Good skiing in Utah lately...

A storm arrived around Christmas time and delivered a much needed coat of fresh snow for the mountains of Utah. Things have been filling in nicely ever since. In the last few weeks, I've skied a lot of powder, some of it better than anything I've had in Utah in years. Granted, the last few years have kinda sucked around these parts, so I've been gone a lot. It sure does feel nice to be skiing pow again in our own backyard. Some photos that my brother Neil and I have shot lately.....

^ It got cold for a little while, and deep.

^ we found solitude and untracked deepness in the Uintas

^ Neil doesn't mind grinding out a few thousand feet of Wasatch wiggles

^Trent and his pops. Father and son Wiggles. Bruce laid down an epic figure eight.

^deep, blower pow for Neil

^ Jonny G, the Uinta snow scientist taking pictures of crystals and stuff

^ Aspen trees catching the glow from the first few moments of sunshine. 

^ Mt. Raymond

^Had a great bluebird day with our friend, Nick Russell, hitting lines off Raymond Peak. Huge smiles all day!!!

#filmisdead

^ Watching my brother slash turns between the sharp rock fins of Raymond's east face

^ Nick Russell following my track because he liked how I worked those waves!

^ Even on a down day, I can't help myself from heading into our backyard for some powsurf laps.

still waiting for winter...

   Its been a rather slow, yet interesting start to the 11'/12' winter. In terms of snow, Utah has had a few teaser storms that started up in early October, but there was never really any momentum with the storm patterns. Unfortunately, we're now setup with a very dangerous early season snowpack. There is a wide variety of weak layers from the ground up which will become a HUGE problem once the big storms finally arrive. It will be another year of extra caution and patience, allowing time for the mountains to heal up, and eventually we will find our place on the big lines. Lately its been great to hammer the groomers at the ski resorts, and this year I feel particularly nice about my condition going into the season.

^ Neil and I have found some good powder on the more mellow, grassy slopes. With the early season snowpack I'm usually more worried about tagging a rock or a log than an avi. You can avoid the avalanches by sticking to low angle slopes, but there's no way to avoid the sharks lurking beneath our severely deprived snowpack.

   With flashbacks of deep dry snow, heavy on my mind, I spent a night flipping through b-roll footage from our 2 month trip to BC last winter. I found some pow surfing footage and put together this GoPro helmet camera vid. For the record, I consider Retallack Lodge to be the holy mecca for pow surfing, or noboarding, whatever you wanna call it. Where else can you hit 6-10 runs a day, each one between 1500 and 4000 vertical feet of the nastiest fucking terrain in the world, without bindings?!?!?

4X4 or Chains required!

Thats what the sign read at the bottom of little cottonwood canyon. The local sheriff was busy NOT enforcing the restrictions, so the road was choked up with knuckleheads fishtailing up the road on their summer tires. After narrowly averting multiple barney's, we were finally turned around at the climax of stupidity, about half way up the canyon. No big deal however, its the end of April and the powder continues to be epic. There's another canyon thats a bit less busy...


After a day of howling winds and rivers of graupel, the clouds gave way to the sun.




Neil eyes the classic, 3000' big cottonwood funnel, known as Argenta.


Ty finds waist deep conditions off the headwall.


The new snow was touchy, and cohesive soft slabs would wrinkle with good energy and tension.






the record breaking winter continues....




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Inspired to the World!

After a busy month, I've realized I haven't put anything up on the ol' blog for a bit. A few weeks ago we launched www.inspiredmedia.tv , and released a short film that Neil, Josh finbow, and I had worked on over the summer.........


visit: http://inspiredmedia.tv/1011/inspired-media-tv/provo-bros/ to check out some photos and read a little about our trip to the desert.

This next video was shot during our trip to south America, where we skied at Valle Nevado....


photos and story....  http://inspiredmedia.tv/1011/inspired-media-tv/chile/

Next up is a video with some early season powder surfing at Deer Valley Resort. This has been one of the best early winters we've had in a while, and the storms keep lining up!


And finally, a video I made while skiing with Tanner Hall and my brother Neil at Solitude mountain resort. It was Tanner's first time skiing solitude, and it was also his first powder day in nearly two years. It was an epic day of ripping powder turns through a meter of Utah's finest and driest. Enjoy...

Fall turns to winter

the first week of october brought the first winter storms of the year. Enough snow to play around a little bit, but a good sign that big snows are on the horizon. For a few days the landscape was striking. The contrast between the new snow, and fall colors at their peak was money! Its very uplifting to live in such a beautiful and ever changing environment.


nice contrast

sick views from 10,420' :


bananza


colorful aspens along the wasatch crest


Looking across the central wasatch, the stoke level rises!


the cottonwood canyons. millions of people will soon gather here.


Neil grinds out the first turns of the year down the shoulder. Beyond sketchy. Shark fins are looming beneath the snow.

Here is a little snurf action. Its always fun to sort of de-progress in a way by snurfing (no binders). Plus you only need a little snow and a grassy slope to have fun. I'd like to try and ride an entire mountain without bindings one day. going back to the roots.

click for HD