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..
Monday, December 20, 2010
Friday, December 17, 2010
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
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.
Sunday, December 12, 2010
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
http://espn.go.com/action/snowboarding/blog/_/post/5844355/off-clock
jl
Friday, December 10, 2010
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
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
Friday, December 3, 2010
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
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
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