2012/13 catalogs

Start drooling over next year's goods, planning out your steezy setup, or just simply ogling the new tech:

http://www.zuzupopo.com/xe/index.php?mid=catalog&category=48564&page=1

Take what you can get

1-3" sounds pretty alright to me right now!

Some inspiring stuff

Pro skier Josh Dueck became paralyzed from the waist down after a back flip gone wrong, yet he still continues to charge it on a sit ski. Watch this clip of him as he attempts to get back at it flip again- it's pretty inspiring.

Props to the awesome Powder Mountain for helping this happen!

A little taste of the Supernatural

A teaser trailer for the Supernatural comp has been released, looks pretty gnarly!

The biggest "Super" thing happening this weekend

...and it's not the Superbowl! Bits and pieces have been flying around about the Red Bull Supernatural comp for a few months now, but this weekend it will all come to fruition. The Supernatural kicked off it's inaugural year at Baldface in British Columbia yesterday. Travis Rice began putting plans in motion after the Natural Selection comp held in Jackson four years back. The idea was to bring all the riders focused on backcountry filming and the young contest jibbers for a competition that brought both elements together.

 

After scouting locations from some time,  Rice and his crew chose the "Scary Cherry" face at Baldface knowing the elevation and northeastern facing aspect of the slope would allow the course to survive some warm spells or a week or two with no snow. The course was hand cut by Rice and a group of lumberjacks over the summer to have nearly 100 custom features from pillow lines and transfers to log ladders hung 30 feet in the trees. The slope starts at a steep 45 degree pitch slowly leveling out to 30 degrees further down with a massive kicker to powder midway. The whole run is almost a mile long.

Riders were not allowed any practice runs on the course and the starting order was determined by the ultimate woodsman contest Friday: made up of an ax throw, timed nail pound, and timed beacon search. The winner was allowed to call his drop-in position followed by the other riders in order with Lucas Debari taking that honor.

Saturday’s start order list is: 1. Scotty Lago 2. DCP 3. John Jackson 4. Lucas Debari 5. Terje 6. Mark Sollors 7. Nicolas Müller 8. Mark McMorris 9. Eero Niemala 10. Gigi Rüf 11. Mark Carter 12. Mark Landvik 13. Travis Rice 14. Sage Kotsenburg 15. Eric Jackson 16. Devun Walsh 17. Jake Blauvelt 18. Kazu Kokubo

Unsurprisingly, Travis took first place followed by backcountry big-hitters Gigi Ruf and Nicolas Muller. You can read all about their ridiculous runs here or you can wait to till March 31st to watch the whole thing go down on NBC.

...aaaand I'm back!

While I had an amazing time in Colorado, a lot has happened since my last post! For those of you who weren't watching the craziness go down at the X Games last weekend there were some pretty epic moments. Vail was surprisingly quiet, most likely due to the higher traffic in Aspen to watch the games. We were very lucky to arrive shortly after Vail received over a foot of snow, and the second day of my trip it snowed another 8 or so inches which meant they were finally able to open all of the bowls. We were able to find some good powder stashes, yet in some areas the limited coverage was more obvious with an unusual amount of exposed rocks and stumps.

Stuck in powder

It was also frightening to hear about the high number of avalanches that have occurred recently due to the extremely unstable snow pack. Sadly one young boy was even killed in bounds the week before our arrival and many of the woods areas were closed off due to high avalanche risk. Despite this, we enjoyed the areas of fresh snow we could find and made a point to keep a closer eye on each other. The trip was a success but coming home to a bare east coast was rather depressing. Friends here reported warm, rainy weather and a few local mountains even closed for a day to save snow.

With all the money spent on snow making this season and the overall lack of business this will be a tough year on the books for a lot of mountains. Killington is hopeful that the after effects of the Dew Tour a few weeks ago will see increased turnouts to the host mountain from those who want to ride the same terrain as the pros. They also believe that the national coverage will help show those still suffering from backyard syndrome that there is actually a good amount of snow at the mountains, even if it's not in their yard. After the awful effects of Irene on the area, the town of Killington really needs the business: check out this Transworld Business article to learn more.

Why so afraid little buddy?

Although Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow yesterday, I'm doubtful many of the mountains around here will even make it another 6 weeks. I still maintain some hope that we will get a late-season dumping as we have in years past. Last year I was riding at Sugarloaf on May 8th and though I'm skeptical that I'll be able to stretch my season as long this year I still look forward to spring riding in a t-shirt and 60 degree weather. I would simply prefer that wasn't already happening in February!