May Surf Session

So it dumped a foot and a half of pow-pow- and I had nobody to go tow laps with. I wasn't gonna let fresh pow in May go to waste so I saddled up solo with my snowboard, surfboard, and camera and headed west (of the parking lot). I arrived to light dry pow that was dificult to snowmobile in and not super stable sitting on a solid melt/freeze crust. So i decided not to try hiking up anything or snowboarding any of the usual stuff since I was by myself and didn't feel like dying in an avalanche. Instead I would ghost ride my sled to get up to the tops and surf my way down. I found a bunch of pretty cool features- a baby step-up, some windlip slashers, a hip style booter, and a cornice to drop.

Test droppin the cornice.

My landing kept avalanching away- after each drop I had to go bigger to make it to the pow.

Pop-shovit.

By the time I got to this slasher the sun had taken the "lightNdry" out of the pow-pow.

After slamming like 6 times trying to kickflip this step up I finally settled for the fs air.

1st Kickflip on surfboard.

I almost knocked my teeth out trying to get this 360 shovit.

So it turned out to be a pretty fun day for riding by myself. I managed to take some really hard slams but that is the nature of our new little sport. It ain't stuck to your feet! I vowed to return and pull a 360 shovit before the season is up. Hopefully we get another powder day before its all done this year. Pray for Snow!

Blooming Yurt - 2008 Surf Trip

The yurt and surrrounding areas- pretty good shredding up hear- tough tow arounds though.


This yurt is the mother of all yurts if you ask me. It's at least twice the size of any other yurt I have yurted in and you can ride your sleds to it. The Crow's Nest is a huge plus adding light and a lovely little place to chill out. They had moved it to a new location since we were here last so it was a bitch to find. It took brock/craig and crew 4-5 hours to get from the parking log to the yurt. It was the middle of the night and they were prolly wasted by this point so that made things that much more complicated.

Bloomington parking lot- gettin ready to yurt

I rolled up a day late (which only turned out to be about 5 hours behind my homies who had spent all night searching for it). I got there just in time to watch the thermometer break 55+ degrees. This pretty much destroyed all powdies at all elevations. So we were forced to improvise- I tried one run on the snowboard and it was just plain hateful. So we went to plan B- Surfing, and screwing around. We rolled giant snowballs down sunny faces to try to get avalanches to break and looked at every possibility we could find to shred. It just wasnt happening so I busted out the surf board and started jibbing down some cornice line. It was pretty tough to get control without bindings in this kind of snow but I managed to get a couple good lines. I found a little double line where I could catch some air and get all tech. I did a few shovits and the first ever half cab off a cornice (it was super weak).

We burned down- and I got to thinking about trying a kickflip. The dudes egged me on so I went up and tried it. I came pretty close on the first try to my surprise so I tried it again and nailed it. Before I knew it I was riding away stoked. So I guess I can claim the first ever kickflip on a powder-surf board. I guess I'm gonna be famous some day.

So the day of riding wasn't a complete loss. I pulled a half cab- some good shovits, and a kickflip and we got most of it on film. Not bad for a slushy day in the backcountry.

Brock, Gonz, and I put our soaking wet boots back on and headed up high to catch the sunset. It was fully worth it- it feels pretty rad to soak in the pinkish orange light for a few minutes.

I think I have like a hundred pictures of my sled in the sunset- it never gets old for me. It just looks like its ready to go to battle- just ready to slash everything in sight. Damn.
Jeremy- photo

Jeremy- photo

Jeremy- photo

This was my track from the first and only snowboard run of the trip. It was actually good for this turn and then one more before it went sour. -photo: Brock Bitton

The next day looked like more of the same. We found a fresh line of cornices that was actually really fun. Landed my first frontside shovit and almost got a fs big spin! It makes you feel young again when you learn new tricks every other day- reminds me of the good ol days learning to skateboard. We had two boards break free of their leashes and go shooting down hill into trees- luckily nobody lost their decks or saw them break into pieces. This whole surfing thing could really catch fire.