Winter Starts with a POW

If you live in a cave you might not know that we have been getting pounded with amazing snow since Thanksgiving. But if you’re like most people who live in and around the Teton’s, you have been out getting the goods before the all the tourists show up. Lift lines have been unusually small at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort and if you have had the pleasure of riding Targhee you have not waited in a line all year. Endless POW and locals only is the best way to start a winter!

Julie Velez slashes Grand Taghee

Gary Hansen gets some great Targhee POW

Dippy drops a cornice at Grand Targhee

Gary Hansen hitting a fun little hit at Targhee

Julie Velez getting lost in the white room

Back Country Kicker

Here are a few shots from a fun day up at Teton Pass. The kicker was good, the hike was beautiful, the snow.... well, the snow was soft that's about the only good thing I can say about it. It always blows my mind how fast great snow can turn to shit. Just 4 days ago it was cold and we were ripping two feet of fresh pow. Yesterday we were on north facing slopes in the trees and the snow was still pretty bad.

David Duffy

Cheers; Justin Koontz lounges back as Trevor Zarkwr take a drink

David Duffy

David Duffy

Board shorts and beers at 8,500 feet

Tetons get pounded

Over 50 inches of fresh cowboy powder fell in the Tetons last week, the snowboarding was epic! I wish every winter would end like this. As I write this, it's still puking and if NOAA is right it will keep coming till Wednesday. What a week, I was stoked to get on a snowcat snowboarding trip (thanks Shannon!) on Wednesday. It dumped all day Thursday. Friday morning the skies cleared for a few hours. It was nipple deep and blue bird! What else could you ask for on a Friday? The snow returned, dumped all night and all day. All roads into the area got shut down Saturday morning leaving Targhee empty. We had the whole mountain to ourselves. It was the best Saturday I have ever had at a resort, every run was untracked and we hardly saw another person.

Dippy

Grand Targhee snowcat guide Beach

Heath Leosh

Dippy

I'm Back

It has been a really long time since I posted anything on here. But in all fairness I hit a tree last year and I wasn't doing anything worth blogging about. With winter finally showing up in Jackson I have been out shooting a ton and getting a few good lines in as too.

Here's a link to Snowboard Magazine I have a few photos and word up on their blog
http://www.snowboard-mag.com/?q=node/37989

More photos coming soon

Goodbye Pins

Yesterday I got my pins pulled out! When I say "pulled out" I mean she just just grabbed and pulled. No drugs, no shot to numb my wrist she just grabbed and pulled hard. Surprisingly it didn't really hurt. They just came right out.
Unfortunately the doctor said I shouldn't ride the rest of the year so that sucks. I guess I'll mostly be shooting nature for a while.

Still Healing

It been over a month since that tree came out of nowhere and shattered my wrist and cracked my rib. I'm getting ancy, I'll look out my window, see it's snowing and the daydreaming will begin. First it's fluffy pillows of POW and frozen boogers then an idea pops in my head about a photo I want to take or a photo that I should have taken but wasn't willing to put in the extra work. I miss the stoke of knowing I got a good photo just as much as riding POW. I can't wait till I can start shooting again!

I'm healing great though! I go to physical therapy 3 times a week which helps a ton, so thanks to everyone at Teton Hand Therapy. My pin are really clean, my doctor and physical therapist say my fingers are moving great and my pins get taken out on Monday. I'll be back soon...I hope. At least I'll be more mobile. I'll be able to get out of this tinny apartment and start shooting something other then my crazy looking wrist, don't worry I'll keep posting photo's of my wrist but maybe a few nature shots will come too.

Stitches

I got my stitches out last week. Sorry if you have a light stomach, I don't have much else to post. I got a smaller cast yesterday too, now I can move my elbow! I'm feeling much better but my rib is a pain when I try and get out of the house. I hope next week I'll be able to get out of my house more and more. Then maybe I'll have more photos from around Jackson instead of my crazy looking wrist.

The Healing Process

The surgery went great! The people over at Teton Orthopaedics have been amazing. They got me into surgery late in the afternoon of Christmas Eve and I know they could have pushed me back till after Christmas. That gave me at least two more days I'll get to ride and shoot this winter So thank you to everyone over there.

Here's my hand after they took my first cast off.

It's been a long week of sitting on my couch and trying to stay still. Of course as soon as I got hurt it started to dump. It was hard to sit at home and look out my window and see 3 feet of new. All the cars in my parking lot were covered it looked like a field of big marshmallows. On any other day I would have had the music on the TV cranked with my favorite snowboard flick and scrambling to find all my gear.

I got a new cast on Wednesday. It's a lot smaller and lighter then the one I was in after surgery. I'm a bit more mobile now but I seem to hit it on everything and that hurts like hell.

I'm going to shoot all my recovery I'm not sure how exciting it'll be and it'll be a challenge to shoot with just one hand and a cracked rib but I have to shoot something.

The good and the bad

How about the good first, I got a few pictures online for Snowboard Magazine from this weekend. It was just a few pics and words but I'm stoked on it! Here's a link so you can check it out http://www.snowboard-mag.com/node/33795 

Now the bad, I shattered my wrist and cracked a rib this weekend. I wasn't doing anything too crazy. I was just cruising along in some POW and hit a rock that was just under the snow, the rock shot me into a tree and the tree kicked my ass. I'm doing ok, better today then the last two days but tomorrow I have to have surgery on my wrist. It's in seven pieces so the surgery is a must. I'll be out for about 6-8 weeks just long enough to miss most of the winter.   

Never Never Land

We finally got a small storm to bring us a decent amount snow last weekend. There's still a few rocks and stumps to look out for but I did get the best POW turns I've had at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort! Ya it's my first year in Jackson and it was nothing like some of the turns that I had last year in the Pacific Northwest. But it's early and it was still a lot of fun to get to a taste of what the resort has to offer. The gondy also opened so Julie and I got to see a ton more of the mountain. We still need more snow to get the whole resort open but we are incing are way there

By noon it was getting tracked out and we were a bit beat but before calling it a day I hit up my friend Knox who was planning on hiking up at Teton Pass. The enthusiasm from his fist lap was spilling out of my headset. It took him 10 seconds to get us to beeline it to Wilson. We met up with Knox and his crew and hitch to the top of the pass and hiked Chiver's Chiver's isn't much of a hike unless your still drunk from the night before but it was Harms birthday so......

Happy Birthday Harms
Here's Knox in some nice deep POW