2007/2008

Since the snow came late this year, our project(Hunting Yeti) was forced to start late as our objectives revolve around finding fluffy soft snow. I drove to Oregon to hang with Pollard and begin the search for that elusive blurry snow monster that many report to have seen yet have only stolen a glimpse. During my stay in Oregon filming was ever so tiresome as it was the Holidays. If anyone has ever been around Hood during the Holidays, it's fun, as long as you get there for opening (a formidable task), wear the right amount of layering (not to get too hot while taking your run every half hour, and not freezing after waiting in line only to get punished by the wind on the chair), you pack a lunch (unless you are a professional at waiting in cafe lines), you wear bomb proof outerwear (you never know when it's going to start raining), and you leave by 1:30pm (a car crash is inevitable with so many ill-equipped vehicles). For those couple runs we were able to take, it was almost worth it. The deep fluffy stuff has the ability to turn any frown upside down. While Justin and I endured this fiasco, Chris Benchetler was recovering from a shoulder injury, Mahre was in the process of buying a hefty Diesel truck, and Pollard came down with a debilitating illness that had him bedridden for over a week, so I couldn't complain.

Prior to Christmas we had a great time night skiing at both Meadows and Ski Bowl with Pastey C(Sammy Carlson). For some reason night skiing has a quality about it that you cannot get out of riding during the day. Maybe it has something to do with the darkness contrasted with the pristine pureness of snow.

The whole crew finally met up in the North Cascades with the exception of Benchetler who was out destroying Japanese elephant poos, pillows and sake. Japan. Lucky. Having a hook up from K2, we were able to acquire 7 hours of heli time for relatively cheap. We rented a house across from the operation and held up there for a couple days as snow came down with unexpected fury. As it dumped we explored some of the surrounding logging trails for some easy access terrain. We didn't find any. After finding that the trailhead was only a couple miles from our pad, we decided to rally our snowmo's along the road. It seemed like a perfectly good idea. There were also signs on a small portion of the road that had signs with snowmobiles in the center outlined with green circles which gave us added confidence. green means go...right? Near the end of the day, we ran into a couple police and ranger patrols on sleds as we were out filming. They did their jobs and checked our registration and gave Erin a warning for not having her rented sled registered... not here fault. Anyway, they parted ways and we soon wrapped it up and headed down. Passing them in the parking lot, they didn't seem to mind I was heading straight for the highway. After we all got to the road he rallied past pointing aggressively to the shoulder. He scolded us as made it very apparent that despite the sign it was highly illegal and worthy of a $600 ticket. That would have been a $4,200 ticket. Come to find we made the local paper blotter. Someone had called 911 and reported us.

The snowfall continued to bless us with snow periodically and we were able to fly about 7 out of our 2 and a half week stint. Check out what went down on rip.tv on Feb. 15th. Our first webisode will be released. Make sure to download the file as it is about 10gb and in high def. Watching a streaming version kills the quality.

Enjoy all the snow boys and girls!

Blogger is having trouble uploading photos but I still managed to get these two on:


Andy


Diamond Dust. This occurrence is rare and magical! I've never see it so vividly in my life and with such density.

Me=slacker

How can it be, it's been a almost a month since my last entry. The lack of snow has been so depressing I haven't been able make myself do...anything. Well, that isn't entirely true but it has severely hurt my moral. Today on the other hand boosted me out of the dumps and into heaven. I just returned from Baltimore yesterday and came home to find Tyler had purchased a new sled. Not brand spanking new, but new to him and if I may say so, a damn good sled. 07' Ski Doo, Rev 800. We obviously had to go out today and break her in. After pulling up to Gaurdsman parking lot, we topped her off with oil, filled the gas tank, a couple pulls on the draw cord and the son of a *I$ch smoked us out. Not paying much mind to it we rolled out. Tyler's sled bogged all day unless on a groomed trail and got me so high off fumes just trailing behind him, I don't know how he rode it. Gettin' er boondockin' bogged er down almost immediately. We still got some good shots though...



Locked and Loaded




Who said there are rocks?



Why doesn't the display screen just tell you what's wrong with your sled? It's kind of maddening. You have to look up all these codes that flash on the screen and for those of us with short term memory loss can't remember all the damn codes.



My sled's running tip top!



More one hand action. REV XP Love that machine, too bad it's not a hybrid.

I made it to Hawaii after months of hoping, wishing and praying to make some time to surf. Its amazing how catching a couple of waves can ease the mind. This morning we decided to go out on a limb and check if honolua(arguably the best wave on Maui) was breaking. We heard rumors that it was really good yesterday when the swell was at it's peak. We figured it wouldn't be as good but still decent. It was really small and there were plenty of people out so we came all the way back to the north shore to find the wind blasting off shore and really unpredictable waves all over. Hopefully the wind will die down and Ty and I can get some turns in. shoots cuz