Endless Snow at Rogers Pass

I spent a few days in Revelstoke just before Christmas with my old buddy Scott Newsome. Dan K. and I were taking the A.S.T. 2 course with Scott instructing. We got around 2 feet of snow in 3 days on Rogers Pass. Lots of changes in the upper snowpack to study and a few pow runs just before dark. Not too many pics of riding as most of it was done after sunset in snowstorms. Deepest snow of the season so far. A great way to update some back-country skills and spend time with friends.

No shortage of early season snow on the Pass.

Newsome the mountain man.

Trailbreaking.

Stepping onto the rutschblock.

Looking down on Hwy 1.

Newsome about to drop into the deep.

Mount Sir Donald with the only sunlight we saw in 3 days - right before dark.

Dan K delirious in the apres.

Joe

I miss Joe Strummer. He passed away 7 years ago today and the world is a bit smaller without him. He had so much left to give. This is a shot from a performance he gave in San Diego with the Mescalaros the summer before his death. I was lucky to be there that day.

Here's a shot from The Clash tour in 1984. One of the first concerts I went to. It wasn't the original lineup, but it was still Joe & Paul doing Clash songs.

Gone but not forgotten.

"Deeper" in the mags.

Snowboard Canada has a feature on our trip from last April in their "Early Winter" issue. Jeff Patterson put it together with the pics he took and the words we wrote. Check it out on the newstand this week.

South of the border, Transworld has Dan Milner's coverage of the mission in their January issue.

Nice to see something a little different in the shred magazines. Check them out.

Deeper Unplugged

Jeremy Jones talks about the Deeper project.

Lots of my shots from AK in there. Great to see some of them get out there. Looking forward to getting some more.

Jonaven & Jones

Jonaven joins Jones Snowboards. Pretty much a perfect match. Check out tetongravity.com for more.

Antarctic Lines

Jeremy & Xavier have been up to no good on the other side of the planet. Check out more pics here. Follow Jones' posts here.

WINTER!

From whistlerblackomb:

418cms have fallen so far, smashing our record for all time snowiest November!! The avalanche danger is currently high to extreme...

From avalanche.ca:

An intense pacific system will reach the coast today bringing heavy precipitationand very strong winds starting this evening. Coastal areas can expect 40-50cm of snow tonight, while inland areas may see 20-30cm. Mountaintop winds will be very strong from the S-SW, with gusts over 100km/hr. The freezing level should be at around 1000m tonight, rising to 1500m on Thursday. The snow continues to fall with an additional 30-50cm on Thursday and 20-40cm on Friday.

It's deep. November to remeber. Blah blah blah. (Obviously I haven't been up there yet.) Be careful out there.

NMN

Nomeansno at their peak from back in 1990. I've seen this band live more than any other since I started going to shows in the 80's. They're still at it too - touring right now, playing new songs. This era of the band with Andy Kerr on guitar has got to be my favorite though. This footage is from one of the two shows taped in Europe for the Live & Cuddly record. For years I pictured what that concert must have looked like and then last year these clips started appearing on youtube synced with the audio from the record. You can't really see much of John Wright's drumming here but his skills are amazing. If you're anywhere near Tacoma or Bellingham this weekend go see them. They're getting pretty old (hell, Rob is old in this video), but they still rock out.

A Dozen Walrus

There's a stack of Walrus on my wall. Check out www.thebirdmachine.com for more.

WCP

Here's a little piece I helped shoot for Whistler Creek Productions a few weeks ago. W.C.P. has partnered with Sympatico to produce a series of webisodes during the 2010 Olympic Games. This edit is for Sympatico to shop the idea around to sponsors so W.C.P. has some kind of budget to work with on the production. Hopefully this project will act as a stepping stone for our little collective.

Old

Yours truly from the Westbeach Classic at Cypress Bowl 1989. Check out the whole Westbeach story here. Wow - 20 years.

Deeper Trailer

The Deeper trailer is up! Check it over at TGR's website if it doesn't play above. Can't wait for the season to start!

Spliboarding AK Part 2

Dan Milner was the photographer for the first half of the AK Deeper mission last spring. He was nice enough to send me some of his shots. This was one of the smaller places I've set up a tripod. No room for error.

Morning dog dance with Marcos.

Turtle & Marcos watched all the action go down.

Skinning up to find a camera angle.

Hoping the clouds will clear.

Thanks to Dan Milner for all the shots in this post. Check out his website: www.danmilner.com.
(Check out Splitboarding AK Part 1 here)

Black Tusk

Black Tusk floating in the clouds. Nothing more, nothing less.

Gone Fishing

My brother returned to B.C. a few weeks ago after living in Honduras for the summer. He lives in Vancouver now, but when he used to live in Whistler he spent much of his time flyfishing up here around Pemberton. One of his favorite places was the Birkenhead River. I used to join him and our friend Rob on some of their fishin' missions on the river back then. Last week he was back in Whistler doing some work and had a day off so we took the afternoon to return to the Birkenhead. The fishing was pretty slow but just to be out there throwing a line again was great for both of us. The river has changed quite a bit since we last fished there. Some of the favorite runs have shifted and new ones have developed. The locals are still there - check the bear in the photo. We'll be back.

Splitboarding AK Part 1

This past April I was lucky enough to be part of an AK mission with Jeremy Jones and his all star cast shooting footage for the "Deeper" project. It's a two year film/video project Jones put together "focussing on the hard to reach zones that are not accessible by helicopters, ski lifts and snow machines". Here's the collection of boards we took with us.

This is how we got out to our snow camp. If you ever need a ride into mountains around Haines, Drake is your man.

Our first camp. It snowed 10 feet while we were there.

Me & T.B. waiting out the storm. This was a typical day for the first half of the trip. Thanks to Travis for bringing the community tent along.

Travis Rice, Jeremy Jones and Chris Edmands (front to back) in the snow cave. Jonaven & Travis dug this elaborate cave. A good place to chill - pun intended.

Some of the lines in the "backyard".

AK Part 2 here.

Mt. Baker in the Summer

I've spent many days at Mt. Baker Ski Area during the winter but until last weekend I'd never been there in the summer. What a contrast to see it without snow. And the blueberries! Happy bears in the North Cascades this summer.

Sentry Lodge

During the winter of 2007 I flew into Sentry Lodge north of Golden, B.C. for 5 days of touring and shooting film with my friend Jonaven Moore and photographer Kelly Schovanek. It was my first splitboarding experience. There was a ski touring group staying there too (including J's mom) and a few of them really wanted to see how we'd been spending our days. So I edited a quick little piece for them to watch from the bit of video I shot. Not the greatest footage, but it gives a good look at some of the terrain around the lodge. I hope to return there sometime sooner than later.

Finally...

I finally got back into the ocean after no surf for way too long. Pemberton is definitely not close to the surf so it has been tough to get any time in the water this summer. Especially with three weddings in August. I just spent the weekend down at the beach with the Washington crew. I got to see some good friends I haven't seen in a while and surf a wave down there I've never paddled out to before. I've checked this spot multiple times over the years but it was never really working. If you've spent any time surfing around Washington you'll recognize the place. This is about as friendly as it gets out there. While we were out there the fog rolled in and made it pretty near impossible to line up with anything. A little spooky, but at this size it was mellow. A little bigger and it would have been less than mellow. I've heard many stories about this wave punishing people. The view from above was surreal. You could barely see the shore directly below the lookout through the fog. The surf-able wave was hidden from view. A sea of fog hiding the sea.

Ryan Beppu

Cool image from Hawaii. Check out his website here for more.

Crankworx 2009

I spent most of last week shooting video for Whistler Creek Productions' coverage of Crankworx. We managed to get 9 episodes up on the web in 9 days. Check them out here:

http://whistlercreekproductions.com/crankworx/

I haven't really paid attention to what's happening in mountain biking for a few years. To say the least I was impressed. With dual slaloms, downhills, photo competitions, cheese rolling and the slopestyle finale on the weekend, Crankworx really had it all. Brett Tippie too! It was great to see some faces I haven't seen in years and work on something a little different.

Not secret, but lesser known.

Here's Tom Ritchie timing his paddle out down in Costa Rica a few summers back. We'd seen this solid swell forecast and decided to check out a relatively unknown area down there. We got what we were looking for. Check the guy on the shoulder for size reference.

Smoky Summer

The summer here in B.C. has been the hottest I can remember. Forest fires have been threatening the Pemberton valley on both sides for the past two weeks. Helicopters are constantly on their way to or from the fires. Temperatures began dropping last week and then last night it finally rained. More is in the forecast. Hopefully this spells the end for these fires.

Batshit Crazy

A German named Dirk Auer figured out how to roller skate a roller coaster. Why not?

G-Land

I'm a little late to the party, but here's my contribution to the digital pile. I'm not sure how this thing will evolve. I'm starting out short and sweet. A picture from my travels with a tiny explanation (or not).

This one's from a couple summers back when I finished a 2 month trip to Bali with a quick one over to Java to finally see this incredible wave on the edge of a jungle. This Aussie charger broke his board a few waves later. Low tide & HEAVY!