hell ye.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
As I start packing up my things here in Aspen and getting to make the move to France for the winter (after stopping in Florida and back home in Now!Hampshire), I've gotten to go through all shit for the first time in awhile. When I got all my ski gear together, I noticed a striking progression (i.e. accumulation) of gear. The past few seasons I have seen a huge change in my skiing, both in the improvement in my skills (& steez, rehtards!) and location, having spent four years in college skiing Jiminy Peak and the park mecca of Mount Snow, then moving out to Aspen for a year, and now onto the Alps. The gear tells the story...
2007-2008 Season. Mt. Snow, VT. Center-mounted park skis and East Coast-wide "pow" skis, that felt like skiing on Harts when I went to Alta.
2008-2009. Move to Aspen. Eventually earn enough tips to add a pair of rockered real pow skis to the quiver. I learn how to ski pow, do the Highlands Bowl in 3 turns, and jump a cliff with speed going into a 35-degree chute. They prove worth their while; I even ripped Alta this time. Good, very good.
2009-2010 season. French Alps. Line Blends come into the picture with a touring setup (Marker Dukes, CSD skins), along with a ski bag, powder baskets, a slope meter, an avi shovel, probe, and beacon. Now this shit is serious!
I super stoked to realize I will actually need all of this/use all of this, and can't wait to get my avi cert and start skiing some shit. Already had some great days skinning, and I feel like I picked up right from the end of last season. OH YEAH!!!
Heyah Me Nah
I've come to find that there is very little bad reggae. I have really yet to hear reggae I really can't stand (although Tanner Hall's choices for ski soundtracks occasionally creep close to this), but for the most part it's all good. Maybe it's because it seems really hard to fuck up, it seems pretty easy to do if you got some soul.
At any rate, if you can only press "play" on your computer once from now until the end of time, you would be best served by going to Pandora and playing a station based on The Ethiopians. This is some of the best reggae I've ever found. It will not dissapoint.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
This Must be Just Like Living in Paradise
The pow was mid-winter light and knee deep, I could barely get moving when I dropped.
All in all, a fucking rad day to be out, especially with some warm weather in the forecast this week before it dumps again next weekend. Winter is definitely here in Aspen. Hell yeah.
Wadin'
Poking around the Surface blab I found this ill video of Ian Wade, aka Blake Nyman Vol. II. Naw just playing. I hadn't seen any video of Ian before but this kid rips, even in '08! Super smooth park skiing, most on rockered Live Life II's, and a wild tight pants/ no poles look. Get this!
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Souter on my Mind
Ran across this entertaining article from the NY Times about former Justice David Souter, whose personal and juidicial philosophy represent the purest form of NH individualism possible... namely, not excepting any gifts as a Justice, and escaping Washington as quickly as possible to retreat to a farm house in the woods with no e-mail, TV, or answering machine and hike mountains. Damn. Souter remains one of my favorite public figures of recent memory, as he is one of the few who has been able to keep the responsibilities of his position pure and intact during his career.
This might come across as being written by a self-indulgent liberal, but what writer isn't:
http://egan.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/13/souters-summits/
This might come across as being written by a self-indulgent liberal, but what writer isn't:
http://egan.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/13/souters-summits/
Friday, November 6, 2009
Catchin' Up
Been a calendar week since my last post, so I thought I'd catch everyone up by spewing lots of pertinent information:
-Aspen Halloween involved lots of crazy outfits, hair bands, Green Dragon, short-term memory loss, and a town that hadn't been as packed since Labor Day weekend. Definitely lived up to its reputation.
-Looking at the forecast (10+ days of 50 degree weather) I decided to skin up Snowmass last weekend before all the snow was gone. Two hours later I was about half way up the Big Burn lift and dropped into what turned out to be a very low-tide snowpack, with the sun having done nothing to solidify the snowpack and cover the rocks. Im pretty sure I made three or four turns before I started grating rocks. Two core shots, one in each of my new Line Blends. damn. had to straightline most of the rest of the way through hay and shrubs on about four inches of snow covering bare ground, it was super ghetto but pretty fun pointing it down what looked like bare ground, and not doing any more damage to the skis.
-With ski DVD's creeping up on $30, I was very excited to find out that Matchstick put up their new movie, In Deep, on iTunes for 8 bucks. Worth the money for Sean Petit's opening segment alone. Sean absolutely CHARGES in his seggie, straighlining his 6th-grade size frame down AK pillows with way more vert than you see coming, huge 360s that will surely become one of Sean's signatures, and a rodeo off the cliff that Benchetler broke himself on in Hunting Yeti that he takes DEEP into the landing. Like 150 feet deep. Gets blown out of the landing, but goddamn, at 16 this kid goes for it in a way I haven't seen since Eric Hjorliefsen stopped skiing park with spikes in his A-frames and started dropping lines. We will definitely be watching him for awhile, if he doesn't get bored of skiing by the time he's 18.
On a seperate note, Level 1 put up Refresh on Autumn Garage, something like ten dollars for three views, which is pretty stupid in my opinion. That movie was off the bandwagon as well, but as much as I want to relive Phil Casabon's segment, ten dollars for three views online is not a deal, and neither is 30 dollars for a DVD (when your DVD drive doesn't work). Guess I'll have to wait and see ifthat one turns up in my stocking.
-Following Colorado's accelerating march towards complete legalization of marijuana and solidifying the fantasyland reputation of many of its ski towns, the town of Breck legalized pot to the tune of an ounce or less for anyone over 21. It will be interesting to see how the tourist crowd takes this, but I have a feeling they'll be too busy crashing their rented Expeditions on I-70 to notice. Aspen apparently isn't the next target for Colorado's pot legalization movement; I guess four dispensaries opening in a town of 5,000 permanent residents in two months isn't encouraging enough.
-Our winter weather of late October has morphed into spring, with 50-60 degree temps during the day all this week. The temps have killed any chance of skinning back up Snowmass for turns, and with Independence Pass now closed for the season, skiing options are limited to early-season park shredding in Summit County. (or skinning lines and getting caught in wet slides in Summit County)
-Found the video for Dead Prez's "Hell Yeah," and it is fucking awesome. Here it be
-Hair band cover band "Danger Kitty," which is "an original band, playing the original songs from the original artists," made its way to Belly Up the eve of Halloween. I must say I was very impressed, as the lead singer was able to match perfectly the vocal tones of Bon Jovi, Jani Lane (Warrent), Gene Simmons, AND David Lee Roth. Quite... impressive.
That's all now for the land of la, more to come as I continue to plan my winter in France and maybe even ski park at Keystone on the day next week commemorating our veterans. che che che...
-Aspen Halloween involved lots of crazy outfits, hair bands, Green Dragon, short-term memory loss, and a town that hadn't been as packed since Labor Day weekend. Definitely lived up to its reputation.
-Looking at the forecast (10+ days of 50 degree weather) I decided to skin up Snowmass last weekend before all the snow was gone. Two hours later I was about half way up the Big Burn lift and dropped into what turned out to be a very low-tide snowpack, with the sun having done nothing to solidify the snowpack and cover the rocks. Im pretty sure I made three or four turns before I started grating rocks. Two core shots, one in each of my new Line Blends. damn. had to straightline most of the rest of the way through hay and shrubs on about four inches of snow covering bare ground, it was super ghetto but pretty fun pointing it down what looked like bare ground, and not doing any more damage to the skis.
-With ski DVD's creeping up on $30, I was very excited to find out that Matchstick put up their new movie, In Deep, on iTunes for 8 bucks. Worth the money for Sean Petit's opening segment alone. Sean absolutely CHARGES in his seggie, straighlining his 6th-grade size frame down AK pillows with way more vert than you see coming, huge 360s that will surely become one of Sean's signatures, and a rodeo off the cliff that Benchetler broke himself on in Hunting Yeti that he takes DEEP into the landing. Like 150 feet deep. Gets blown out of the landing, but goddamn, at 16 this kid goes for it in a way I haven't seen since Eric Hjorliefsen stopped skiing park with spikes in his A-frames and started dropping lines. We will definitely be watching him for awhile, if he doesn't get bored of skiing by the time he's 18.
On a seperate note, Level 1 put up Refresh on Autumn Garage, something like ten dollars for three views, which is pretty stupid in my opinion. That movie was off the bandwagon as well, but as much as I want to relive Phil Casabon's segment, ten dollars for three views online is not a deal, and neither is 30 dollars for a DVD (when your DVD drive doesn't work). Guess I'll have to wait and see ifthat one turns up in my stocking.
-Following Colorado's accelerating march towards complete legalization of marijuana and solidifying the fantasyland reputation of many of its ski towns, the town of Breck legalized pot to the tune of an ounce or less for anyone over 21. It will be interesting to see how the tourist crowd takes this, but I have a feeling they'll be too busy crashing their rented Expeditions on I-70 to notice. Aspen apparently isn't the next target for Colorado's pot legalization movement; I guess four dispensaries opening in a town of 5,000 permanent residents in two months isn't encouraging enough.
-Our winter weather of late October has morphed into spring, with 50-60 degree temps during the day all this week. The temps have killed any chance of skinning back up Snowmass for turns, and with Independence Pass now closed for the season, skiing options are limited to early-season park shredding in Summit County. (or skinning lines and getting caught in wet slides in Summit County)
-Found the video for Dead Prez's "Hell Yeah," and it is fucking awesome. Here it be
-Hair band cover band "Danger Kitty," which is "an original band, playing the original songs from the original artists," made its way to Belly Up the eve of Halloween. I must say I was very impressed, as the lead singer was able to match perfectly the vocal tones of Bon Jovi, Jani Lane (Warrent), Gene Simmons, AND David Lee Roth. Quite... impressive.
That's all now for the land of la, more to come as I continue to plan my winter in France and maybe even ski park at Keystone on the day next week commemorating our veterans. che che che...
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