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

NZ part 3- waves and caves

Pretty much every year I'm in New Zealand I make my way up to Raglan on the north Island. It's one of my favorite places to go surfing. If you surf, you should probably go sometime in your life and get some of the longest waves of your life. 3 awesome point breaks lined up one after the other. But there's not always waves and there's not always good weather to snowboard, so here's some surf photos and some of cruising around New Zealand.


This is why I go to Raglan. Indicators going off at low tide.


Life is a little different in New Zealand.


Tried to go caving at Waitomo caves last year but they were flooded out. Not this year. Into the abyss!


Down the Tomo. 30 feet down from the previous photo and after a pretty tight pich, this is what you're rappelling down.


Our guide challenged us to boulder around the this pond with claims of no customer ever making it. While a little slick, the bouldering in Squamish is tougher.



Jump!


cave life.




When I arrive in Christchurch every year and make my way down to Wanaka, I'm always looking for this wave to work. A few hours off the plane and I'm paddling out into an overhead solo session at Magnet Bay, with only sheep to keep me company.


making the trek to Milford Sound on a day off from snowboarding.



Great scenery with great company.


Milford Sound.


Mitre peak in milford sound.


I know what you did last summer!



Supposedly the trout fishing is amazing in New Zealand. With creek water this clear it seems like cheating.



The Kea. It's an alpine parrot, famous for ripping apart cars at Treble Cone. Very curious birds and have an amazing orange patch under their wings.

My Raglan slashing. Point and shoot cameras are a little tough to shoot surfing with.


I'm in that Barrel somewhere!



Waiting for the 'Valley' section on indicators to wall up and start racing.



Raglan golf course. The sheep are a lot tougher to hit than you think.



The area around Rotorua is famous for hot springs and thermal zones. This little guy is spitting out sulphur and is hot enough to cook your hand



kimmies in the mist.


The world's best natural hot spring. Waterfall, perfect temperature, perfect depth.
It's amazing and this photo does it zero justice since we went at night.


I'm out of NZ! awesome trip!

NZ, le riding

-Snowpark. Pretty much the reason everyone goes to new Zealand in august.

I managed to get 3 weeks of riding in New Zealand this summer. I showed up the day before the Burton NZ Open started (which was kinda stupid on my part) and left the south island right after a world cup a few weeks later.

This year the weather was pretty good. Pretty much sunny the whole time. Lots of wind, but at least we could see. After last year's club field experience I was definitely hoping for some good storms in the Canterbury Mountains to go back up there but it just didn't happen while I was there.

The last few years in NZ were pretty pipe heavy and I was looking forward to mostly hitting jumps at Snowpark. I did the 2 pipe comps that were going on and just missed the cut offs for both of them, but I didn't really ride pipe too much and all my boards were shorter than i usually ride. And they were all different boards that I was testing and didn't know which one I liked the most so I kept switching boards all the time.

-Production line tuning. K2, Ride and Unity boards

In the end I was super happy to just ride and hit jumps. My wife also was able to come down for the last week on the south island and check it out finally. So it was great to show her around. We headed up to Raglan on the North Island to get some waves for a few weeks afterwards. I'll get some north island photos up sometime soon.

Here's a few windy runs from the world cup. Being 6'2" tall, the wind always gets me. First run is me messing around in practice and the other 2 are comp runs.
jl

so i lost my wedding ring in NZ

yeah. not even married a month and i lost my ring. awesome.



I just got home from 5 weeks in NZ and figured i should probably get around to posting some stuff about my trip.

I'd be been in NZ for a week and they got a massive storm. It snowed pretty much everywhere in the country. It never snows down in the lower elevations there. So it was dumping. And my rental car had some transmission issues. It couldn't really make it up to the hill so that was a small problem for me. My rental guy told me he had an extra car in Queenstown that i could go get. Sweet, just have to hope the subaru can make it to Q-town the long way around (it's flatter). And it was puking snow, so i didn't really feel like driving over the pass.
Anyhoof, I eventually make it down to Queesntown. I'm a little late and the whole airport is shut down (it's 5:15pm) due to the storm. Hmmmm. I'm supposed to meet a rental car guy in the airport. Well maybe i can call from the airport counter. So regardless of the very dark looking airport, the first door i walk up to opens and in i go and car the fellow from their counter phone, cause there's not a sole in the airport. So as i talking to him , the police roll up next to me.
They wait for me to get off the phone.

"How'd you get it?"
-the door opened
"did you set off the alarm? the roof caved in"
-uhh no i need to switch a rental car.
"hmm, ok"

they take my info in case i did make the roof cave in, and sit down. I need to call the rental guy back, very busy and doesn't want to help me due to the storm.
'you'll never make it to wanaka mate!'
-just came from there
'nah mate, too much snow. can't do it, you'll never make it!'
-i'm from canada, this is mellow.
'nah nah nah"

eventually he agrees to meet me at the airport so we can get my new car.
The cops by now have left me all alone in the airport, AFTER an alarm was triggered. I wait for a little while in the airport, then proceed to the door to meet buddy. Door's locked. hmmmm. other door's locked. and the other. ALL the doors are locked. Interesting indeed. Eventually I spot an emergency release button, so I climb up a wall and pop the door open. Victory! at least for the door.

Buddy picks me up and we go to his rental car yard. All the cars are buried. No shovels to be found. So being Canadian, I proceed to dig out and brush off the cars with my hands. No problem. Couple minutes later and we've got the 6 cars out of the way and I'm off in my new car.

I drive 20 minutes out of town and realize i've left my house key in the Subaru.
Back to the airport to get those.
Run over to the subaru and grab the key.
I jump back into the new car (Mitsubishi hunk of crap SUV) and it won't start! WHAT?!
So i get on the phone to the owner then to AA to come jump the car.
"is there an immobilizer switch on the car?"
no, started the thing twice already no problems and no sneaky buttons.

I wait in the storm for an hour for the AA guy to arrive. We mess with the car for 45 minutes. No luck. hmmm.
He asks me if there's an immobilizer on the car. no I looked everywhere.

Obviously not, as it was on the key chain. The aftermarket crappy looking keychain was the immobilizer. You needed to unlock the doors to be able to start the car. The owner didn't even know. Stupid all around (myself included). So, hours later I'm finally back off to Wanaka.

About 10 minuted form being home, I realize my finger feels a little light.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. followed by 10 minutes of swearing.
It was 11:30pm and snowing, I couldn't do anything about it. So I waited a while and called Kim to tell her the bad news. Surprisingly, she was ok with it as she thought I'd hurt myself.

I was pissed. I've never worn or owned jewellery in my life and i lost my wedding ring inside of 3 weeks! Not stoked.

My ring is made from Kim's grandparent's rings, melted down into a custom ring for me. There was no way i was losing that ring. At least not at the hands of a mere snowstorm.

The following morning, I hatched a plan. Find a metal detector. The ring pretty much has to be in the car rental parking lot right?

Back to Queenstown, rent the 1 metal detector for hours around and call the rental car guy to let him know my plan. "Sure thing mate. have at it" thanks

I start combing the parking lot through the 15cm of new snow. bottle cap, nail, washer, bolt, nothing, rebar in the cement, car. Metal detector works great at finding crap. I try for over an hour and I can't find the ring, but keep thinking that it's here in the snow somewhere. How can i make this detector work better?

Pile up all the snow into 5 chest high mounds of snow and scrape it down to cement.
Wand over the pile of snow with the detector.
Pull 2 inches off that pile, chuck it on the ground and wand over it again.
repeat, repeat and repeat until the pile is gone. More nails, more washers, another bottle cap. The detector just beeps and beeps and beeps. Annoying as hell.

I'm gonna find this ring.

3-4 hours into the digging, another beep. Yeah, yeah, what am i going to find this time. As i dig through the snow i spot a familiar corner with familiar lines.
NO WAY!! Found my ring! SOO STOKED! quickly text Kimmie to tell her the good news.
Amazing!

It basically took me all day to find it in a nearly impossible situation. So happy to find my ring. I still can't believe i found it. Needless to say, after that little mission I barely wore the ring the rest of the trip.

jl

summer!!

well at least a little bit of summer. It's been pretty cool in Squamish all summer. Big news for me is got married a few weeks ago. Ceremony on the lake, I came in on a canoe and kimmie and I left on it as well. Awesome.
That's been keeping me busy getting ready for that. A few days at Camp of Champions on blackcomb, which is always super fun. Lots of biking, climbing and skateboarding. and a fair bit woodworking. Trying to start up 1080 Wood. couple random photos below from a few of this summer's projects.
and now packing for another new zealand snow and surf trip. 2 days and counting and lots to do.
later
jl




quick sign i whipped up to find the wedding.


cedar surfboard towel racks


Walnut coffee table with wedged tenons and maple butterfly keys


walnut and birds eye maple boxes and picture frame