Snowbird Termination (A Machine from the Future – Sent to Shred)

From the future came a hero, or a villain. It is impossible to know its source, but at 8:15 A.M. Mountain Time at Snowbird, a robot from the future appeared. Constructed from advanced metals and adhesive, equipped with a functioning reverse tranceiver-receiver his mission was clear: to Terminate.

Without warning, it struck. Searching for John Conor and epic pow, it shredded unlike any other hunter killer time travel has. Fast turns on hard pack with mind-ray-reading deflective equipment in place, it was a machine not to be reckoned with.

Terminators on your mountain: A threat more common than you think.

Boloney Blasts UT: The Feature (Teaser Trailer)

An early cut and preview of what will be an earth-shattering feature.

The Nightlife of SLC (Mormons: Party Enemy Number 1)

Things you cannot do in SLC and Greater Utah:
Drink real beer
Buy real beer
Dance
Smile

Things you can do:
Pray
Be Mormon (Really just an extension of the first bullet)

We should have known better when the Xpress Shuttle driver at 2:00 A.M. responds to my question “are there any bars still open” with maniacal laughter.

Yeah. So SLC is not exactly a party town. First of all it is close to impossible to get real beer. And if you can find real beer by going to one of the few state-run liquor stores it costs a fortune. And I’m not being cheap here. I mean 12$ for a 6 pack. Yea, that sounds reasonable.

What can you get? You can get near beer. Mmmmm. About 3.2 percent alchy, this stuff is piss water. Beer flavored water. Dirty water. It doesn’t make you drunk. It makes you need to pee, constantly. It makes you sluggish and tired. Not exactly party sauce.

To the bars: There aren’t any, by law. There are only “private clubs.” These require a “membership fee” that must be paid on a weekly or monthly basis so that you can then pay them for food and sauce. Awesome, I like that. And remember these “clubs” we paid to become a member to still serve shit beer and won’t pour a drink with more than one shot in it.

So that’s the bad. And it’s a long list. Onto the good:

The Mexican food. Every stripmall seems to have 5 Mexican joints to grab food. TK ran in to one on a smoke break and wouldn’t shutup about the awesomeness he had consumed. Fired up and hungry, more of the gang went the next night and were blown away by the eats. More blown away were my taste buds from eating one of the hottest hot sauces I have ever tried in my entire life.

DIS. The Days Inn South of Midvale. Probably more amazing than a power stash find in the backcountry. Super cheap. Way nicer than we deserve. Right on the bus route to the mountains. And equipped with the ethereal Bobby Sharp: their ghost general manager who haunts the place and only responds to email. Also the continental breakfast was probably one of the biggest surprises of the trip

The Uta Bus. Basically for free, right next to the DIS we could hop onto a bus at 7:15 A.M. and in one hour be at Snowbird, Briton, or Solitude (and Alta for those skier snobs). Generally we could always strike up convos with the drivers or the other people going to the mountains to ride or work. Lot of weird people out in these parts and a hell of a lot of people with some whacked out stories.

We met a guy working at Brighton on the bus who had married a half Paki half Mormon woman two months after he met her. He was odd, but a funny guy.

Our bus the first night coming home on Friday was the man. First of all, we had the bus to ourselves so we could carry on and rockout however we saw fit. Bullshitting with the guy for awhile, we started to close in on the final stop. Instead of just taking us to the bustop, the guy goes “fuck it, where are you guys staying I’ll just drop you there.” Yea, he was well tipped.

In conclusion, do not go to SLC to party. Go there to shred, and bring all your own booze. There are good times to be had there, but sure as hell not at their Moron Private Clubs.

Snowbird Day 2 (Boloney Blasts UT)

Another day in Uta, another day in paradise. The early morning SLC smog greets us and the continental at the DIS is well made. Waffle shots, hot coco dew slammers, and cream cheese smoothies go down easy. Off to the mountain on the UTA express and life is good.

So easily does the early wake up and the bus ride routine become, it is as if we were made for it. Getting to the BIRD early we have time for some coffee and some arts and crafts time. Good thing the deli had foil and duct tape. As an extension of the idea I conceived at BRIDK 09 and encouraged by the blinding sun on Mineral Basin I thought it would be an amazing idea to wrap my whole body in aluminum foil and shred the whole day that way. And a good idea it was. I’ll let pictures/vids do the talking. Too bad we don’t have more reactions from the people on the hill, but long story short, they enjoyed it, that is, when they were not completely blinded by the reflection off my armor.

So what did we do the rest of the day you ask? I’m glad to tell you. Shredded, and shredded hard. Because they haven’t had snow at the BIRD for /gasp/ a week, there was a bit of hard pack in the early morning bowls. It was fun frankly. Being back in the sort of conditions we all learned on, but on a hill 3x bigger than anything we normally ride was exciting. Better was watching these out-West light-weights complain that the conditions sucked and were too icy – even better was watching them loose their edges and tumble. Couple that with the fact that no matter how fast you go on their “hard pack,” when you edge, you hold it.

On the advice of one Dong Stoole, I decided to ass slide down a large part of Regulator Johnson. Super idea, until of course, Freddy Mercury slide up behind me and hosed me ridiculously hard with his power slide, followed of course by TK and finally Filter. It was great. Really. Having my jacket half open and getting coated with 20 pounds of the Uta white and fluffy was really just awesome for the rest of the day.

Of course, Boloney takes the road lest traveled. We found ourselves in the Black Forest again and again, taking creative lines and putting ourselves into all sorts of trouble. Some gnarly full exposure was found. Some divots were put into the bases of boards. But it’s all good for the pow pow we could find and the steepstion we tracked down. Even on a busy Sunday, we found ourselves alone, and in the thick of the woods and periphery of the BIRD, able to find deep stashes and secret spots.

With throbbing legs and aching livers we eventually all called it a day and rallied at the Tram Club for some food and sauce. It became just a near beer fest and we headed out of the BIRD as the sun set on Uta.

For TK and Power Seen, that was the end of Uta, for a The Filter and Dong, it was just the close to the day. Flights will be had on the next day, shuttles to and fro airports. But Snowbird and Brighton are going to stay right where we left them. And Boloney Moguls will be back.

Access photography here. Videos will be up sometime.

Snowbird Day 1 (Boloney Blasts UT)

Day 1.

On 3 hours of sleep we woke our asses up at 6 A.M. to multiple alarms. The best of course was the Love is Gone techno wakeup on TK's phone. After a shockingly good continental breakfast, we successfully bored the UTA bus and off to Snowbird we were.

Arriving at 8:15 guaranteed a long amazing day of riding.

Snowbird is truly just an amazing place. You're standing surrounded by gigantic mountains everywhere you look and every view is better than the last. The resort itself is top notch. Awesome facilities and really just a place you could be cool hanging out at even if you didn't want to ski.

To the riding:

It was good. Very good. I hazard to say, it was the best day of riding in my life. Nay, it was the best day of my life. The whole crew just shredded everything. Open a dictionary. Turn to the definition of steep. It is a picture of the slopes of Snowboard. Or as I prefer to call them, sheer vertical drops.

The "awful" conditions the locals were bitching about were amazing. Deep powder still to be found. Great bowl running. And the kicker was it was nearly 50 degrees. We were all "ski the east" ready. Decked out in thermals, heavy gloves, fleeces. After one run down the Mineral Basin we were soaked and dying of heat. With great haste we stripped down and got down to business the rest of the day.

To many highlights to really talk about here because near beer is calling.

But just to tease before I have a chance to elaborate, I was 2 feet away from bombing off a 50 foot cliff in the Great Scott area under the tram. I was just getting so used to everything being uber-steep I didn't realize what I was rolling up to until I heard Dong and TK scream "GOOO BACK STOP STOP STOP." Whoops! I definitely got myself caught in some sicky gnar gnar but it was very fun freaking everyone out with my near death.

Tons of pics here.

More to follow.

Brighton (Boloney Blasts UT)

During Boloney Moguls' second day of riding in Utah, we hit up Brighton. Common opinion is that it's "small," "not that good," and mostly just locals. Turns out these bitches out here are all spoiled as hill. After our bus ride down to the hill we found some of the gnarliest natural terrain we've ever been in. The entire mountain is basically one huge natty playground. Features are abundant. Jumps, cliffs, trees, powder, and pleasure are in abundance. It also is so large and so diverse that every part of the hill feels like a different place altogether. Over on the left side of the mountain you get a Jay Peak sort type of run: Steep trees, powder, steep everything else. Over on the opposite side of the mountain you get amazing natural bowls covered in natural kickers, absolutely huge cliffs, tree runs, natural half-pipes.

It was a long day for sure, but a day well spent. First chair at 9:00 A.M., last chair at 3:30 P.M. Some of the best tree runs and bowl play any of us have seen and the fact that just so many different things were possible there made it an adventure for us all.

Some highlights:
We're about to drop into "Rein's Run," one of the steepest things at least I have ever seen. Then, out from behind us a guy BOMBS past us, miscalculates, and completely falls apart. Legs split. Skis go up in the air, and on the steepest of steep he starts tumbling out of control head over heels. Unfortunately, the video doesn't include the crash, only our reactions.

Jumping off a few cliffs here and there. Always fun, always awesome.

Our adventure out of bounds. Cutting all the way to the right side of the mountain, we cut out and then found ourselves at "Dog Lake." We hikes around a little, saw some even steeper drops and cliffs, crushed a few beers, and completely just took in the amazing views afforded.

Look for pics from today here. And the deth vid from Rein's Run will be up shortly on the treeoil22 channel at youtube.