Solo Bros....

Just me and Brendan hanging out sledding, good times, good pow. 

my pow slash.  (filmers can get shots too, right?)

Korea City Life...

Here is a little video montage of the Signal crew checking the sites in Seoul, Korea.

Dezort..

I'm currently 7 tapes deep into capturing footage, so i took a break to check out the new Transworld Skateboarding mag and was stoked to see my buddy Drew Dezort got a 2 page ad for Innes.

They put the ad up on their site innesclothing.com too.

Drew is so gnarly... he skates some of the spots we film snowboarding on. Tough as nails.

Back to snow in a day or two.

Greg Hahn....

Active launched a News section of their website.

This was in their archives...

Funny i just saw this check in Gregs house the other day...

Its been a year.. but congrats again Greg. Oh and you ever see someone do a handplant on a pillow in the backcountry?

I have.. Greg did it last week.

Utah Day Two...

The next day hiking Brighton was super fun, found a zone with good snow still. It was a pretty warm day, around high 40's id say.  Despite how warm its been here the past few days there was still good snow in the trees. 

j-kell, b-hayes, e-fern

We did some lines, we did some airs we got some shots.  After we got some stuff done, brendan build a good back flip jump, and well they back flipped it.

double backies

After that Jason and brendan jump the creek and shot photos with ROBBIE SELL(.com)! NO WAY!

Brendan claimin the spot, son UH!

Utah Day One...

After talking a 10 hour drive to when it should have only been maybe 8 brendan and I finally get to Eric Fernandez's house. This morning we head up to Brighton and hike around to find some good snow. We found it, we shreded it, we bounced. more to come...

this is a rad table at the pizza place we ate at.

creepy shot of brendan and j-kell

CLIFFord

The morning started off with good intentions. We were gassed up and ready to roll at 8, and headed out to this really cool zone. Guess we should have known after the first five minutes when all we found was ice and our over-heated-engine lights kept coming on, but we kept on and ended up at the zone.

Group Dynamics. We roll deep.

The whole zone was ice garbage pretty much. We sat there for about 5 minutes and decided to check out a different spot. After a refill at Starbucks, myself, Hammer, Peter, Cody, & photog Kevin Westenbarger headed out.

We hit the jackpot with snow.

Cody wanted to snap a photo, so he gave an action test shot to figure out the Canon Digi delay.

He got it dialed for Peters fs180. Hammer was claiming it was 15ft. He was wrong... by about 30 feet. ha

Hammer dropped first, and powered thru a wild landing. I don't know how on earth he held on to it, the snow right there wasn't that good after all, and when he landed his feet almost came out of his bindings. He powered through like a champ though.


I look like a skier goon... changing angles.

We ended up finding a really rad jump and those dudes threw down.

Peter taking a breather.. getting his logo incentives.

Peter on the ride out.

Awesome needle tree.

Business was handled. We had a good day, did some scouting, threw some snowballs, etc. Had some tough weeks of bad weather, but today made up for it.

Only a month or two left... hangin in.

Always Wear Your Helmet Kids

So yet another day in Sonora, I rolled down there one early morning to meet up with Matt Hammer, Peter Benchetler, and Cody Rosenthal. 

the late crew

So at the trail head cody bust's out a greatly drawn layout of all the sweet jump spots. We decided to check out the "double back flip jump" its not really called that... but it should be now.

peter showing off

peter fell slipping the jump

the jump

After destroying the "double backy jump" we all head out to a near by bowl. We set a gear down and start sledding around, shortly there after we see to sledneckers approaching, we thought. Turns out two be a ranger, and he saw cody and peter sledding with out helmets so it gives them 125 buck tickets each, pretty sweet. 

stoked!

Except the tickets and getting annoyed by the ranger it was a good day, everyone got shots... cody got a banger, youll see.

I think I'll Pass

Sonora Pass... back again.

We rolled in style.

I had been itching to get out and ride my sled, so Greg & Brendan offered to haul myself and my sled out to Sonora. It was about 60 and sunny, and we had a blast. The snow was surprisingly good, so we decided to do a little boarding as well. Robbie Sell laughed at me when I told him we were gonna go sledding at Sonora that day, but boy was he wrong. It was like boarding at Mt. Hood in June.


Greg on lunch break.

So the best part about the day happened that night. It was an accident... but R.I.P. Brendan's toothbrush.

Thats it for me... have a nice life.

The next day we went up to June Mountain. June is amazing... its a long lift ride up, but soooo worth it.

Blue skies and no lift lines.


Ever seen a perfectly cut pipe? Heres one.

Cody threw down some ridiculous moves.... and a few butt busters as well. He was struggling to walk by the time we left, but he got the shots.

The weather, although warm and blue skies, has skunked the snowfall. But hope is in sight... secret zone blog coming next.

Seacrest out.

Mammoth or Bust

Colorado sent us on our way.... I just thought the Rocky Mountains would have been a little rockier than that.... That John Denvers full of crap man.

Anyway... If you ever make the drive from Colorado to Mammoth you will understand my pain. Just imagine not turning the wheel of your car for 30 minutes straight. Just perfectly straight roads as far as you can see for miles through the desert. When you finally come to a turn it feels insane like you are going in circles. There are a few sweet spots to see on the way though...

Rocky Mountain High.

Scenic View.

We finally made it into Mammoth, and swooped in to grab a slice of the greatest pizza on earth. Next time you are in Mammoth hit up 5 Boroughs... blow your mind delicious. Why do i always talk about food?

Who cares. Thanks Rezza!

Brendan Hayes and I crashed out at basically the HIlton of houses in Mammoth. I don't want to release all my secrets here, but lets just say plasma tv, my own room, and a garage to house my sled. Top notch... Mtv cribs style, literally. We headed up to Chair 4 with Greg Hahn, Cody Rosenthal, Peter Benchetler, & Matt Hammer. Checked out this rad hip, those guys sent a few rounds on it, then Cody took me back to the most epic playground.

Mammoth Playground.

Hard to tell from the photo, but there are about 1,000 trees to bonk, jib, ride, jump, tap, etc top to bottom. So siiick! Cody and I did the worlds longest followcam thru it.

Cody & Greg approved.

You ever have a buddy that charges everything, no matter what the conditions, and always lands something sweet? For me, that buddy is Cody Rosenthal. That kid is so amazing. He was sending it like 25 feet off this hip in a wild windstorm.

"Lifestyle" Pro Snowboarders always hang with shades on.

Greg, Cody, & Tyler the photog @ Sushi Rei. Get the Emo roll... thank me later.

Mammoth rules... next blogs. Days at Sonora, June, & a new zone? Ranger Ricks got nothin on this.

"We're There"

So I flew into Colorado. I've been there before, and although its always a fun time there, I wouldn't always call Colorado the most productive place. Be that as is it may, Pat Lynch picked me up at DIA, and we headed to Breckenridge. Greg Hahn & Brendan Hayes made the 14 hour trek from Mammoth to join us.

We met up with our buddy and Sims superstar James Frederick and drove to Red Mountain. If you have never been to Ouray, CO it looks like you just drove through Colorado wasteland and ended up in Europe. The town was crazy.. apparently has the worlds best ice climbing or something too.

Well we headed out and built a few jumps the first day.

Its like a playground out there.

Red Mountain is sick... except its mostly hiking. Thats fine if you dont have a sled or a sled payment... but I wasn't too jazzed up, but we all managed to snowshoe our way around just fine.


Pat Lynchmob.

Gregative Hahn.

Brendanimal Hayes.

James "I Ride for Sims" Frederick.

Matt "Hates Hiking" Porter

We checked out some really cool zones, and found all these cool mining buildings. It was great to see that so many people had decided to carve their "tags" into the building... things like "420" and "Dave & Katie were here", stuff like that. Forget history and all that.. lets let people know what morons we are. Anyway.. pretty cool buildings.


After miles and miles of hiking we all crashed at the hotel. Luckily Ed Herbold the master photographer arrived to lighten the mood. Ed is the master... and rides just as well as he shoots photos.

Dude Fest.

Ed antics at Target.

I've dreamed about eating at Sonic. I finally made it.

Like a beacon in the sky.

Red Mountain gave us what it had to offer, but the weather wasn't as cooperative. We changed course and went into the trees.

Yard sale.

This zone was amazing. Tons of pillows, and the coolest thing i've ever seen up close in the backcountry.. an Elk!

Sleep Tight.

Elk tracks. I tried to get the Elk on film, but he had other plans.

We kept moving on down the line, checking out a ton of pillow and cliff zones. We ended up like 3 miles from the vehicles, and were not hyped on walking all the way back. Out of nowhere this lumberjack shows up in a huge truck towing a double sled trailer with only one snowmobile on it. We flagged him down, he gave the 6 of us about 10 seconds to hop on and he hauled us back going like 50mph. It was soooo sketchy, Greg was just sitting on the back of the trailer, inches from death.

Regardless we made it back safe and sound.

Colorado treated us well, but we moved on to California. 14 hour drive... yikes.

California Livin' Part Two: The Calm (and not so calm) After the Storm

So, better late than never, eh? Here's the rest of the story...

After the snow had settled and the sun started shining, Matt Hammer joined up with our previous crew, and we headed out to a well-traveled, well-liked California hot spot. There were crews galore lining up their sleds outside the entrance, but there’s plenty of room for everyone, so we gave a few nods and ‘whats up’s and headed out.

It was a sunny day, the crew was super fun, and to top it off, we got to shoot a jump that, as far as we all could tell, was fresh and new. Greg guinea-pigged the jump (which featured a full-on boardercross style run-in) and came up inches shy of a super-stylie off axis 5-er. So close. But, the ice was broken, and the


PETER PEEKS BACK AT THE BOARDERCROSS RUN-IN AS HE THROWS DOWN

We had a blast over the next few days hitting some great spots, but one day led to a little frustration, and ultimately some pretty good laughs. Check this out…

After caching out this amazing rock face, we knew we were close to the trail we wanted, but faced the dilemma of either going back and around the way we came, or adventure up and over the peak we were in front of and catch the trail on the opposite side. We chose the latter.

First of all, Matt went to start his sled, but to no avail. We spent about twenty comical minutes trying to pull-start his clutch manually.


MATT WISHING HIS SLED WAS HAVING A BETTER DAY

Thanks to Peter’s mechanical wizardry, we got ‘er started and boondocked our way through trees, bushes, rocks, etc. and finally reached the highest point. We could see the trail below us, but the plethora of rocks, boulders, steep hills, creeks, and thick trees provided some intimidating barriers.

So, Peter took the first shot and disappeared to find a safe road. Matt followed suit about 10 minutes later. Brendan and I waited at the top, and about 20 minutes later, we spotted the two guys down on the trail at the bottom. They waved their arms back and forth to us, I told Brendan we had the signal, and so we shrugged and headed down.

Dumb.

It may quite literally have ranked top 3 scariest descents you might ever encounter. Exposed rock fields, steep hills, boulders, no real way to brake or slow down safely. Oh, and it ended sharply in a grove of dead trees. Not to mention Peter and Matts’ tracks had hardened into nice little ice chutes.

So we’re creeping down this hill, and Brendan is in front of me, moving a tad slower and dead even with a nice, big boulder. I had 2 choices… Hit my buddy, or hit this rock. I hit the rock.

No damage, but the skis were now straddled on either side of this dumb rock. Brendan had to hike back up and help me drag the sled uphill and turn it. We lifted, we pulled, and we loudly tried to figure out why on earth someone in their right mind would wave us to come down something so ridiculous.


I HATE THIS ROCK


VIEW FROM THE TOP


NEVER AGAIN. TRUST ME, IT’S EVEN MORE RIDICULOUS IN PERSON.

We get the sled pointed downhill, Brendan grabs a helmet, revs ‘er up, and heads down. I watch as he goes slowly, then faster, and faster, and faster, and faster, then supermans off the sled just as it dives into the forest grove and lodges under 4 interlocking dead trees. So I head down to the bottom, get my saw out and start slicing away as Peter and Matt make their way over to lend their assistance.

As they approach, I asked them if they had gone on a mission to find the scariest descent possible?

Matt replied “Oh man. I can’t believe you guys went down that! We were waving you to go back the other way!”

Crap. After we took a couple seconds to register what just happened, we laughed, shook our heads, drove the sleds to safety, and ended up having a really great rest of the day. We zipped out to a jump we built the day before, had some fun there, packed up the trucks and headed home, but not before saying ‘what’s up’ to our friends from Mack Dawg People and the Transworld crew, who we spotted amongst the mass exodus. Man, is it a party at that spot!

The rest of the week went smooth as ex-lax (thank you 80’s). A couple more jumps, a couple more shots, and a great week or so wrapped up nicely.


HAM’-MER
noun
def. 1. THIS RIDER 2. THIS SHOT

On to the next week. See you soon.