Fissile, the Grand Poobah, the Impaler and the Alien

Fissile Mountain and the Banana Chute

Had a few good splitboard missions lately.
the snowpack has finally gotten stable enough to go ride some big lines, so I took my wife Kimmie out to Fissile mountain to ride the banana chute. She'd never been out there and it makes for a really good long day trip. The sky was blue when we started, then turned to super milky clouds and the day finished off with me leading the way back to Whistler Mountain in the dark, in a snowstorm. Touring via headlamp when it's snowing really challenges how well you can navigate around the mountains.



I love being in the mountains


Kimmie climbing up the notoriously loose south face of fissile



I love every minute of being in the mountains with my wife. So rad.



Kimmie getting her first look down the Banana chute



darkness and freshies


watch for snowcats and don't miss the cat track

We also got a chance to tour into what was once a snowmobile access zone. It's pretty far for a day trip but there's a secret pillow zone that my friend Dave Basterechea and I found many years ago that I thought would be good. It's called the grand poobah. also in the area is the little poobah, the perfect four and the Impaler. how can you not want to go back? only problems was, I hadn't been there in 5 or 6 years, and it was hard to find when I'd been there frequently. It's buried in the woods, hiding behind gullies and ravines. But after many hours of splitting, I was able to crack the forest code and find the Poobah. and it was deep. beyond deep. almost so deep we couldn't ride! I basically had to swim my way up the mountain to get on top of the pillows but it was well worth the effort. and as seems to be the case, toured back out via headlamp in a storm.


through the trees.


wallowing up


this is the little poobah!


yup. kimmie got this zone too


completely unrelated frame grab from a video I'm putting together. frontside 360 drop


oh and this. kimmie and our alien on top of Fissile. over 3 months.

quick one

just a quick frame grab from one of today's runs.

couple runs on whistler mountain

My 2 first laps of the day on whistler mountain on a decent powder day.
christmas time 2011

Colorado, giant crystals and no pow.

Kinda got busy there and a month flew by. Hasn't really snowed since my last posting, so not so much touring going on. Just one little exploration mission where we crossed some creeks, got lost in the maze and found some crazy huge hoar frost. But now the snow is back, Whistler is getting hammered and we're heading out for some storm split boarding tomorrow.

With the long dry spell and no pow kicking around I went down to Colorado for the US grand prix. It was an interesting comp since I'd only ridden 1 day on hardpack prior to being there and had 2 days to practice. The crew at Copper did a really good job on the pipe this year and I was super happy to ride a sick pipe. We only had a few hours of official training of each of the days prior to the comp. And I forgot they were running a ski comp too so we had way less practice time. And half of that time is at the wrong time since you need to take turns of having the skiers in the good light and the snowboarders in the good light.

Qualification day was of course cloudy and bad light. When we'd been riding in sunlit perfection all week (minus the bad practise times). During my few practice sessions I'd focused on getting in tune with the pipe and feeling my edges on hardpack again. And during the 25 minutes practice prior to the comp, I couldn't land a thing. haha. Which a handful of years ago used to freak me out, and now I laugh about it. I almost prefer it now which is a little weird. Anyhow, I landed my first run with a few mistakes but it was enough to put me in the top 4 in the heat and keep me qualified for the finals. By the time my second run came around I was in fourth and knew i needed to land my run clean. Which I did, but the judges gave me a lower score. I don't usually bitch about judging ( I used too when i was younger; they have a hard job), but it sucks when you know you landed a better run and a few judges agree and score you higher and a few don't and score you lower. But you KNOW it was a better run, and you end up with a lower score than your first run, and you get 18th and top 16 got to finals. So I missed finals by 1.2 out of 100. Sucked. I just wanted to keep riding the pipe.

So went and spent a day riding breckenridge with the Frends crew, hitting jumps and laughing all day long. Then came home early and ended up on a splitboard recon...



Steady! kimmie balancing on icy logs


chuck 'em


giant hoar frost


this was our objective for the day but the maze of roads slowed us down and we only got to the bottom of the line. BOOOOOOOO


that's one giant crystal

Snowboarder photo annual.

Snowboarder magazine just put out their Photo Annual, and as always amazing photos throughout the magazine.
I'm very happy to amongst its pages this year. Thanks to Snowboarder for running the photo and a big thanks for Matt Domanski for snapping the shot. Stoked!
I'll try and get a better scan of it later this week.

jl

TESTing

testing a new camera, skins and taking the splitboard for another glorious day.

Winter's Back!!

My favorite time of year is back! We've had some good days splitboarding lately. It's still snowing and getting deeper by the day.
Welcome back winter!!


new season about to begin


first line of the year


i love the view of my splitboard punching a new trail


not happy at all.


this outhouse got buried last year. hoping for a repeat.


myslef, my wife kimmie, Leanne Pelosi and jeff keenan.


kim cracking an ollie


Jeff Keanan. popping through the trees.


me with a natural spinner


Leanne and myself. 'testing' our k2 splitboards.


kimmie getting her turns in


face shots!


hehe.


dakine poacher pack and k2 panoramic splitboard. my favorite gear.


Rob Fagan playing.


heading home at sunset