Gnarpow!

2012-02-05T23:45:00.000-06:00

Denim

2012-01-08T20:44:00.002-06:00

PBR Christmas

2011-12-25T19:21:00.002-06:00

2011-12-05T17:50:00.002-06:00

2011-11-13T19:58:00.001-06:00

2011-11-13T19:49:00.001-06:00

2011-11-12T00:17:00.000-06:00

Bagged Goods

2011-11-03T22:27:00.002-05:00

Double Awesome

2011-11-01T19:04:00.002-05:00

Shralp BSOD

2011-11-01T18:29:00.001-05:00

2011-10-31T18:19:00.000-05:00

2011-10-28T23:06:00.000-05:00

Get In Her Pants

2011-10-17T19:49:00.003-05:00

Deamos

2011-10-13T17:29:00.001-05:00

Haru Blaster

2011-10-08T19:31:00.001-05:00

The Big 3-0

2011-10-03T19:00:00.002-05:00

2011-09-29T23:20:00.000-05:00

Union Banner Error

2011-09-20T18:31:00.001-05:00

2011-09-19T18:53:00.001-05:00

PBR Madness

2011-09-18T19:14:00.003-05:00

More Victor

2011-08-23T22:30:00.002-05:00

Rubber

2011-08-22T20:30:00.002-05:00

Victor Tunes

2011-08-22T19:17:00.003-05:00

Random Wheels

2011-08-22T19:03:00.003-05:00

Suns

2011-07-03T09:02:00.001-05:00

custum Ion on eBay

2011-05-19T18:07:00.002-05:00

Chevy

2011-05-07T08:49:00.002-05:00

Ion

2011-04-30T19:21:00.001-05:00

Super Pro / Machete 2.0

2011-04-10T16:45:00.002-05:00

BMW

2011-04-10T12:21:00.002-05:00

Black and Yellow

2011-04-10T12:14:00.002-05:00

RadGnar

2011-03-21T11:16:00.002-05:00

Dangerous Carves Ahead

2011-03-21T10:49:00.003-05:00

Methods of Mayhem

2011-03-21T10:25:00.002-05:00

2011-03-20T20:21:00.002-05:00

Frankenverters

2011-03-09T10:53:00.002-06:00

CMYK

2011-03-03T17:49:00.003-06:00

2011-02-25T20:04:00.001-06:00

2011-02-24T23:26:00.000-06:00

Double Rocket!

2011-02-18T18:01:00.002-06:00

Gaper Blowout Sale

2011-02-16T15:56:00.004-06:00

Gaper Gear

2011-02-16T14:48:00.002-06:00

Day 21 Pics - Hyland

2011-02-07T13:29:00.002-06:00

Dildilocks

2011-02-05T16:33:00.002-06:00

Black Ops Charlie Slasher

2011-02-05T15:07:00.002-06:00

Bataleon

2011-02-04T11:56:00.002-06:00

Day 20 Pics

2011-02-02T10:26:00.002-06:00

Day 19 Pics

2011-02-02T10:18:00.002-06:00

Blaster

2011-01-23T09:53:00.002-06:00

Proofread?

2011-01-21T11:55:00.005-06:00

Hotel Riviera

2011-01-19T14:03:00.002-06:00

Anto Snow Blow

2011-01-10T14:46:00.002-06:00

Totally Awesome, hits the snow!

2011-01-09T23:01:00.002-06:00

Totally Awesome!!!

2011-01-07T18:44:00.001-06:00

CAPiTA

2011-01-07T10:39:00.003-06:00

2012 Slasher sneak

2011-01-06T21:45:00.002-06:00

Holden pants

2011-01-05T15:20:00.003-06:00

Annex Pants

2011-01-05T15:17:00.002-06:00

Banana Pics

2011-01-05T14:53:00.002-06:00

SLX Boots

2011-01-05T14:51:00.002-06:00

Jump Plane

2010-12-31T10:56:00.002-06:00

Pow Plane

2010-12-30T22:32:00.000-06:00

Day 13 - Pics

2010-12-30T14:28:00.001-06:00

Day 13

2010-12-30T14:12:00.000-06:00

My apologies for dropping another book, but just needed to vent and it kept coming.

--------------------------------------
Day 13 - Tuesday the 28th @ Welch.

NEVER seen so many idiots in one place. This place was effing packed from the get go. Rode with a buddy that was back from MT for break and pretty much did what we could with what we were dealt. It was so packed you could hardly get up to speed without getting cut off or running into a f**king crowd of people or somebody sitting down in the middle of nowhere. I've also never seen so many people get bucked off the chair lift. A huge combination of complete moron riders, skiers with their binding tension set way too low so that any slight bump or catch would rip their frickin' ski off, and lifties that held the chair way too long so the first swing back of the chair made you look almost straight down at the ground. Don't know how many times they had to stop it because of somebody's ski getting pulled off on launch. Also saw a kid skier, maybe 7 years old, get dropped off the lift face first into the snow. His dad bailed to pick him up.

Not much for drinking and riding, mainly cuz I don't like to be impaired at all, and I need all the help I can get, but we ended up hitting the bar just to cut some of the frustration. Went back out after a stiff rum and coke and it was a lot more fun. We were hootin' and hollerin' from the lift, making all sorts of noises, just having a good time amongst all the chaos. We also ended up riding a lot of "out of bounds" crap because this place basically eliminates all chances of having fun. It's either stick to the zombie filled groomers or nothing.

Also, they FINALLY had the "park" setup so we checked that out. I don't know what the fvck these guys are smoking. I'm really losing my stoke on this place fast. They had a damn blown snow mound directly in front of the first feature. You'd think it was a starting ramp or something, but the side facing the rails was pretty much straight down. Completely ungroomed and needed to be machined down.

Lastly, the back "bowls" were probably a bigger joke than the "park" was. They had one whole run that was made out of ungroomed, blown mounds. They looked like frozen fucking tidal waves! What's the damn point!?! Groom the damn things down, maybe make some rollers or rhythm sections, and do something with it. I thought the concept of this whole back bowl thing was to semi-simulate being out west? They had 2 "runs" closed because they weren't groomed, but had perfectly good snow all over them. Isn't that the point!?! And then there was a super gnarly untouched area amongst the trees and under the lift, and of course that was roped off so you can't have any fun there either. What the hell. Seriously just frustrated with this place already. You basically sign your life away by purchasing a lift ticket, so why restrict EVERYTHING to the point where everybody is a fucking zombie just riding some bullshit groomers like we're all skiers!

My apologies for venting, but it's just getting frustrating for me. I'm at a point right now where I've gotten a rare taste of awesome (by MN standards, mind you) snow conditions on a couple occasions so far this year. Especially at Lutsen right before Christmas. Riding deep stuff on my Slasher was frickin' jizz for me. And being able to freely go basically wherever the hell I wanted to go there was so relaxing and exhilarating at the same time. It feels so much cooler to blaze your own trail and go where you want instead of just sticking to the stupid laid out trails. Several times I got myself into areas where I probably "shouldn't" have been, but damn, it was such a rush. Makes me envy watching videos of people on actual mountains doing tree runs and just going wherever. And really makes me just want to pack up and get the GTFO of MN. I need a change. At least for a while.

*Pictures of this "awesome" day to come.

Custom Force

2010-12-30T12:17:00.002-06:00

Blaster

2010-12-16T19:20:00.002-06:00

Contact Air

2010-12-14T20:31:00.001-06:00

Blizzard Pics 2

2010-12-11T19:23:00.002-06:00

Blizzard Pics 1

2010-12-11T19:17:00.001-06:00

Gog Face! Part Deux...

2010-12-11T19:00:00.004-06:00

Gog Face!

2010-12-11T18:54:00.002-06:00

2010-12-10T21:49:00.004-06:00

Day 7 - Pics

2010-12-10T17:56:00.002-06:00

2010-12-09T23:15:00.003-06:00

Kayak across the Pacific Ocean

2010-12-09T19:50:00.002-06:00

2010-12-08T19:54:00.007-06:00

2010-12-07T00:33:00.001-06:00

Thread Nuke

2010-12-05T15:57:00.001-06:00

GearTrade

2010-12-05T15:21:00.001-06:00

Day 5 - pics & video

2010-12-05T14:32:00.009-06:00

Video can be seen here:

Charlie Slasher rides again...

Day 5

2010-12-05T13:50:00.007-06:00

12-04-10 > 20-ish degrees > sunny/partly cloudy

D. Chu, Toni, and I. Welch. 8.5" fresh snow. Awesome.

My 5th day, David's 2nd, and Toni's 1st! Woo! Woman definitely knows when to make her first appearance of the season. It started snowing sometime late Friday afternoon and didn't stop 'til early Saturday morning. I wanted to get to the hill as early as possible, but we also had to get the sidewalks cleared before we left home. This resulted in us getting up at 5am and causing a ruckus in the neighborhood. Dual-wielding snowblowers, the woman and I took care of business and were on our way soon after.

Got to the hill about 855 and of course they already had lifts loaded and running, even though they say they don't open until 9. Fresh tracks were disappearing every second. Of course since it was Toni's first day out, she had to wait in line to get her pass printed. Took care of all that biz and I think we hit the snow by 930 or so. First run down was laugh-inducing. Snow was absolutely incredible. Main areas were tracked pretty good already but there was still plenty to be had on the sides right up by the trees. Blazed new trails for at least the first half-dozen runs. Took a ton of videos, or so I thought. Had an unknown issue with the GoPro and only ended up with 3 working video files. The rest were either 1 second blips or not working altogether. WTF? Hopefully it rights itself. And of course the battery in the regular camera was dead as well. Isn't that special...

Rode until a little after 1 I think and took a break for lunch. Toni packed a bag full of goodies and we made a feast out of it. Also, enjoyed the first bottle of Bawls in months! David and I went back out after lunch while Toni hung out inside and took a break from the action. Not wanting to push it to much on the first day, she opted to take care of a little homework instead.

We returned to the slopes and were greeted with overcast skies and packed lift lines. Thinking we'd go back out for maybe an hour or so and get a few runs in, we just went with it. Went down the main run twice and it was pretty tracked and sketchy. Mounds of snow everywhere made for natural moguls. It was rough going. Decided to hit a different run and see how that went. It went, and smoothly, until we got to the last turn. The lift line was a minimum of 100' long. So we waited. And waited. And waited. And finally loaded. Once we loaded, the fun had just begun. Luckily we got paired up with two rather cool guys. Made for some fun conversation, which came in handy while the lift was shutdown for what seemed like 10 minutes. So long that people waiting in line still actually started to hike back up. What a day. Once we finally got our feet back on the ground, we scrapped that idea and headed back to the main side of the hill. One run in extremely flat light and two lift lines longer than we wanted to deal with were enough for us to call it a day.

And an excellent one at that.

Day 4

2010-12-05T13:34:00.003-06:00

12-01-10 - 14-ish degrees, slight wind (chilly!)

Day 4 was more like "Night 4". Went to Welch with the two guys that live right above us. Had to wait for one of them to get done working in order to go, so we ended up getting to the hill around 7pm or so. Can't complain about a free ride to go boarding, tho.

Air was pretty dang cold, or at least it felt that way. A combination of actual cold and the fact that it was probably the first time down to the low teens, plus a bit of breeze/wind. Snow was pretty much rock hard and super fast. Good for the neighbor boys who basically ride for speed only. Not really my game, but I dealt with it. Again, free trip out, can't complain. Besides, more time on the snow no matter what I'm doing has got to be beneficial in the long run. It was actually kinda fun at times, too. We had a few sweet races/chases down the hill. Didn't really leave much time for doing the slow, dweeby stuff, but the "snow" was so hard it would've sucked to slam on it. Maybe a good thing we were just cruising.

Rode the Ultrafear again but this time with my home-made "Machete" bindings. Wanted to try them out and see what kinda performance enhancing concoction I came up with. Overall, I'd say they're pretty kick ass. I definitely like the heel strap on my SuperPro's better, thanks to the gel-feeling insert they put in the new straps, but I also prefer the toe strap on the Machete over the SuperPro. Got a +1/-1 on each, so not really a bad thing. Will most likely be running these on Chuck Slice for the remainder of the season.

* No pictures. Was dark when we left home. Decided not to bring a camera.

Day 3

2010-12-05T13:23:00.002-06:00

D. Chu and myself scored our first "official" day of the year, even tho I'm calling it my 3rd. Days 1 and 2 went down at an elementary school hill after an awesome snowfall a couple weekends ago. That counts, right? Sure.

So anywho, day 3 included the two of us getting in some turns at Welch Village on Sunday, 11/28. They had 4 or 5 runs open. Snow was nothing exceptional as it was still 100% man made at that point, but it was a blast just to be out again. It was a fairly uneventful day of riding and wasn't overly crowded. Overall, I think we both had a good day.

I rode the Ultrafear w/ SuperPro binders. Definitely loving these things so far. Sorta feel like a traitor riding these over my custom made Airblaster pair, but these are just so much more comfortable. Plus they're about 3 years newer so the advances in tech/materials are noticeable.

Temps were in the upper 30's, and even low 40's by the time we left. There was a slight breeze most of the day but it actually felt pretty good, and probably kept us from overheating.

2010-12-04T19:10:00.000-06:00

Design

2010-12-01T12:07:00.003-06:00

2010-11-30T19:14:00.002-06:00

2010-11-27T19:29:00.004-06:00

Casey Jones highbacks

2010-11-21T16:39:00.002-06:00

Binding Parts

2010-11-21T12:28:00.002-06:00

TMNT Force

2010-11-20T10:12:00.001-06:00

Inverter details

2010-11-18T20:32:00.002-06:00

UPS

2010-11-18T12:19:00.003-06:00

Haru!

2010-11-17T18:31:00.002-06:00

Haru!

2010-11-17T18:23:00.000-06:00

Hillbilly Snow Plow

2010-11-14T21:50:00.001-06:00

1817 Wall Riders - Take 2

2010-11-14T21:39:00.002-06:00

Apparently the uploading of videos to here ends up with crap results. So, I uploaded them to the YouTuber.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIY_Ca2hXxU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LFgLvOXSQI

1817 Wall Riders

2010-11-14T21:16:00.003-06:00

Snow Sliding - Days 1 & 2

2010-11-14T20:47:00.003-06:00

Thanks to Old Man Winter awakening from his slumber this weekend, brother Chaunce and I were able to get in days 1 & 2 on the season. Randall scored us a sweet location thanks to some local "sledding forum" and we decided to check it out. It was at an elementary school in Roseville and it turned out to be rather promising for our skill lacking selves. The hill was a pretty decent size but not so big that we got exhausted hiking back up it. We built a few jumps, slid a couple park benches, and even slid down the middle of a ridiculously pro-status stair/rail combo. We went out Saturday night and again this morning, each for a couple hours. Nothing major and pretty relaxed. Definitely made for a good start to the season. Also got the fire back under my butt to start riding again. Seeing snow, and actually sliding on it, was apparently all I needed. I think it's fair to say we both had a swell time and we'll most likely be heading there as often as natural conditions allow.

Didn't get any pics of us riding as we were both pretty rusty and I just didn't think to get them out. Was having too much fun finally riding again. However, I did get a picture of some kids that were completely oblivious to the "situation". Also, on Sunday some of the boys from House of 1817 showed up and killed our mojo. Needless to say, it was kinda depressing to ride and do our thing when there are dudes there capable of dropping jaws. So we watched them, and dropped our jaws... They set up a monster wall ride and I got a pic of it after they left. My board against the wall to show a size comparison. Probably a 15' gap from kicker to wall, and a 10' high wall. It was impressive to say the least.

2010-11-14T15:54:00.001-06:00

2010-11-12T15:42:00.001-06:00