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)