Crystal Blue Bird

Blue skies came out last Monday and I was lucky enough to be up at Crystal Mountain to enjoy it. We headed south right away hoping the temp would stay low and keep the snow light. The temp didn't cooperate but the day was still tons of fun!  

 Mount Rainer welcomes you to Southback 

Jay Neal charging 

Julie Velez

La Nina MC

The Lib Tech La Nina is one of the best snowboards I have ever ridden. Developed with the help of longtime Lib Tech ripper, Matt Cummins. The La Nina is a hybrid of everything Lib does right. It has banana in front, camber in the rear and rocker between your feet. This translates into pure power annihilation. The La Nina is fast, poppy and fun. 

I was really disappointed when the nose stared to delaminate. I took it back to the shop that I bought it at and they did not care. They told me Lib would not do anything to help me and they could just fix it for me. “Don’t waist your time sending it back to Lib, they will just send it back. It’s not like they have another one of these they could send you anyways.”  Super bummed I left my board at the shop. A few days later, I picked my board up and headed straight to Stevens Pass. At the end of the day my board's nose was completely peeling off. My friend, Chad, suggested I take it to Grizzly Sports in Monroe. So I did and I am so happy that I did. They took one look at my board and got on the phone with Lib. Lib said they had one more 162 left and would send it right out. I had my new La Nina in less than a week. I am really stoked to have my board back and I would recommend the La Nina to anyone looking for a fun, aggressive board. The guys at Grizzly are great too, stop in next time your heading to Stevens and support this local shop.

88” in 9 days

88” in 9 days were the numbers on Stevens Pass website last week. No bullshit 88” in 9days!  I was lucky enough to ride 5 of those 9 days and they were all fucking insane. 3 days at Stevens and 2 at Crystal. We had planed to ride Crystal more but with all the low snowfall that Washington was getting, Stevens was the clear way to go. It takes us just over 2 hours to get to Crystal with no snow. I can only image how long it would take with a foot of snow at my doorstep.

I didn’t shot too much over these epic 9 days because I’ve been out getting the goods. I pull my iPhone out every once in a while and snap an instargam pic and call it good. My mind more occupied with the next pow turn or cliff drop to care about shooting photos. I finally pulled my camera bag out of the trunk of my car and walked out to c-yodel and got some shots. 

Chad Rehkopf charging out of the trees

Can you girl rip pow turns in the trees? Mine can!

 More fun in the trees with Chad Rehkopf

The other side of the lens

I was surprised when I flipped to this page in the new Frequency and saw a shot of me. I’ve had a few pictures published but never one of me. The shot was taken by Colin Wiseman on a cat trip at Grand Targhee.

Last year, right before I moved back to Washington, I got a phone call from Shannon Hamby, the marketing director for Grand Targhee. Apparently Colin Wiseman, the editor of Frequency, was in town doing a story about Travis Rice and wanted to check out Targhee while he was in the area. Shannon wanted me to pickup Colin and bring him over to the other side of the Tetons for a day on the cat and my good friend Dippy was invited too.  Of course I was stoked and it turned out to be a killer day. Check out Frequency issue 9.1 to read the article about our day on the cat, even better would be to subscribe to Frequency!

Making The Best Of It

Unless you’re lucky enough to ride Baker everyday, or you live in Alaska you probably haven’t had too many killer pow days this year. It’s frustrating being so close to Baker yet so far away. I can make the 2 hour 45 minute drive and shred all day if I don’t have to be at work later that night. But really it’s hard to get up there. So we make do with what got and what we got is OK snow and an OK snowpack. At least we have some snow out there.

Here are a few pics of good friend Chad Douglas from a fun hike we did last week up Skyline Ridge. The snow was classic Cascade sludge and coverage was spotty but that didn’t stop us from enjoying the ride.