Wrote this for a Salomon Blog, thought some people might enjoy reading it.
East coast Canada and beyond
This winter has been epic…. ‘nuff said. Here’s two weeks of my winter in a
nutshell.
A couple weeks ago, while most were headed to Colorado for the Aspen Open, I
embarked on a different journey. I left my house in Keystone, CO and headed to
PA for the first Jib Academy of the year! After a quick flight to east, I met
up with Salomon’s Jenny Naftulin, Newschooler’s Mike Rogge, and the rest of the
Salomon crew. When we arrived at Seven Springs everyone was in high spirits and
ready to go. With over 80 kids pre-registered we knew we were in for a show. We
spent the morning shredding with all the kids in a smaller park called the Ally.
After a supreme pizza lunch and some much-needed rest, everyone headed back out
the hill to watch and judge finals. Despite the lack of snow in PA, Seven
Spring’s park was in mint condition for the final throw down. Finals started
out with a rail session, where we saw true east coast rail talent with many
tricks that would match those of the best pros. Then the finalists had a
showdown on the big jump line, where we witnessed outrageous runs. With
multiple 10’s thrown down over only 30 foot jumps, the comp served as a
testament to what east coast skiing is all about. At the end of the day Noah
Killen was crowned as the winner and won a full paid trip to Mammoth this
spring to shred with the Salomon team. To celebrate a job well done, the
Salomon team had a great night at the local roller skating disco. Micheal
Clarke dazzled onlookers as he used his figure skating background to lay down
some of the most impressive routines of the night. John Symms deserves an
honorable mention as well for laying down some innovative moves himself.
With one Jib Academy down, the next day I was off to Calgary! I was headed to
the great province of Alberta to meet up with my brother Alex and get some
shots for the new movie we are making. My brother spends his whole winter
traveling and filming for our ski movie company Stept Productions
(www.steptproductions.com). It was nice to get some new shots for our movie and
get to ski with my brother again. We spent the week traveling around the city
filming several of the plethora of handrails Calgary has to offer. While we
were there we met up with local Sasha Lazic who helped show us around, and not
to mention killed it himself! After a hectic week of motels, broken cars,
police, cold weather, and plenty of Tim Hortons, we ended up with some awesome
shots. Salomon is an active sponsor of our new movie, and we are all pumped to
have a lot of Salomon athletes already killing it so hard this year. Keep an
eye out for our new trailer, which will be coming soon!
After a final night of filming in Calgary I found myself back in the airport,
with little more than an hour of sleep, and headed back to the east cost for
the Loon Mountain Jib Academy! When I arrived in Boston that evening I drove
directly to Whaleback Mountain in New Hampshire for a night shoot with east
coast legends, Meat Head Films. When I arrived for the shoot I was a little
concerned about the set up, which consisted of a box positioned off a roof with
30-foot gap to a small landing in the parking lot. Skeptical at first, I watched
as the Whaleback park crew put the final touches on what seemed like a set up
fit for Evil Kenivile. The session ended up being fun and we got some cool
shots on the crazy set up. At about midnight we packed up and I caravanned with
Mike Rogge, and Jen Critchton (Yes, Dave Chritons sister) to loon mountain for a
meager four hours of sleep before the next day’s Jib Academy.
Having a Jib Academy at Loon was probably the best idea ever. That being said,
we all knew it was going to be an epic day. Loon is an epicenter of east coast
park skiing, and being so the talent pool was really impressive. Loon’s park
was perfect with rails that were superior to most west coast resorts. Bluebird
skies made for a really fun morning, I felt like almost every kid learned new
tricks. We took a break for lunch, another amazing free meal provided to all
competitors by Salomon, and then headed back up for finals. We started off by
having a session on the jumps in the upper park, and ended with a rail jam on
the Loon stair set (the best stair set in the world). At the end of the day, my
good friend from Waterville, Brendan Wall, took the win and everyone was stoked!
That night the whole Salomon crew and friends joined me for dinner at my
parent’s house up near Cannon Mountain. The feast was amazing and everyone was
pumped, highlights included Digi Dave from Freeskier acting like he normally
does (out of control), and Jenny promising me free indoor skydiving at the
Salomon center in Utah. That’s right Jenny I didn’t forget about that.
The next day I woke up early with Matt Walker to meet up with Meat Head Films
again to try to get some shots before we flew out that afternoon. We ended up
hitting a backcountry jump at Cannon Mountain that they had built the day
before. The snowpack was true east coast style and we had to literally chop the
ice landing before we could hit it. Walker wasn’t digging how east coast the set
up was so he just ended up being my support team. I ended up doing a flat 3 and
a switch 5, both times hitting a ton a tree branches in the air, and almost
dying. Both shots were pretty good, and I wanted to leave the east coast alive,
so I called it quits and headed to the airport with Walker.
This is getting long so ill try to wrap this story. Next I made a quick stop to
Colorado, and then I was right off to the final Dew Tour stop at Northstar. We
had two days of training before qualifying, plenty of time to dial our tricks
in. Because it was the final stop everyone was throwing down super hard, and
qualifying was the most stressful part of my season so far. Luckily Walker and
I both qualified for finals, which was awesome. I ended up getting 8th in
finals, and 10th overall for the winter. Getting top 10 overall in slope style
was more than I could have ever expected in the beginning of the winter, when I
had to qualify just to get into the tour. I was super stoked, and now I am back
in CO. Next up, filming with Rage, Stept, and PBP; also possibly the European
open.
Hope some of you were entertained by taking along a small part of my winter!
