Donner Lake

Before

After!

Went up donner pass today, this place is epic so much stuff to do here and it’s all just off the side of the road – cliffs, cornices, jump spots whatever your into its here.  The snow was pretty good so we setup this cliff that Charles has hit before.. It was all good to go by about 2pm but first hit Charles chucked a 5, over-rotated and bounced about 10 foot taking the entire landing with him along with his beanie and goggles which are somewhere buried in there – yip it slid.. So that was that! Was stoked to get up there though on such a nice day.. check out the before and after shots above

The first episode of the season, take a look behind the scenes in a week in a funny old place called minnesota; minneapolis to be precise.  This ole city isn’t much to look at but for a crew shooting a snowboard movie it’s better than Vegas – Handrails a plenty and theres lots of snow.  We struggled here and there for spots but phone calls we’re made and on the whole looking back the trip was successful.  Obviously just the B shots here and lifestyle, saving the goods for the movie..

Watch and enjoy if you want..

Been snowmobile shopping lately and it’s turned out to be a bit of a task but we are getting through it – this is Jye’s new purchase, not a bad investment at 16 yrs old?! Can’t wait to get out amongst it once we filter through the dodgy dealers and yes there are a few I feel.. Mikey gets his tommorow and Jye in the weekend, mines in the mix and hopefully next week also.. Can’t wait to get out in the backcountry next week.

Check the beast!

Back in Tahoe now, had great plans of updating the blog each day from the trip but it just didn’t work out like that – way too many hectic days and late nights.  All in all a productive trip some shots in the bag and pretty much injury free accept one minor trip to the hospital but it all turned out ok and it’s onto the next thing.  Webisode from the trip on it’s way.  Big thanks to Justin for the hookups in Minnesota ..

This ole spot is fairly popular – drop in on the roof to ledge drop…

Spent a fair bit of time in Mall of America equipped with theme park of course

Jye dirt in Forrest Gumps shoes…

Got to Minneapolis late last night, super exhausting trip after staying up all night at the legacy hotel in Reno.  This place is a zoo of casinos and late night fun so once the 100′s we’re made on black jack (or lost in some cases) we decided to battle through until our flight at 6am… Always a regrettable decision and was made no better by the stupidest flight path landing us in Phoenix and Milwaukee before arriving at our final destination, but alls good now in minneapolis.  We hit our first rails today and got a couple in the bank, more come no doubt.

Stay posted for a video from our trip…

Bright lights of Reno..

Mikey catches up on some sleep..

This is the first rail we went to – super mellow.. good warm up rail for the trip but the digger got called and we we’re out..

It’s been snowing like crazy today – we must have about a foot accumulated already and theres more snow on the forecast for the next week. We are popping off outta here for a wee while to hit some handrails while the storms pass and when we get back it should be ON in the backcountry..

The front entrance to our cabin..

Enough to get excited about for sure..

Vaughan’s been dabbling with Video lately on his new Mark 2 camera.  Check out his behind the scenes video from our first week in Tahoe …

Mikey wetting the ledge after taking a core shot..

Jye 50 to frnt 3 into the wall

Jye front 3 into the wall

Last night we setup this sick feature in Tahoe – it’s an up-ledge to wall ride thing.. The plan was pretty simple to begin with, hire a generator, buy some lights and head up there around 7pm, only problem was when we arrived the gate was locked so we couldn’t drive directly to the spot.  Instead we hauled all our stuff including the generator (lucky it has wheels) up the hill and started the session.  We used a banshee bungee to sling into it which is super sick, you just tie the bungee to a tree and pull it back to the rider and he grabs it and gets hucked at the feature full speed.. SO much better than a drop in ramp.  All was going well until the unthinkable, the generator runs out of petrol and we find ourselves stuck in the dark in the middle of nowhere with camera gear scattered around the park.! After a solid hour stumbling around with cell phone lights we made it back down to the car and home by 3am.  A bit of a kooky start to the filming season but we will iron these things out ya see.. Tommorow it’s another rail mission – theres snow on the forecast for the next week so will be hitting the backcountry soon no doubt..

Squaw from the gigantic gondola

Beer time..

Charles Front board the Down Bar.

Got to tahoe about 6 days ago and it’s been hectic ever since we arrived – ticking things off the list slowly, accomm, truck, sled – almost setup now.  Crew here at the moment include Mikey Williams, Jye Kearney, Charles Beckinsale and Photog Vaughn Brookfield.  We’ve been living it pretty rough with cheap hotels and no sleep but just moved into the sickest log cabin in tahoe / donner.  It’s good to finally have some space and should be a productive winter ahead.  Got to have a day riding at Squaw which was sick, Charles does a good job of the park there so we took a few laps and got our feet back. More posts to come soon..