is Here

COP's Airbag is finally here. It was super fun and Ryan, Rob and I really lucked out with a mid plus 20 day at the end of September. The only challenge we had to over come was the super sketchy snow flex in run that would just grab your edges the whole way into the jump. After a few runs from the practice area we started to drop from the main drop in. Ryan quickly put up the stakes with a front flip and I answered back, then did this beauty lincon lui kang grab!

My Other Wife

I may not get a lot of pictures of her and I but we've spent quite a bit of time together during the summer. Hitched in 2001. Here I am grabbing her bum in a superman seat grab, hopefully my first wife (skiing) won't get jealous.

Birthday Skiing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That's right 26 exclamation marks! One for each year...man I'm getting old, but that never seems to stop the fun. On this particular day (some would say the greatest day in history) I woke up at the crack of 9 am, which is extremely early as far as birthdays go. I had a plan... an ambitious plan. I was going to ski, river surf and mountain bike all in the same day. As much as I would like to tell you I completed my plan I can't, because the skiing was just to much fun and took all of my time.

We started off this adventure by driving to Highwood Pass, a now favorite spot of mine. This is how it unfolded. (The altitudes are approximate).

7306 ft:   

In the parking lot and pumped. Audrey and I could see snow higher up in the mountain.

7330 ft:   

Unable to contain ourselves, we run to two patches of snow slightly above the parking lot and slide down on our butts a few times.

7306 ft:    

We return to the parking lot and continue to pack. People in the parking lot going for day hikes wonder what we are doing with skis and stop to ask us in amazement.

7400 ft:   

I start noticing the altitude. Passing hikers continue to ask us about our journey.

8100 ft:    

We start to enter the alpine, and we can see several larger snow patches higher up but are slightly discouraged but the lack of snow but continue to press on believing in better areas over a distant ridge.

8400 ft:    

Audrey and I are amazed to see a 300 pound plus lady on her way down the mountain. We spend the next 20 mins entertaining various ways she could have got to that altitude.

8700 ft:   

We make it to our first decent snow patch and slide down on our asses with a super stoked kid that asked if he could slide too. After debating whether or not to stay there and build a jump or make it over the ridge in front of us we opt for the ridge.

9000-9500 ft:

Pay dirt and by dirt I mean snow! There were several large patches of snow sheltered on 3 sides from the sun. We were pumped and started jumping in to our boots and skis. The first patch we skied was fairly long and mellow ending in a sweet roll down slash drop section. We took turns taking pictures and runs. On one of the the runs with Audrey set up to take a picture of me grabbing some air over the drop at the bottom, I took the air narrowly missing a mini crevasse that dropped 8 feet below the snow into an under water pond. We investigated the hole for a bit, climbing in and throwing rocks into the water to see how deep it was. After that little warm up we headed for a steeper and longer patch. At over 9000 feet, hiking the 300 plus vert snow patch was a lung and leg burner but it was so worth it. The length and pitch allowed for some serious speed and sick turns. On our second or third a group of people making it to the last ridge we hiked over stood and watched us, cheering us while we ripped July lines. After a few more runs and with the altitude and hike wearing on us we decided to head down.

7306 ft:

We made it back down the mountain fairly quick even with a stop to drink some glacier water from a water fall. Once back in the parking lot we slowly packed our stuff away and with time and tiredness in mind we made the decision to cancel the other activities and head home for a much needed relax session.

River And Surfing...Together?

So in my desperate attempt to go surfing in this arid land locked province I currently reside in I have resorted to river surfing. It's not too bad, the glacial water is the temperature I'm used to from lake superior, you can stand and carve and even get mini head wetters. It's a lot like riding on a flow rider except when you fall you usually have to deal with some fast moving rapids down stream.

This particular day was at the Red Deer River about 2 hours north west of Calgary. The flow was pretty high and it was also my first camping trip for the summer.

In this picture is Steve Wallace, I will add some of me on the front page when I get the hang of it more!

Last Day At Sunshine

(PICTURE COMING SOON)

On Monday of the May long weekend, Ryan and I headed up to Sunshine for one last day of resort skiing. We left a little late that morning, not because we slept in, but in a calculated move we decided to shoot for an 11 am arrival. The late start was in hopes to miss all the early morning ice and possibly score some free tickets.

The drive out proved uneventful, and with tickets in hand, and beer tucked away (had to sneak it through security at the goni) we jumped on the gondi. Once up top we stopped and watch slush cup (the last day water skimming event) to cheer and laugh at the people trying to make the big drop and decently long skim across the pond. After that it was time to head to the park. Park laps in the spring time at Shine are sweet. This is not because the park is any decent but because to get to the park from the closest chair you have to straight line most of the Resorts usable vert. That coupled with spring moguls and a "see who can straight line all the way there" competition and you have a thigh burning, adrenalin filled ride to the park. Nothing gets that heart pumping faster then knowing your legs are about to give out any second while your doubling and tripling waist high moguls all the while dodging slow moving tourists.

The day was super fun and I had an awesome time but, unfortunately after a good two hours of riding I was sent back to the truck early to drink my beer with a bunch of snow on my knee. After hitting a jump switch and getting caught up in a rut on the take off, I landed a little back seat on a mogul in the landing. Innocent enough, but I got a sharp pain shooting through my knee. It would later turn out to keep me from doing anything too fun for about a month or so until I was able to start downhill biking a month later and river surfing around the same time.

I Finally Did It; The Ghost Ride!

I've always wanted to part ways with my snowmobile, ghost riding it to the bottom while I chased it on my skis! Well on April 30th it happened. After a somewhat late start to the morning Steve and I made our way to Kananakis to what we new would be a warm and snowy welcome.

When we got to Cataract Creek we could see the fresh snow that had fallen over the last 24 to 36 hours and there was lots of it. We dropped our sleds into the vacant parking lot and got suited up. Due to the fact no one was there we were able to rip up to the alpine at 50-80 kph floating over 30 plus cm of fresh whit stuff. After playing around the alpine on the sled for an hour or so I found a nice tree-less area and strapped into my skis. Then sitting side sattle on my sled and facing the slope, I put the throttle to the bar. Bouncing around all over the place and getting my skis caught periodically in the track I barely made it to half of my projected turn around spot. My first dismount equally as bad resulted in an immediate fall. I took 3 or 4 tries and almost getting run over a couple times but I started getting the hang of it and before long I was doing non stop laps; high mark up, dismount ski down, catch up to the sled, get back on and repeat.

It was an awesome day, until the end when trying to take a short cut back I rolled my sled from almost the top of a ridge down to the apron. My gear was scattered all over the slope and I was in the middle of an avy area so I was on my own to clean up. Once everything was collected my sled mysteriously wouldn't start for over half an hour, it finally did and it was time to go with one more obstacle to go. As we go lower in elevation the days sun had melted most of the last 3 km of trail resulting in us turning our sleds into temporary dirt bikes. It worked great but we had to constantly shut the machines down to let them cool. It was 8 o'clock when we finally got out of there, 4 hours later then we were supposed to. I'd like to say thanks to my wonderful girl friend Audrey in this case as it wasn't until 9 that I was in cell phone range and we had plans at 630. Sorry cutie.

In this picture is me side satle skis on heading up the hill.

Honorary Mention: Steve Wallace

Steve Wallace dropping a decent size cliff on his sled. A feat made harder as he had to high mark up and over it with his 600 pinned and barely having enough power!

Good Friday Was A Good Friday!

It was 7 am on Good Friday and my alarm was buzzing. I had already slept in an extra hour and thought Steve might leave for the planned mountain exploration day with out me. With that in mind I jumped out of bed, got dressed and ran out of my room to start packing, only to realize Steve was still in bed having celebrated a little too hard the night before. Finally by around 9 o'clock Steve and I were on our way to explore an area of Kananaskis called Cataract Creek. We were looking for some alpine terrain with sledding and sled skiing potential.

It couldn't have been a nicer day, it was blue bird, plus 2 at the staging area and tons of fresh snow kicking around. We had also acquired a 3 riding partner who had come by himself and asked to tag along. Once suited up we started to hammer out the roughly 25 km of trail to get into the alpine. The trail was arduous, being about 20 km of huge whoops, having two water crossings and a couple narrow side hills on steep slopes.

Coming in was awesome and we knew we had found an awesome spot. It was like entering a giant amphitheater, with the long meadow floor and mountain peaks surrounding you 270 degrees. The powder that day was deep and untouched by the warmer temperatures below. We spent the next 4 or so hours high marking and jumping our sleds of every cliff and natural jump in sight. So, highlights were a natural hip we jumped until the landing was bombed out and Steve dropping a cliff for about 30 feet. We barely stopped for beers or lunch we were having such a Good Friday.

In this picture is me laying down a carve!

Last Weekend At COP

Everything comes to an end, and as a skier you have to get used to the closing of ski hills as the season nears it's finish. COP was the first to go. With their base at it's highest all season and their claim of being non-profit, you would think they would let the good times roll. They did however open back up for a "bonus" weekend in which we had as much fun as possible in two slush filled days of awesomeness!

In this picture is Audrey conveying that slush time fun a la spread eagle.

85 Cent Pow Day at Norquay

On April 7th, Ryan and I headed to Norquay Ski Resort with no idea of what the conditions would be like. We mainly thought we would be riding and trying to get some footage in their sub par terrain park.  Outside it looked less than ideal and had it not been 85 cents to ski for the day I probably would have slept in then tried to light up little kids online on "Bioshock 2" (a PS3 Game).

We took off for the hill not to excited for the conditions, but still stoked to ski. Only a few kilometers out we noticed this nice hole in the clouds bathing Norquay in sunlight. We had also noticed more and more snow on the trees the closer we got! Once parked it was a no brainer, we grabbed our pow sticks and headed to the lift with notions of face shots. My favorite spot on the mountain was closed due to avy risk but with us being from Ontario we knew how to bush wack. Punching through trees that looked too tight to ski through we would often find big openings that were a treat to ski. Some of these openings were probably untouched all year! It turned out to be a sick day and I got more than my 85 cents worth of skiing in!

In the shot above I'm skiing a pillow line we noticed from the chair lift.

April With A Mix Of Snow!

This whole April (even as I write now 2 weeks after this picture was taken) has been an interesting series of cycles. It snows 20 plus cm then warms up and melts the snow, and just as you think spring is here it does it all over again. This has made it an awesome April so far with lots of powder days!

Slopestyle At Louise

On Saturday, March 28th I made the trek out to Lake Louise for their annual slopestyle with the hope of having fun and earning some prize money.

Once there I signed in and got a sweet gift bag that included some essentials (energy drinks and potato chips). Practice was bumped up so I immediately hit the chair and tried to get some practice runs in. Practice went well and I started to like that they changed the course up from the previous day.

My first run was going well until, between the last two features in the flat I caught a pile of snow skiing switch and went down! I think that is probably the worst way to fall in a competition. So with the first run a scratch, I knew I needed to land my second one to make finals. With pressure on I started down the course. Landed clean on my first feature, then the second then cleaned the third and made it past my first fall. Going off the last jump I decided in the air to take my swtich 7 to a 9. As I landed my right ski caught some snow and blew off. I tried to ride it out on one ski but to no avail.

I did not make finals. I did end up having a nice day ripping around with Cath and Ryan and even met Candide Thovex which was sick! 

Spring Riding Is Here!

After getting back from Revy and having 2 weeks of frigid temperatures, spring time conditions have finally rolled in! Basically this means epic throw down sessions, competitions and big spring storms. The next 2 and a half months all be busy trying to squeeze every day out the remainder of the season, so look forward to frequent blogs updates and lots of media.

In this picture is me during an epic throw down session, with a muted out cork 7!

Revy Trip Day 3

Day 3 started out with Big D and John heading out to get a part for the downed sled. The night before, while attaching a new coolant line, the plastic nipple it slides onto broke off and they needed a new one. They were soon back with bad news. The shop didn't have the part so the trip was cut down to two sleds. We then decided to make 2 trips. Mike and I would bring the first group and some gear up to the alpine so they could build a jump while we turned and burned to get Jon and Big D.

The first trip started out alright and we were making good time. This shortly changed probably due to it being warm out, I had forgotten to put an additive in my coolant to make it run cooler and our much increased speed up the mountain. I started having some over heating issues about 1/3 of the way up and to make matters worse I had accidentally twisted off my coolant cap and dropped all my fluid. I had already lost a bunch out the over flow and this meant Mike had to shoot back down and get me some more coolant. Once he got back it was all gravy, we got the guys up to the alpine, scoped some areas for jumps and took a few minutes to do some powder runs on the sleds.

Mike and I cut through the trees on the way back down. This not only cut time but got us face shots half way back down the mountain! Once down, we turned around quick. Mike jumped on my sled with me leaving Big D and Jon on the 1000. It was a lot hotter (in winter terms) at the bottom and way less fresh snow on the trail, which left us having to routinely stop because of my sled over heating. As we got up higher Mike and I used our doubling skills to duck into powder and get fresh snow to the coolant system to keep my sled cool for the rest of the way. The whole turn around took about an hour and a half which wasn't bad for covering over 50km of trails to get down then back up.

Once back up, the jump was ready and it looked sick and looking good is important if it's not going to work the way you want it to. After several sled tow-ins, we just couldn't get enough speed to hit our target landing about 70 feet to the knuckle. Not so good for filming but because it was a step up with lots of pow it was fun to ride. We all started tossing flips right off the bat, then in keeping with the underlying theme of the trip the 1000 blew a relay which meant no lights. The sun started going down so we all took a couple more jumps but had to pack it in early. While packing up Mike decided it would be fun to put us under the gun so while towing up Kyle and Brent for "one last pow run" he got epically stuck, in a precarious position. Trees and a 10 foot cliff below him and an angled 6-8 foot wind lip drop directly in front of him. It took almost half and hour and four of us to dig him out to get the sled to a position safe to ride out.

On the way down, I let Brent jump on my sled and ripped down on skis. I scored sick sunset lines and pillows for most of the first 15km down before it flattened out and we relied on the sleds to tow us over the minor inclines and flat sections. By the time we got down it was dark, about 8 o'clock. In the parking lot the call was made, with the difficulties of getting all of us up the mountain on 2 sleds and no lights on one, it was time to drive back to Calgary. It was a fun road trip back, mostly eating "hot and readys" talking about the sick stuff that did go down and how and when we can get back there! The trip was cut 3 days short but it was still a good time! Hopefully we can get back soon!

In the picture above is me mid air after hitting our jump.

Revy Trip Day 2

The morning came early but John, Mike, Brent, Kyle, Kyler, Big D and I woke up and answered the call to rip some seriously deep pow! We had breakfast, got our gear, and lunches packed.. First stop was trail passes then the sled pen. This is were Mike and John revealed their spiffy new ski racks, they had custom built for their sleds. Once we had our sleds warmed up we attached our skis and headed to the trail. I had my doubling cherry popped with my double partner Brent. John was doubling on his 900 and Mike's 1000 doubling and towing.

Our first issue occurred right away. Mike and I both stopped at the trail head only to realize John was still back at the sled pen. He must have been having some sled issues or something so Mike turned back solo to help. He put it "to the bar" and while trying to double over some whoops an explosion of skis came off the back of his sled. There was ski rack shrapnel everywhere! This was only mirrored by John's sled when he finally got up and moving. I guess that's is why retail for the things is $500. Fortunately we had rope and were able to secure the skis to the part of the racks that stayed on the sleds.

Once we were on trail I can't say I wasn't nervous. All year my sled has been giving me issues (the first year ever) and even though I worked out the kinks, I didn't really want to test out my repairs by doing 20km of trail while doubling. It's only a 700 and the problems were all cooling related, but with the help of some fresh snow on the trail we made it to "The Cabin" on top of boulder mountain.

This day was to be an exploring day, seeing what the mountain had to offer. After deciding to stay in the trees because off clouds, we mainly focused on what the locals call "Cabin Runs". Basically a 2 km shuttle from the cabin up the trail to about 500-600 vert feet above The Cabin. The terrain was sick with a choice of multiple cliff bands, a couple really nice steep chutes and even some super sick pillows. The snow, well the snow was epically deep, the deepest snow I have ridden in my life!

After dropping the guys off for the first run, I drove my sled back down to the pick up point, with John and Big D (Mike and John's dad). With my partner off the sled and being able to ride it properly again I ducked into the trees. The only thing I could see was my handle bars sticking out of the snow between face shots. I went back up for a couple more laps before realizing that the other sleds weren't back yet. Confused I got on the radio and found we had our first stuck (when the snow mobile is stuck in the snow) of the trip. It was the 1000 and man was it stuck. It was buried over the hood on the front end with the track also in deep. That particular machine isn't light, but nothing 3 guys and avy shovels couldn't fix.

Once we had all met at the bottom I did a little theft prevention to my sled and it was time to ski!. With Big D driving the 1000's he made two trips to bring 3 of us up at a time. We ended up getting 2 or 3 runs in before we broke for lunch a 1 oclockish. The runs were sick, full of huge drops and sick turns. 20 to 40 footers were being sent with ease. The powder was so deep, you never had to worry about dropping onto a tree stump or rock just under the surface, if there was anything it would just be a pillow!

With the sky turning blue we figured we could jet up to the alpine to eat lunch and scope some lines. After briefly stopping on the trail to make sure we had everyone, we noticed we were missing John. Once we got him on the radio he told us his sled was down. His exhaust had melted a hole in his coolant return (the same issue I had been having with mine). The fix was temporary, bubble gum and electrical tape to seal the line and lucky for him I had started carrying a liter of coolant in a bottle in my bag. This was pretty much an end to the ski day.

By the time we ate lunch it was late afternoon, so we let the other guys get a taste and try out our rides in the open powder field beside The Cabin. The guys were stoked, hitting jumps, scoring face shots and trying to carve. After about an hour, we headed back down, scoring pow and tree runs on the 18 km ski out. Jon's sled experienced one more "issue" with the handle of his pull start coming off. And on a funny note at the bottom of the ski out and wondering why I wasn't skiing to my normal level I looked down and realized I was wearing my park skis which look similar early in the morning to my pow skis except they're 14mm narrower under foot.


In the picture above is the crew getting ready to go up from our pick up zone.

Revy Trip Day 1

On Feb 16th, a Wednesday, was the departing day of my first sled ski trip. With my sled all nice and repaired, I ran some last minute errands, then went an got an ass load of gas. I stopped at a Superstore gas station and pumped $160 into my truck, snow machine and Jerry cans, to avoid paying steep BC gas prices. Then it was off to pick up Brent and meet the rest of the crew for the 5 hour drive to Revelstoke.

The rest off the crew was running late. After a few phone calls they had finally admitted that the ski racks for the snowmobiles they were making were going to take a few more hours. So, Brent and I decided to get a head start and get the drive done during day light. When we left Calgary it was cold and overcast, when we hit Golden and stopped for some much needed energy drinks, it was plus 4 and blue bird. From the gas station we could clearly see Kicking Horse and we immediately started kicking ourselves for not leaving early in the morning to ski. We started kicking ourselves even harder when we got reports that it puked all night then let up in the morning just in time to go blue and it had hit -2 or 3 at the top. A little on the bitter side but still more then stoked for our trip we continued our drive.

As we approached Rogers Pass, the epic side of the highway pillow lines appeared and after many conversations about how sick K-Ho would have been we decided double back 2 km and pull over. We got geared up and started hiking towards this sick pillow line and cliff section we spotted. The snow was deep and it was steep, so much so we had trouble finding a place to get on top of the lines we were about to ski. Once on top it was time for some fun. Brent and I scored some sweet pillows and huge props to him for a 15-20 foot 180 off a cliff! We managed to get 3 laps in before it got to dark and had to head back to the truck. Super stoked on our session we continued the drive to Revy, where a hotel and a night of telling the guys over some cold beer ensued!

In the picture above is a shot of a 3 pillow straight line I did! 

Fixed The Sled???

For those who didn't know, this season is the first in four that my sled decided to give me actual problems. After going over it, and getting some parts I finally thought I figured it out. So me and Steve decided to head to K Country to test it out before my Revy trip and ride some powder.

Cateract Creek is only like an hour and 10 minutes from our house which is sick, because it also have some potential for sled skiing. Once we got there we dropped the sleds and fired them up. We ripped down the trails for a couple km's before finding unridden areas. Creek beds and cut blocks not even touched by other sledders, probably just ripping by only worried abou getting to the alpine.

Riding was sick! We were having so much fun it took 3 hours to do 6 km of trail. We weren't worried about getting to the alpine to much, we saw signs of slabbing down low, that coupled with appearnt wind loading and hearing a massive slide higher up, we were content with what we were riding. But 3 hours in I had discovered green dripping out of my sled. It was my coolant, ironically I had put and extra zip tie on the hose to hold it on and that one extra tie caused a pressure point to develop and crack my line. Steve had to toe me out on his 600 which i thought was an impressive feat.

In this picture is Steve throwing down a hard carve!   

Wrangle The Chutes

Wrangle The Chutes at Kicking Horse, was my first big mountain competition and the most fun competition I have ever been in! Basically you rip down a big mountain line, hit a park jump then hold on to a bucking barrel while 4 other competitors pull the ropes to try and knock you off.

The sweetest thing about this trip is Rossignol (the main event sponsor) brought me and a bunch of other Rossignol athletes together, paid for our entry and put us up in a sick house! It was an amazing time.

Day 1: The jump was only open for like 45 minutes on the practice day due to an injury. So the organizers opened the jump up for practice before the high noon start time. It was a fun jump, but it had a dirt jump style landing. This is great for bikes, but you have to be a sniper to hit it on skis. I got 4 practice runs, including a straight air, 360, 540, and an attempted switch hit, in which I comically crashed and slid up the jump as I couldn't handle the bumpy in run switch.

When it came time for my run I dropped in lookers left of the left chute, hoping to hit a small drop into the chute then get on a spine for another 8-10 foot drop. As I came off the fist drop and tried to turn I immediately slid on rocks. I had managed to recover but just after missing the second drop. I then got on the spine between the two chutes, but got lost and took a smaller drop than I had wanted. I turned into the jump and did a mute 5 where upon the ride out (after the initial landing) my bindings suddenly blew off, it was weird, but I ran onto the horse and held on as long as I could. I finished day one in 43rd out of like 70, not bad considering and it was super fun.

Day 2: After having some issues in the morning, I got up to the start gate a little on the late side. It wasn't a big deal though, the organizers fit me in like 4 guys later. It was actually nice not having to wait around getting cold before my run.

For my line this day I pretty much took the same one, I just changed it a little bit. I dropped in from the same spot, but went straight a little longer before hitting a 6-8 foot drop into the chute. Once I landed I decided to just straight line the hell out of the rest of the chute. I got going so  fast, which was perfect because it set me up for this huge "McConky" turn to get onto the spine between two chutes. Once on the spine, all I was looking for were these two trees. One marking my drop in and one marking marking the take off on the cliffs I wanted to hit. I found them right away, and turned in. It was supposed to be a double stager and I wanted to throw a trick off the second cliff. But once I had dropped in I realized it was too tight to turn and I was going to have to send both cliffs in one shot. I popped super hard and knew I was going to make it over both. Just then I realized how big this was going to be and suddenly the landing was looking a little flat. The first cliff was about 5-6 feet high, followed by a landing of about 15-20 vertical feet followed by around a 15 foot cliff. Not to mention I had cleared over the second cliff with plenty of room to spare and alot of speed. This was definitely going to be the biggest drop I have ever done on skis and I didn't even realize it until I was in the air! Total drop was probably in the 40 to 50 foot range, and I stomped it! Next coming into the jump I was amped and thought I was going a little fast so I dropped more speed then I should have. My 7 tail turned into getting my ankles taken out at 630. But I crashed well got up and jumped on the bronco.

I must have kicked ass on my line, as my jump was a lot worse then the first day and I scored way higher. High enough to move me up to 30th, which I am more then pumped on for my first big mountain comp and the riding that happend in it.

Big thanks to Denis Leclaire, and Rossignol and a super huge thanks to Marie Allaire 

Pow Day At K-Ho

On Friday, Feb 4th, I left at like 6 am to get to Kicking Horse for opening. It was sign-in and jump training day for Wrangle The Chutes. The drive was good until I got to Banff, where it got really bad really fast. The highway hadn't been plowed, and blower snow kicked up from transports made it near impossible to see. When I got to golden, the road was closed and I had been told I must of just made it through in time.

Once I got to the mountain I signed in and got my lift pass for the weekend, and an awesome thing happend, the sun started poking out! It stayed poking out for pretty much the whole day allowing for some sick alpine riding! I had also ran into Mason and Bryce, which was sick because they showed me around the mountain. It was a sick day and with the jump for the next days competition only being open for an 45 minutes or so I skied pow until my legs burned!

Red Bull Crashed Ice Try Outs

On Jan 29th, I figured I would lace up the skates and don full hockey equipment for the first time in probably about 3 years, and see if I could still out skate everybody on the ice in the Red Bull Crashed Ice Calgary Qualifiers.

I had skates but know equipment, so typical my style I decided to pick it up at 4pm on the day of. My buddy Ryan hooked me up with his gear, that had been hanging out in his storage area (see broken down VW Golf in his backyard) for about a year or so. All but the helmet and shin pads fit great, so it was off to Canadian Tire to take advantage of their "rental" program. So with all the required gear I headed to the Crowfoot Twin Area.

The course was fairly simple, drop to your stomach at the blue line, jump a hurdle at the next, skate around the bottom of the face off circle, then do a 360 between the red and blue line before skating through the finish line. Each guy had 2 runs, one on the left course then one on the right, 2 guys on course at the same time. When it was my turn I got under the start line and waited for the whistle, then took off! I suprised myself both times off the start, it was like I had my old speed and owned the guys I was racing down the first length of ice! After that I learned something, that if you don't skate for awhile you lose some technique, which is extra appearent in cornering. This is where I lost most of my speed, having a hard time crossing over and looking like a novice.

All in all it was super fun, and I'm going to train a little bit and kick ass next year. My time was 14.48 seconds. 

Two Busted Wings!

So like a week after the Sunalta Quad Kink on Jan 21st, I had another nasty little spill, landing on the top of my shoulder and side of my head. Luckily I'm a ninja when it comes to falling or it would have been alot worse! But it was bad enough in conjunction with my other shoulder to get it checked out, so I went in for some rays and a once over from a doc.

The verdict, was I had a minor concussion which, I already knew from my self evaluation, my busted helmet and years of contact and action sports. I also had minor seperations in both shoulders. No biggie though you don't need your shoulders to ski LOL!

In this picture I'm hanging out with a sling on my more injured shoulder drinking a beer!

Sunalta Quad Kink

So mid Jan hit my first hand rail in Calgary, on a shoot with 403 media. It was this super long quad kink with a nice in run.

The night started with me leaving COP to meet Brent and the rest of the crew. They had the rail all set up and good to go. It was big and long but the kinks looked pretty mellow. After meeting the crew, we started doing test runs on the jump while we waited for lights. Once the lights showed up it was on! I ended up taking a couple of hard bails (as did some of the other guys) on of them being on my recently injured shoulder so I had decided to stop. But that didn't stop a couple of the guys from greasing it and having a sick night!

Sorry there is no picture but I for got to take one with my camera and couldn't get a hold of one (we were filming)

Pow Day!

So Jan 7th after skiing and wing night at cop, Audrey and I headed to Banff for the weekend. Saturday was cold and not great conditions out so we opted to hang out relax and explore banff a little bit. But Saturday around mid to late after noon it started snowing and Sunday we scored a pow day at Sunshine. It was super cold out that day, we had to go in and warm up every few runs, but it was super fun. It was also Audrey's first powder day since hurting her knee last season!

In this picture I had just dropped the cliffs behind me and am setting up to enter a treed section just out of frame!

New Years Day Surf!

After waking up a little on the late side, as is understandable on New Years day, Jakko, Matt, Dillion and myself piled in to Matt's surf-mobile and headed for Terrace Bay. Swell was forcasted at 14 feet and from the highway on the way into town we could see that it was probably right!

We decided to try the surf spot called Pump House as the beach faced around 90 degrees to the swell direction. This forced the waves to wrap into the bay, cleaning them up and knocking them down in size (Jakko originally wanted to surf that right way in the background of the picture but it was out of my ability level and I like living). It also gave us a nice barrier of trees to dampen the 40km/h winds.

Jakko paddle out first follwed by me. Once out, we discovered a crazy longshore current carrying us down the bay to where bigger and more inconsistant sets were coming in. But after catching a wave in each and a long walk down the beach I found a sweet little riptide. The rip not only made getting out a breeze, but if you stayed to surfers left of it there was no other currents, so staying in place was easy. After that we ended up surfing this sick right (its out of from to the right of the picture) for a few hours before bigger and bigger waves snuck in. This culminated in a monster set taking all four of us out at once as we got caught inside. It was hardest i've been owned in awhile, including numerous slams off the bottom and just enough time to catch one breath before the second wave pretty much took me the rest of the way to shore! We all looked at each other and decided that was a wrap. Which was a good thing as the 2.5 hour drive took about 5 as a winter storm had just starting pushing it's way into the area.

Yay Old Footage!

Okay, so last season I did what never happends, I had my best riding days of the season coincide with filming days! I know it's rare, but I had some unreal footage! I had follow cam jump lines with sw right 7's to sw left 10's. I had all four 720s, I corks and sw corks, and I had sick rail shots like 50/50's on an urban set up park rail, and sw ups to sw 50/50s. It was amazing...then the even more rare, a Macintosh computer crashed! On the Mac's hard drive was all that footage, and since the footy was taken off a hard drive camera (damn that technology to hell) there was no hard copies since the camera had been long cleared to make way for new footage.

So here is the best of the minor amount of footage that I had on my camera from last year. It's more of a joke edit, but you'll like it, enjoy!

December Surf

So no big deal December 28th, snow on the ground, surfing Lake Superior. Mike (my little bro) and I drove from Thunder Bay, to Terrace Bay for his virgin surf experience.

I had kind of convinced Mike earlier in the week to come out with me on the next decent day so he could try some surfing for the first time. I think we where supposed to leave at like 8 in the morning. We didn't end up leaving until around 11, but that was okay because the weather wasn\t that nice and as we were suiting up the sky went blue bird and it warmed up! There ended up being 5 of us in total and the session was pretty sick. Mike did really well and got some experience under his belt, I figured out that fancy looking wax jobs are not always functional and big ups to Chris for the hot shower and hot food!

(in the picture is Mike starting to paddle out for the first time)

First Hand Rail Of The Season!

So what you see above, is my first hand rail of the season. It was boxing day and it was just Van Bailey and myself seshing the most hit urban in Thunder Bay, the Sir John A School down bar; more commonely known as SJAM. It was a sick, warm, (high was -7.5 according to a weather site) blue bird day and no box store super deal could keep me from riding that day.

For the session we used a bungee for speed. One of us was filming or taking pictures and whoever was dropping in was left to pull the bungee back on their own, which was not easy. At the end of the day I felt like I had just gone wake boarding for the first time of the season.

It didn't take long to start greasing the rail, then moving in to 2 out's. Once we were comfy we started toying around. Van, got it unnatty, which I have always wanted to do but after watching him drop the bungee in between his legs on the first try and eating it, I decided I would wait for a drop in ramp. I didn't even realize that was possible at that point! He also went for the 2 on, trying to be (to the best of my knowledge) the first person to get a 2 onto that rail. As for me I worked into a sweet nose press I'm super proud of (seen above). I was realing hoping for a front side switch up to front 2 out, but with time running out and family functions to go to we agreed to come back another day.

Late Post, But Merry Xmas!

So I hope everyone had a merry Christmas. I know this is a couple weeks late as I was a little all over the place this holidays (drove over 5000 kms in a few weeks), and am just getting back to the computer!

The holidays were sweet, spent time with friends and fam and came back to Calgary for a sick weekend in Banff with Audrey! I have 4 more blog posts coming up over the next few days with some of the stuff I did during Xmas. I figured the best way to do it was update my blog every second day.

As for this update, I just wanted to say a belated Merry Christmas and happy holidays hope everyone had fun.

I aslo want to thank Rossignol, and Denis Leclaire and Maire Allaire for the gear, support and being just plain awesome. In this picture I am wearing new Rossi hoodie, gloves, touque, head band and neck warmer they gave me as well as holding on to a new pair of S4's with FKS bindings on them. Also thank you Ski Hause for mounting them for me! I'm also standing behind a wall of some of the skis I've aquired through my years of sponsorship with Rossi if you didn't notice!