world snowboard night??

so yesterday was world snowboard day, i guess. I missed it.
ironically, i was setting stuff up at home so i could snowboard more. However, i did get to go out last night and ride some backcountry laps with my girl kimmie under a full moon. It was super epic. Riding pow and doing tree runs in the dark is a must experience in my book. It had been a while since my last night pow runs (kimmie's first) and we both loved every minute.
watch the darkness..

dew tour at breckenridge

after hearing stories from their team riders, about how insanely epic the pipe was at breckenridge, we had high hopes going over there for the dew tour this week. and we were let down. The pipe was long (wicked) and perfect width and pitch. however it was quite undervert and lots of riders were struggling to make it back into the pipe each hit. I'm not a fan of undervert pipes.
So our practise day came and went and we hoped for a better pipe for the qualifiers the following day. The walls were a little better, but still pretty undervert and to make it more fun a pretty good snowstorm moved into breck the day of the contest.
We had a long practise session in the morning and i was making zero headway into getting a run down. I was pretty bummed. As the girls did their runs, we ate lunch and i rearranged my head. In our short warm up prior to our guys heats I was able to figure something of a run out and was happy to at least have an idea of something to do. I didn't land a full 'contest' run in practise but I'm ok with that as long as i have ideas for runs. I'll spare the details of my runs (and it's in the video), but they were mostly switch. After landing my first run, and getting a pretty good score (i was around the cutoff score), I decided to do what would be hopefully a harder run. I moved a few tricks around, and added a few other ones and landed the run. I was pretty happy with it and it felt like it was a better run. Coaches and friends all thought it was better too, however the judges disagreed with that and scored me lower. So i ended the dew tour with being just a few guys out from qualifying. I was pretty bummed on not making the cut, but happy i was able to put some decent runs together in a pipe that i really didn't like.
The following day Ross Baker, agent to the stars/snowboard legend Bob Klein and my self went out to berhtoud pass to hike some backcountry lines. We met a few friends of Bob's who knew the area and we were off. Beauty bluebird day, pretty stable snowpack and nice snow greeted us up at nearly 12000 feet. We had a super fun day, hitting little cliffs and chutes, and getting some fun pow laps in. It was Ross' first time in the Rockies backcountry (he's from tahoe) and he quickly learned that if it looks a little bony, it's actually really bony! Very different snowpacks between the rockies and the coastal mountain ranges. It was a great day in between all the pipe days, practise sessions and contests. We all loved it.
And now my colorado trip is done and i'm sitting in the denver airport waiting to go home to squamish.
enjoy the little video
jl

justin lamoureux - dew tour and berthoud pass, dec 2010 from justin lamoureux on Vimeo.

espn article

a few weeks ago espn put up an article on what snowboarders do in their spare time. Kinda looks like we mostly either kill things or build things. I'm on the building side. check it out and open the gallery at
http://espn.go.com/action/snowboarding/blog/_/post/5844355/off-clock

jl

first contest of the year

The contest season has started down here in colorado with the US grand prix at copper mtn. It's been an interesting week for me.
I showed up a week ago to get a few days in the pipe prior to the contest. On my first day at the pipe i realized i was riding a broken board. In my last minute packing i didn't really notice which boards i packed and grabbed the wrong one! thankfully i had 2 more boards with me. I usually like having 2 identical boards for contests (in case one gets broken) and now i was left with only one of my favorite boards and a prototype which i hadn't ridden yet. Turns out the prototype didn't last long under my feet and didn't make it to the contest. Having only one board is a major stress to me when it's contest time. My boards usually take quite a while for me to break but you never know. Thankfully i got another one sent down so I should be sweet for the rest of my trip.
I had a few good practice days where the pipe was good and a few where it wasn't so hot. However, one of those days Copper received 13inches of snow so i didn't ride pipe that day. Copper has a pretty good base for this time of year so we were able to ride the trees and some of the alpine bowls. It's always nice to get a good powder day while on a 'pipe' trip. and it's puking right now so hopefully tomorrow will be another good one.
Onto the qualifiers, which were yesterday. I've never really felt 'on' this time of year at coppers pipe so I generally use it as a warm up for the rest of the season. I'd planned 2 slightly different runs for the contest. The first one was supposed to be backside air, frontside 720 indy tuck knee, cab 900 melon, switch backside 720 mute to backside 720 japan. However, i tried to adjust my line after the first 720, ended up scrubbing some speed and it just messed up my line. I ended up falling on the switch backside spin. For my second run, the plan was to drop in with a mctwist (instead of the backside air) into the same rest of the run and finish it off with a switch frontside alley oop for my straight air. Which as an entire run, at this time of year was, somewhat ambitious as it's a pretty tech run and i wasn't sure there'd be room left in the pipe for the switch alley oop. And i hadn't landed (or even tried) that run yet in practice. but i really enjoy doing new runs spur of the moment so i was psyched for the run. I ended up landing the run but it was too sketchy to go through into finals.
The video below is a compilation of both runs put together, just to give an idea of what i was going for.
We've got a few days of riding either copper or breckenridge then it's the dew tour next week at breck. and we're hearing the breck pipe is epic. I can't wait to get up there and check it out.
jl

more pow!

wow. another good november in whistler. just shy of 3m of snow in the last few weeks.
We've had some great splitboard days and really good pow days on whistler. Peak chair opened today (which i missed), but during the early season we're allowed to hike peak and harmony, when the avalanche conditions are ok. Our last hike up was just a few days ago and it was epic up there. My girlfriend and i met up with the snowboard canada guys and did a few laps. We hit west cirque, west ridge and frog hollow. Fresh tracks all the way down. I'm sure today was super fun on peak. Kinda bummed i missed doing easy laps on peak, but i'm sure i'll get some later in the year.
I came down to colorado yesterday to start getting ready for the US grand prix and the dew tour. We were riding at Copper today and the pipe is pretty good. light and wind were kinda suspect today but pretty fun to be riding a nice pipe again.
Hopefully I'll get some pipe footage up but in the meantime you can check out a short video from this past sunday. yup, it's more powder riding.
jl
hmm for some reason the video seems to be cut off on my blog. check it out at:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9YVd2gnsgI

early season splitboarding.

getting the legs warmed up for the season up in the mountains above squamish.
fun couple of days splitboarding with maelle ricker, rob fagan and my girl kimmie.
whistler just got a few more feet of snow this week. get out there and enjoy!
jl

justin lamoureux - early season splitboarding from justin lamoureux on Vimeo.

whistler mountain opening day 2010!

video pretty much says it all.
stoked winter is back!
jl

first day of riding!!!

A few days ago i got a call asking if i wanted to go ride and shoot some stuff on whistler mountain a day before the resort opens for the season. With a big storm bearing down on us, it was a YES from me. That storm gave us 30cm yesterday, and today we got to ride.
Our crew consisted of Mike Douglas, Malle Ricker, Paul Morrison shooting photos, his son Ian, Lesley Anthony, a few video guys, Ryan and Steve from Whistler's marketing department and myself.
nov 18, 2010. paul morrison photo.

We got an early start to the day as we only had the "morning" to get some shots and a few laps down to green chair.
After last year's epic opening, as we went up the gondola, it was a tough pill to swallow seeing trees and rocks sticking up the lower portion of the mountain. But, once we got a little higher things started looking much more filled in and way deeper!

We spent the morning shooting and riding roundhouse roll and a few trails down to green chair. Not the steepest terrain but soo fun to get back on the board and enjoy some powder. We were actually only allowed on a few trails. They do save the better steeper trails for opening day. There's some really deep pockets up there and we all had some really good turns. the whole crew was so happy to be riding.

Being early season it's really easy to get carried away and jump and ride where you shouldn't. usually I'm really conscious of that and my first few turns really made me remember. Our first run we setup for a few turn shots and i got a little carried away. After literally my first 2 turns of the year, I ollied a few little trees off a roller and launched. DUMB! i dropped right into this steeper zone (which in full winter would have been fine) and right into a bunch of little trees and rocks and was lucky enough to be able to find a landing and ride through them all down to the cat track. I laughed pretty hard, but i could have ended my season right there.

If you get up there this weekend, enjoy the snow. there's some deep turns to be had just remember it's 'low tide' in the mountains right now so take it easy. plenty more snow to come.
Winter's on!

couple more shots from today at whistler blackcomb's facebook page...
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=254131&id=11092928401#!/album.php?aid=254131&id=11092928401

1080 wood

i've been spending a lot of time camping and surfing lately and haven't been in front of my computer too much so the blog has taken a bit of a hit. I'll have some adventures back up soon as snow is starting creep down the local mountains!
but in the meantime please check out my side project called '1080 wood'.

www.facebook.com/pages/Squamish-BC/1080-Wood/139282802791191#!/pages/Squamish-BC/1080-Wood/139282802791191

i'll be back soon. there's swell in the ocean!
justin

home from NZ and off again

Back at home and getting ready for a surf road trip down to ventura, california for a friend's wedding.
here's a photo rundown of my last month in NZ, where i was mostly in raglan looking for waves.
enjoy
jl


kayaking on lake wanaka




damon haylor and myself at treble cone. enjoying my birthday powder day


the aussies crew at TC. Chumpy, nate johnstone and damon


scott gaffney at bridal veil falls, near raglan.


some random wave that you can't really get to..


hot springs!




rock that kinda looks like brain


the champagne pool. very hot! some guy decided to ignore the many warning signs, walk over the fence and dip his hand in. His yelp of pain was pretty funny.


care for a swim? it's the minerals in the springs that make the color


molten hot mud.


sweet hot creek


manu bay in raglan doing it's thing.


sometimes the surf sucks and you need to go exploring. however, we didn't think about this possibility!


stalagtites


scott and myself checking out the waitomo caves


random hole in the cave


cave ribbons.




giant fern tree

natural bridge


random cave


small dunes around Kawhia.


manu bay on a 30 foot swell and 40 knot onshores! the story of my last week in raglan. normally you just see the wave breaking in front of that car from this angle.


whale bay and indicators (further point) on that same 30 foot storm. look where the waves are in comparison to the last photo which is head and a half!


the coromandel is beautiful.






the reason i spent 3 weeks in raglan! indicators going off.

video reposts..

as i'm in the process of making a new video i thought i'd re-post a few of my favorites from this past winter. you can find all of my videos at www.youtube.com/justinlamoureux or hiding somewhere on this blog
enjoy!
jl

a good day split-boarding with dave B. and a bad day by myself! my last 2 adventures of 2009..


a day of noboarding. like learning how to snowboard all over again, just without your bindings. april 2010


the best opening week of my life, to kick off one of my best seasons ever.
whistler nov. 2009.


my 2nd run from the 2010 olympic pipe finals. pretty much the best night of my life.


birthday powder! does it get better? treble cone, NZ, aug 2010


burton canadian open. a few weeks before the olympics. this comp is when i really felt my runs coming together prior to the games. calgary


the world cup in calgary the week before the open was pretty fun too.. another podium


and this was just awesome to be asked to do. my grouse mtn olympic torch "run", on top of their tram.


mmmm powder! a lot of days like this last winter.

testing boards and off surfing..

My trip to the south island of new zealand wasn't quite what i was expecting. usually i just want nice weather and good pipes and parks to ride. this year, we got generally hell weather, only got to ride a good pipe for 4 days (out of 4 weeks!), and rode more powder in NZ then all my other years combined. which is obviously not a bad thing. So it definately made for a different style of trip down here then what i'm used to.

My last week in wanaka was spent hanging out with the guys from Bataleon snowboards. We had a whole stack of 2012 prototype boards to test out. The new line is looking pretty cool. We got some new shapes, a few new models of boards, and that's about all i'm allowed to say. We toured around the local hills, powder day at cardona, snowpark days and a day at remarkables, which was real fun. I'd only been to the remarkables one time before and thought the sidecountry terrain looked super fun. Snow coverage always seems to be an issue there, but not this time. As there was morning fog we cruised some park laps and tested the new boards. Then the sun started poking through to fun looking powder lines, which i was more than happy to hike to. Our web guy danny was keen to ride some lines so we spent the afternoon riding drops and skinny chutes. Danny almost drove himself into a rock wall at one point! I scoped a line with a little drop onto a snow patch, then you had to straight line out between 2 cliffs, dodge a rock then hook a good turn in front of a rock wall. I cruised the line, then turned around to watch danny. Seems the day's hiking and somewhat office legs were getting to him. He made the drop ok, stopped, then pointed it for the exit only to blow the turn. Luckily he had set enough edge before sliding out to just narrowly miss the wall. I had a good laugh, and so did the rest of our crew as they happened to see the line from the chairlift.

After 4 weeks in Wanaka, i made my way up to the north island where i picked up my good friend scott gaffney and headed out to raglan to get some waves for a few weeks. our first few days were really stormy with barely any surfing, but then the wind died out and the points started firing! couple feet overhead for 2 days straight and awesome times. Today the wind is still dead but the swell has dropped some, so we're surfing on the local beach breaks as the points are a tad too small. I'm here for a few more weeks (scott leaves a week early), so hopefully we get some more epic times out on the points.

I'll try and get some photos up from this part of the trip. but in the meantime, having more downtime at the moment my brain has been thinking of new things to build. So i thought i'd share a couple pieces i built earlier this summer. One is a key/sunglass box for the wall made from some scrap fir i had lying around. it has handcut dovetails, a carved front door, and a magnetic latch. The other is my new desk. I've been wanting to build one for a while and finally got to it. it's made from pine (stained black) and reclaimed fir flooring. the drawers and carcasses are held together with handcut dovetails again. the original idea for the top was supposed to be a slab of wood with live edges, but i found the flooring so i thought i'd try it out.

it's my birthday!

when you have a birthday at the end of august, a good powder day is pretty much the best present ever.
Spent the day at treble cone with 30cm and riding with my aussie mates (damon hayler, nate johnstone, chumpy, and big ben wordsworth) and a new friend alberto from italy.
super fun day.
jl

attack of the nutcracker!!!

After a few days of riding at snowpark, we started thinking of a quick trip up to one of the club fields around christchurch to ride some pow. The weather was looking good, new snow, and a fun crew. Will jackways, abby lockheart, their friend ruoriu, photog greg roebuck and myself heading out from wanaka and missioned up to My olympus.
The club fields are notorious for their nutcrackers. Generally the hills are rope tow access only. And in true kiwi fashion, the rope tows are fast, steep and run through several pulleys. So you need a nutcracker to hold on. You wear a harness around your waist, and have a metal clamp attached to it via a chain. as the rope passes by you grab on with your hands, and clamp the nutcracker onto the rope and hang on. and a big tip is don't get anything caught (ie your fingers) in the pulleys. Neither Abby or my myself had been on the nutcrackers so we were stoked to check it out.
we navigated the hours of dirt roads at night, in the fog, with dark glimpses of cliffs right next to you, to find ourselves at the bottom hut. Basically a bunk house built for club members and visitors at the bottom of the acccess road.
We woke to new snow, semi clear skies and a slight dilemma as we'd forgotten out chains (chains on 4x4 to make it up). We easily hitched rides up with the few cars passing by.
We were greeted up top with a series of rope tows, and a whole bunch of awesome lines all around the ski hill. Our first trips on the tows worked out real easy, and our crew was all smiles as we got some good powder runs in bounds on the hill.
Then my day drastically changed! On one of the top tows, i put my nutcracker on crooked and thought i could make it up no worries. after a few sketchy pulleys, the nutcracker finally ripped out of my hand on the last one and whipped straight into my knee! It seemed to hit the perfect spot and my knee just swelled right away. Bummed, my knee wasn't that stoked on bending. into the top hut i went to try and ice my knee and so i could get a few more laps in. A few hours later, my knee was feeling a bit better and i went out for a few more runs as the crew were out hiking and getting some shots.
Our next day dawned super clear, and my knee was even bigger! i did all i could to convince my knee that riding pow would be good for it, but it was just too stiff. With all the swelling, I was scared of doing actual real damage in my knee so i sat the day out and went for a mellow walk around the valley. Pissed that i missed an awesome day. The crew got some sweet lines in and had a great day. ahhhhhh. stupid nutcracker!
Back in wanaka for a few days now, and the swelling is going down in my knee, and i'm hoping to ride tomorrow. we'll see what the physio say tomorrow morning.
later
jl

will and abby scoping lines from the top hut


this is busy for mt olympus!


dinner time in the bottom hut


sidecountry lines at mt olympus.


patroller out scoping the snow


fat right knee.




out for a paddle on lake wanaka


greg, abby and will down day mini golf in queenstown

nz open and down days.

NZ open was this past weekend. the slopestyle riders had a pretty crappy foggy day for jumping, but for saturday and the pipe it cleared up and was super nice. Pipe was riding pretty good. a few weird kinks in it, but in general it was riding sweet as.
They were trying out a new judging system for the contest where each trick is given a score (instead of the whole run). I think it's good in theory but really hard in practice. For slope a little handrail suddenly has the same value as an 80 foot jump, which it shouldn't. and in pipe there's no way to fairly compare someone doing 4 hits versus someone doing 6 hits. It needs some work still, but right now i'm still a fan of overall judging.
I'd planned on arriving in NZ so i'd have a week of riding before the contest day, but due to poor weather i'd only managed to get 3 days in. Which kinda sucked. Not feeling extremely on point to do really well in the comp, i tried to challenge myself and do runs with tricks i hadn't practiced yet. I tried 2 different runs. i fell on the first one on a switch backside 720. Then for my second run started with a mctwist 720, switch backside 540, cab 900, switch backside 720 and finished with a backside 900. The run went ok, but with it being pretty tech and me being out of practice it was a little lower than what i would have liked. So i ended up in 15th place. All good. Was a good way to kickstart my trip.

The following day i headed up to snowpark to take some jump laps. After a few warm ups I ended up hitting a step up to the bagjump airbag a few times before they shutit down. red bull had the setup for a few weeks for some of their team shreds. Pretty cool setup with a step up into the bag and a step up to snow right next to it. and now its open to everyone for their hucking delight.
We tried to go up there yesterday to hit it again but the weather was turning and it was way too windy for the bag. So we messed around all over the park. couple jump laps, hit some rails, over to the pipe. SNowpark is pretty fun as it's really small, everything is usually pretty good and chair rides are entertaining as you can watch people huck themselves all over the place.

new zealand has pretty unpredictable weather and we're on another crappy weather day. When it's thick cloud or snowing here it's really hard to ride as there's no trees or anything to give definition. So generally we go skating, play golf or everyone's favorite blogging!

I'm staying with Will jackways and abby lockheart in they're sick little house right on the lake and has a small mini on the side of the house. which gets hit up whenever it's dry out, which is not today! mini golf in queenstown.

We might head up to some clubfields this week to chase some pow and get a few shots.
we'll see what the weather brings!
jl


abby with a rock to fakie with will watching


me with a front rock

back in NZ! waves and powder

2 of the lines from the video, pre-shedded, just getting light.


post shred on the tight line


first chute in the video (lookers left one). i was kinda scoping that middle tight one, but the runout wasn't the best. as you can hear in the video.


mellow hike and voila


mmm powder


me, myself and i. enjoying my first real day of shredding in NZ for this year. and my first day ever at lake ohau. 30cm and blue. loving it!



jumped off the plane and went looking for surf on the banks penninsula


magnet bay post session. the wave gets fat when the tide comes up (as in this photo)


most roads have no guard rails, in other places they like to pretend with wooden 2x6s..