Blast from Breck (or How I Have Way Too Much Time On My Hands)

Well in a search through many of my external HDDs I tracked down some videos taken from the helmet cam during the last day at Breckenrage.

Here is a look of us all at the top of the summit. Of course, because the helmet cam is never mounted right, I miss nearly all of the action.


After that, we traversed over to Horseshoe bowl. This is mostly a video going in one direction and of everyone bitching.



Some lovely shots of the most amazing of areas: Windows. Mostly it is us just yelling at each other and figuring out where to go. It was only the first run down and most of the time I spent it bouncing off trees or falling down from my own ineptitude. To make matters better, the camera is almost always off centered or off angled. Enjoy!

The Start (once on Chute 4)



After taking a break in the middle of the woods


Finishing Up


And me bouncing off of a tree halfway through

Snow Reports (East Vs. West)

Mount Snow, VT



Jackson Hole, WY

This is Change I Can Believe In

Boloney Strikes Back (Or How I Stopped Fearing and Learned to Love Corbets' Couloir)

It's been a hot and long summer. The board has a fine layer of dust on it and the gear is buried under wetsuits, surf leashes, and board shorts, but not for long.

Today I received a phone call. One of many I've received recently from BP, but this one was different. A simple phrase was uttered, with substantial implications:

"It's booked."

It being, Jackson Hole, WY - Perhaps the gnarliest mountain in America. This season will see many things. Likely day trips to Hunter and Bellyare. Other-nighters to Mount Snow. Perhaps an outing to Tits' McGee's new place in Okemo. One thing is for sure though - the crew is going to Jackson Hole, and There Will Be Blood.



Here's something to get you psyched on life:





Somehow they've already gotten video of me taking the first drop:

The Return

After checking the weather and whatnot on Friday, we knew that the trip back was going to be awful. There's no better way to end a week in paradise than the most awful trip back possible. So the first real joke is that I lost my ipod all week and the van back claimed that they had found my ipod and were going to be able to give it to me. Turns out they had a black ipod in a black case. It wasn't my black ipod in a black case.

Well the ride to Denver wasn't a problem at all and the driver was a tetris master.

So checking into DIA we were already a half-hour delayed, which quickly turned into an hour. Boloney Moguls solution: Get hammered. Whole lot of drinking went down. Eventually we boarded an hour late, taxied away, and then got news that JFK was closed and we would be sitting on the tarmac. After a solid hour we then taxied back to the gate, to just as quickly turn around and get back into line to takeoff. Around 4 we finally took off. Our awesome inflight bartender started getting us rounds of white Russians, and I added up a 80$ bar tab... on a plane.

Oh yea, Tim got a sick Brett Michaels hat.

and that's how breckenrage ended.

Mission: Summit

It was Friday. The last day. After Lunch. We had to do it.

After much bitching we all agreed to do it. We took the Colorado Express to Chair 6 to the warming hut at 12,000 ft. From there we shook the ice off and got ready. Now the five of us hoped on the Imperial Express Chair for the final push. This chair took us to 12,800 feet in 2 and a half minutes.

Now the wind picked up the snow blew in and the temp went down. In a near whiteout we bunkered down and started the hike up the final 200 feet of vert. Tim, powered through like an animal and burned all us healthy-lungers in a truly impressive fashion. What we thought was going to be a tough hike turned out to be a grueling and challenging process. The snow was so loose and the climb was so steep it was very tough to keep pushing up without sliding back.

We made it and had only one thing to say.

DRAGOOOO


Damnit meg didn't take a picture of me, so it seems I never made it up myself. (Thanks Meg)

To get a sense of the summit, check out the video I took of us up there.
13,000ft

We'll have video of the Summit run up soon.

Windows

Tim and Dan called late Thursday, saying they had found "Utah" at Breck. Brian and Meg checked it out, I was quite done already. First thing Friday we got out, made some first tracks, and headed straight for it.

What we found: Windows. There was a really tight traverse off the E Chair into the Back 9 Bowl and a section of the mountain called the Windows Chutes. It was insane. On a snowboard, the traverse was a bit tricky and a clipped a few trees. Once I caught up with everyone in chute 5 I knew we were in for a good time. We were completely isolated from everyone in these remote and tight woods with amazing untouched snow.


It was some of the greatest riding I've ever had. The 6 of us, minus one brown bear, cruised through about 4 times. Each time going down different chutes and cutting down different lines through the trees.

Hiking up into deep powder stashes was had to mixed degrees of success. Video will follow soon enough.

I got stuck in a tree - thank god for helmets.

Conclusion: Windows was one of the coolest things I have ever done and we all were psyched we found it at all.