Soul Gypsy

As has been my typical style this season, I decided my next ski destination a day before I boarded what would have been my plane home. I haven’t really been able to escape the sketchy traveling this year. I got the word from Paul Kimbrough that Baker was going off and he agreed to pick me up from the airport in Seattle. Stoked! Luckily, my plane connected through Seattle but the computerized airline would not let me change where my bag went to. I found this out when checking into my flight at 12:30am so I threw my most critical items into my carry on, ran my bag back out to my ride at the curb and organized for it to be Fedexed to Bellingham. (Nina Porcelli saved my life when my cell phone died, my friends cell phone died and my gear needed to ship – I get kinda sketchy sometimes). Still a gamble. If things were not already exciting enough I was running to my terminal when they gave, “Last call for flight #6455 to Seattle.” I slid into my seat and then committed to sleeping as aggressively as possible. Paul grabbed me at the airport at 7:30am after a fitful night of sleep on the airplane and later in the airport. We loaded up on food in Bellingham and headed towards the mountain. Ragged and extra stinky we hit the slopes first thing. I always seem to be skiing Baker in a sleep deprived state. Last year I had just come off a 5 day 1000mile vanathon. Somehow temps were cold regardless of the date and we enjoyed two awesome days of powder skiing before things got really wild.

The mountain was closed from Monday through Thursday so there was lots of powder to go around for those willing to hike for their turns. Our third day at Baker Jonah Howell arrived to capture the action and we started our day off at 5:30am in hopes of the must crushingest of days. There are very few days during the year when avalanche conditions, snow quality and weather all line up. But when its on is on! So grateful to get a day like this.

Paul’s first run down “The Beast” this is a run called 50/50. Butter baby!

This is a shot of me later in the day, everything at Baker seems to be a blind rollover, so although nearly everything is plastered with snow and goes through – it can still be super disorienting. (didn’t stick this one).

Paul sent it huge off of “Diving Board” with a massive 360! He was just a couple of feet from clearing the “Slingshot Gap.” He’s a madman for sure.

I ripped my Gopro off with my hand earlier in the day and duck tapped it back on. Right before dropping in I told Paul, “the first time I tumble this thing is coming right off.” Jonah seems to be giggling at this footage as my snow covered self laments…

We had a huge day! Working with just a three man crew made everything super simple and there were tons of lines, so we just kept skiing and skiing. With no time piece all day we were surprised when the car clock red 7pm and we realized we had been out for 12hours. A truly all time day indeed!  Before we bounced from the Pacific Northwest to escape the rain that finally came we had an awesome day shredding with Dan Abrams of Flylow Gear at Stevens Pass. Afterwards Dan showed and hooked us up with some of the awesome gear for 2011. Check the next Powderwhore flick for the footage.

Paul and I in the sample dungeon. Sick!

Massive couliors, sunny skies and snow on the edge of desert; the ski lines near Bishop, California are unique. The eastern sierra is a place where 3000 foot couliors are dwarfed by their 6000 foot counterparts. A few days after the ski competition Stephane and I headed south for some big lines, and of course mad rhymes (no rapping was actually done on this trip, except the mad rhymes that are always cycling through my head of course). Nate Greenberg aka “the man who wrote the book” was our host and guide. A mid-early morning, breakfast burritos and a quick stop to grab Nate’s sled sent us on our way to Mt Basin’s North Central Coulior. A 20 minute sled ride and 1hr skin brought us to the bottom of this:

Where we proceeded to set a 2800 foot boot pack to the top. Traveling conditions were tough at times, with anything from thigh deep gropple, to punchy snow and crust standing in our way. The leap frog prevailed and we found ourselves on top of a sweet line. I’ll let the video tell the rest of the story.

There is tons of exploring to do in the Eastern Sierra, home of sunny skies and mammoth lines (punny). Check out the book!

Backcountry Skiing California’s Eastern Sierra by Nate Greenberg and Dan Mingori

Learning to telemark ski is a life long endeavor. I find my skiing style to be a constant work in progress of body and mind. Adapting and evolving in relation to snow, new skis and terrain. Lucky enough to fall into a group of skilled telemark skiers there is always something to learn. This is an interesting look into how my skiing has changed over the past 3 seasons.

Temps were ridiculously cold in UT, the rain crust omnipresent regardless of the 15 inches of blower snow. Basically shut down in UT the Powderwhores threw out the idea of a little excursion to Mt Shasta. We left the next day in hope of good weather and corn.

Conditions were looking promising as we hiked in a short ways to spend the night in the mountains.

We set up camp on little knoll at the base of the mountain.

A beautiful spot indeed, the sunset was stunning and we were psyched to hiking Mt Shasta the next day!

I recently decided to GoPro – so I bought a GoPro helmet cam. I’m still messing around with it but this is a short edit that gives you a taste of what the trip was like.

After crawling in our sleeping bags for the night the wind started howling. After our amaze and subsequent laughter faded we realized that our tents were not going to make it through the night. All warm and cuddly packing up camp in a nuclear wind storm did not sound fun. With little choice we did it anyway and skied back to the car by headlamp.

Since we had driven all the way to Cali for this little venture we decided to at least attempt the peak the next day. We persevered playing “red light –  green light” (as Noah put it) with the wind until a final gust blew us all off our feet and we flipped a Uee.

The snow had just softened up in the lower reaches of the mountain so the ski back to the car was a good time. We basked in the absurdity of our trip before packing up and resuming our journey through the life of a homosexual – alcoholic ad man in the book on tape Dry. Mini-epic 1.5 miles from the road? New personal best perhaps…

When Ryan Hawks invited out for a fun jump day with Lars and Silas – the Green Mountain Freeride Crew I wasn’t picturing this.

Some B.A snowboarders from the hill had been working on it all season. We put it in a full day adding some lip and buffing out the in run. The forecast for the next day called for cloudy skies but we drank it blue and aching heads awoke to bright skies. We were at the hill in a jiffy. The snowboarders hit their jump first then Lars and Ryan were up next.

Everyone was having trouble landing this jump. I wouldn’t call it suprising seeing as we are all freeride skiers and it was by far the biggest jump we ever hit. It was the first jump I hit all season. Anyways, first hit Silas threw and stomped a sick cork-7! There were no pictures of me so I threw up a short clip of one of my 720 attempts. No true stomps but I was getting close!

The huck fest continued until there was nothing left in the landing but bomb holes and then it went on a bit longer. At the end of the day I knuckled the thing but walked away unscathed. Scary though. Anyways – as Brooke Edwards eloquently put it – its not a big jump day until someone gets bloody.

When the oil light in your car comes on – it doesn’t mean you can add more oil at the next gas station, it doesn’t mean you can try to limp your car home. It means you need to stop your engine and add oil immediately. So when the oil light on our 1978 BMW came on we stopped the car. Too bad for us it happened to be the middle of the night and we were cruising through Montana far from any population center. We coasted down the pass as far as we could and took the nearest pull off. The number of times I have been stuck on the side of the road is well – enough to make a normal man (or women) abandon all faith in owning a vehicle (at least one I can afford). And being normal enough I have done that. Regardless, being the gypsy I am I sometimes rely on rides in beater cars. Needless to say being stuck on the side of the road in the middle of the night with no one in sight made me slightly displeased. Especially when the options were weighed. We went to knock on the door of the closest house but by some stroke of luck found a gallon of used diesel motor oil. A few drops helped us to the next gas station.

With a few wrong turns and the usual mishaps we made the drive from Revelstoke to Jackson in a solid 24hrs – 8 hrs more than the recommended travel time. (so it took 50% longer for you math wizzes {that is right isn’t it?}) Luckily drive-master Ben was at the wheel and we had nothing to worry about. Although I did wake up a few times sliding sideways down the road in our rear wheel drive car –  I knew Ben had it under control….enough.

The venue for the Jackson Hole Freeskiing Qualifier Event was looking good and I went about my pre comp routine. I skied a solid line but fell in the outrun. Someday I’ll stick it!

This shot is from the inspection day – I skied the prominent feature in the photo. Read more about the competition at freeskiingworldtour.com. Anyways life goes on. It was an awesome weekend skiing in the sun after a month of skiing in Canada (think cold, dark and deep).

A three day viscous lashing from the heavens brought snow upon snow and fun upon fun. I could never capture the experience without actually stopping to take photos. Which I didn’t do. Nonetheless everyday has been more exciting than the one before it and I just paused after a 10day stretch playing the drop knee boogie to consume some food, limber up and heal for the shredding and hucking to come. Oh I forgot to mention the lift lines were really bad and all the snow was skied up in a few hours each morning.

NOT!!!

Big breakfasts are always nice. I finished this one up with a big bowl of Ice Cream.

2 egg mushroom onion, tomato and cheddar omelet, Bacon and hashbrowns. All cooked to perfection I might add.

More updates to come! Tons of lines are now filled in at the ski hill and ready to be shrallped! The stoke is high in Revelstoke!

At home I was usually the kid coming up with bad ideas, but here at the PW’s in Utah I can barely keep pace. Noah and Andy are always up to something and when Andy rushed off with my brand new sticks and bindings to mount them at 7:00pm I didn’t exactly know what I was in for. It turned out into a bit of mission, but Andy was kind enough to go on a wild goose chase and wrestle my bindings into submission just so I could share the pain. Waking up in the dark, meeting at 7:00am we planned to get an early start on the day. Much to our dismay, the shitshow Andy started the night before (he said it was the longest hardest mount he has had) was continuing. My boot was at Rosenberg’s where the mounting went down so we started our day with a little morning drive while the other boys headed up to the hill. As we parked at Pole-line trailhad I realized I had forgotten my gloves, luckily Andy had an extra pair (typical poncho), we flipped our heelthrows and started the trek. We planned to head to Cardiff and lap until we dropped, in which case that forsaken soul would have to stand back up and finish the 10,000 vert. T’was bound to be Gigaling good time.

Lap One! It was a perfect day to play in the mountains, splitter blue skies, perfect powder and a determination to “just keep hiking.”

Lap Two. Andy’s smiling, the legs are feeling good and about to enjoy some silky turns.

Noah’s Lap three, he was 1000 vert ahead all day, due to Andy and my little morning excursion.

Gi-gi-gi-great!

Getting another one, Noah, Andy and Darryl heading up the skinner.

Lap four, the sun is now down and I had to keep moving just to stay warm. I was a layer short for the chilly afternoon. A good excuse to keep plodding though! Over the half way mark at this point. In distance, not pain of course.

Pumping out another one! Noah feeling the burn, I had to giver a little to keep up with these folks.

Lap Five: Andy started wrapping his skins around his body to keep the warm and sticky. I don’t know how Andy was feeling but I sure felt like I had rocks or something else heavy strapped to my ankles.

Darryl, Jacobsen and Noah at our gear catch, melting some snow and staying fueled. I liked to get a little head start up the climb if I could.

There’s a Half moon rising and I’m probably a about 3/4ths depleted.

(Dramatization). 9000vert landmark, still have to hike out of this biatch, legs are led, hips are hurting and the gas tank is empty.

Darkness approached, looks like it is going to be black to black from car to car today.

Andy stilling the hallucinations and psyched to have hit 10 gi-ga GRANDE! First time I have personally gotten a so fully drained and even a little ataxic from a day of skiing.

Twice as much vert means twice as many burritos! The smile says it all. Can never say no to an adventure, but I can’t say I’m looking forward to hauling those super fat boards up the hill for 10,000 vert anytime soon. But if the snow is deep enough….

With the van down and out, happily parked in Auburn, CA. I have been on the two bag ski trip. Planned to continue for the next 5 months or so. Made possible by the kindness of my friends and a little suffering here and there. Traveling without a car is proving to be both liberating and troublesome. Amtrak is a great way to get to the ski hill, depending on where you are going and call your winter home. With no weight limit on bags, no annoying airport security and rushing for the connecting flight the train provides what is probably the most stress free way of traveling. You can pack your own food and bring your own beer. Don’t drink to much though because if you plan it right you should be arriving in the middle of a snow storm. Try doing that on an airline, or driving. There are no slippery roads, no traffic, and no canceled flights. Just walk on the train, stash your bags and keep on keepin’ on.

The train-rate system is a little funky but if you can plan ahead good prices can be had. The train works similar to airline seat system, the first half of the seats go for one price, and then they elevate after that. The least expensive ticket (between SLC and Truckee) is $67 then $84 then $105 and then all the up to $138. You can see how important it is to get that low fare. You can book your ticket online but if you are buying your ticket the night before you will need to call in and get a confirmation number, a very important number to have if you are planning on riding the train. Also if you go about it this way, you can book your ticket days in advance, get the low fare and not pay upon getting your reservation. That means if it starts snowing you don’t have to leave! But if the plan is on you can hop on the train. I usually was able to buy my ticket the day before or two days before and hit the lower two price points.

Make sure you pack light enough so you can carry all your own gear, enough gear to last the winter right here!

Truckee train station, no place to buy your ticket here, so be sure you have your number before arriving.

Hauling my load and taking a self-portrait at the same time is straining. Lucky product placement, haha.

Bring some business for the train ride, I finished my course in Psychology traveling between destinations.

It was snowing at everystop between truckee and SLC, please be snowing when I arrive, please be snowing when I arrive!

Hell yeah! It was nuking when we pulled into SLC. Two for two on that one. The train arrives at 3:00am so you either need a good friend (Noah Howell generously picked me up) or some money for a taxi or something. Get a few more hours of shut eye – or I guess if you are really burly, suit up and go skiing! (never tried that).

The skiing was great the next day. We played around in Days Fork and on Emma’s. Its awesome to be able to travel 600 miles, be no worse for the wear and not miss a day of skiing through the whole ordeal. (well maybe a little beat down).

Two examples of Gypsy Food, I pulled that PBJ roll out of my pack after a week, mmmmm good.