Recent Exposures

Headed up to SkiBowl today with Chris, Tiffany, and Brycen today to hit the slopes.  It has been snowing all week in the mountains so we were all excited to get up there.  The mountain had about 2 feet of fresh powder.  Tiffany had to wake me up because my alarm didn’t go off so I drove about 90mph to make up the time.  We took a few runs down through the trees but the snow was pretty wet, heavy powder and Chris and Brycen had a hard time dealing with it on their boards because it was getting mounded up in places by other skiers.  So, after taking a few short drops of some ledges we headed over the eastern side of hte mountain to hit some groomed runs.  It was pretty fun wippin’ down the hill switch and hittin’ the park there for a while, but after getting some lunch ($25!!! - still don’t know why I got so damn much) we decided to hit the backcountry.  This required a short 10 minute traverse over the
ridgeline.  We took two runs down and on the 2nd run Brycen and I found ourselves in some deep untracked trees.  I got some video and a few pics of Brycen who got himself hilariously stuck in a tree! (see pic).  After the 2nd run I could tell the backcountry was tiring on the Chris and Brycen who had a hard time traversing as a snowboarders so we headed back to the other side of the mountain for a few more runs.  We skied right up till 4:30 pm then headed down the truck where we met up with Hartz coming back from his skiercross at Meadows which he won (only one in his class).   On the way home Brycen passed out asleep.  I followed him on the way home and we almost were able to land a banana peel on his windshield but the wind caught it and took it over his truck.
    When we got back to Corvallis I dropped of Tiffany then headed to Hartz and Holm’s place.  Shilo had been cleaning the kitchen all night but it still looked like
a freakin’ chicken had gotten loose in the place!  I sat down on the couch for a second and next thing you know Hartz is hurling pillows at me.  I ducked and BAM!, the pillow hit a ceramic lamp and smashed into the floor.  I laughed a bit about how the place looked more like animal house than any frat I’d ever been to and took off.  haha. 
    It was a great day of skiing in the fresh snow.  It was really funny to see Brycen struggle through the powder and it’s always fun to ski with Tiffany who always is giggling down the mountain.  I didn’t even have to eat dinner when I got home because of the fried chicken, fries, cheesburger, chili, and coke I had for lunch for $25….. what an idiot….

    Well, we had our annual COAS Ski Trip to Sunriver, OR this past weekend.  Pam, Topher, Alicia, Susan, Miller, Danny, Tiffany, Chris, Aaron, Brendan, Karen, Robyn, Anna, Eleanor, Chris, Logan, Drew, Brycen, and Abby.  We all drove up Thursday

night so we could go skiing at Bachelor on Friday for free after donating 3 cans of food.  The house that Pam found for us was amazing.  It was two stories with a garage, pong tabe, hot tub, fireplace and a tv with dvd player in every bedroom.  The whole place for 3 nights including beer money and dinner on friday and saturday was only 60 bucks a person.
    The first night was of course a night of debauchery where Chris woke up with
writing on his face and I woke up on the wooden floor holding the pen.  The pictures in the morning were proof to all who couldn’t remember how wild of a night it was. 
    Friday was a great day of skiing.  In the morning I hung out with Anna, Brendan, Drew, Logan, and Karen giving pointers and helping people get down the hill safely.  Anna turned out to be a terrific skier and Brendan was picking up mad skills as well.  In the afternoon I caught up with Hartz and the two of us made several descents from the summit ridge over a small cornice into a bowl of nearly sheer ice carving huge banking turns the whole way lovin’ it.  On our traverse to get to the ridge we went by several snowboarders who were being rescued off a face by ski patrol that was too icey to even catch an edge on.  Fall there and we would have tumbled pass them over a cliff band. 
    After slayin’ the summit we decided to grab some food and then hit the park for the rest
of the afternoon which was amazing.  The halfpipe was
terrific and I was
starting to get the feeling back of riding it after having not done so for several years.  The terrain park jumps were also the biggest I have hit in a few years and I was glad that I still felt completely comfortable going off the biggest ones on the mountain. 
    When we all got back to the house friday night we thought it would be a quiet night of rest…. nope… Flip-Cup turned the night into debauchery
again resulting in can-crushing with bike helmets, a midnight bike ride that resulted
in tire tracks over my shirt, ripped pajama’s, Anna getting thrown into the pool by an anihilated Chris, more wrestling, and 5 cases of beer getting tanked.  We had pasta that night which was terrific as well which I’m sure helped to absorb the booze being put into our systems. 
    Saturday, after sleeping in, we all decided to go sledding. It ended up taking us about an hour to finally find a sledding hill decent enough but the one we found was well worth the wait.  It was pretty steep but very icey with bumps
at the bottom that took everyone out - especially Eleanor who really took a brutal punishing.  Aaron and I decided to build a ski jump next to the sledding hill and proceeded to slay it over and
over again while Anna took pictures and snowmobilers watched in the distance.  On our way out of the sledding area we found an igloo and took some pictures of everyone in front of it. 
    Back at the house we had bowl after bowl of homemade chili and watched Old School which was a first showing for Brendan believe it or not.  Once again everyone appeared bruised and exhausted but next thing you know…. debauchery off of cheap champagne and bottles of wine.  I had planned to
play Hot Bottle (if you care to know email me) with Chris but he
found out the trick and bowed out.  Crazy times in the hot tub and a pre-1998 hip-hop and R&B dance party mix courtesy Old-School-Ellinger kept the party going.  At the end of the night
people were piled on top of each other in beds and all the food and alcohol in the house was gone, save a quarter bottle of rum that must have been hidden. 
    Sunday we cleaned up and I drove Robyn, Chris, and Brendan home, stopping at DQ in Sweethome on the way. It was a great weekend and I had a lot of fun with my closest friends here.  It was definitely needed after the really terrible week I had last week.  Hopefully things will start to go better for me from this point on.

This weekend I went on my first ski trip in Oregon to Mt. Bachelor.  We got a house in SunRiver, a local community about 20 minutes drive from the mountain.  The log cabin was beautiful!  It had a
stove, kitchen, upstairs with beds, hot tub outside, and a river running through the backyard.  14 people went on the trip for the two nights and we
each paid 50 bucks.  That money paid for the two nights at the house and food for chili on Friday night and sphagetti on Saturday night.  I just received an email after getting home saying that we would all get $20 back as well because we paid too much!  Can you believe that, $30 dollars bought me two nights at a ski chateau with a hot tub and dinner both nights!!! Amazing!

    I left school on Friday around 4pm and picked up Javier and David for the 3 hour ride over Santiam Pass through Bend to SunRiver.  I’d never met either before but
they turned out to be great guys.  As a matter of fact, the only people I knew on the trip beforehand were Meg and her husband
Justin, Kristen Splinter, and fellow new COAS student Greg.  It was great to meet so many terrific people and have such a good time.  When the three of us got there we ate a ton of homemade chili by Kristen and began drinking.  At 9pm a car load of girls showed up as well;  Jen, Lindsay, Julie, and Susie.  Then another car showed up with Matt who had told me he wasn’t going to need a ride because he had to write a paper instead!  Haha.  I
had bought a litre of 93 proof rum and began to get pretty drunk on
Friday night.  Most of the rest of the night was a bit blurry which I fully understood after waking up Saturday morning still a bit drunk to the empty bottle.  I apparently had played beer pong late into the morning hours with Matt but don’t recall it!  I also spent some time in the hot tub with the girls which was foggy as well.  I was told in the morning that the tracks in the snow next to the hot tub were of me running around before jumping back in!  One thing was for sure… I certainly let loose a lot of built up stress that night and had a hell of a good time.

    When I woke up Saturday morning I was still a bit drunk and had a cup of sphagetti
I had brought for myself and a couple v8’s.  Ironically I was the first
person with my eyes open at 8:30 running around to get my stuff ready.  David and I left for the mountain following Meg and Justin around 9:30am.  Bachelor was an amazing dormant volcanoe rising into the sky with beautiful views of Broken Back and The Sisters wilderness.  It was bluebird skies and despite the $60 holiday ticket price and crowds the lift lines were not horrible. 

    I do have to say I hate the lift line ticket-checking procedure there.  Each ticket
had to be swiped next to a large electronic board for verification
before a turnstile, that’s right, a freakin’ turnstile opened for you to walk through and re-join your group for the actual lift line.  I thought it was the stupidest system I have ever seen and much prefer the old school style of having a person there to interact with and guide you into place.  What is the skiing world coming to??? 

    The terrain was incredible.  The top of the volcano was massive bowls above
treeline and the below treeline the trees were perfectly separated for tree skiing.  Unfortunately the snow was very windblown up in
the bowl resulting in a sheet of ice several football fields in length with a pitch of about 45 degrees.  I got separated from David around lunch time and headed up to the summit to ski the bowl and had to straight-line most of it because it was impossible to turn on the
ice.  Luckily for the slope shallowed out into flats at the bottom so I could slow down.  After skiing from the summit (first time on the summit of a volcano) I headed down the mountain towards the terrain park I had heard so much about.  There was some fresh snow on the mountain
but it was only an inch or two deep and on top of hard crusty snow so backcountry skiing wasn’t much of an option as I had just figured out from the summit descent.  So off to the park I went. 

    Mt. Bachelor has one of the best terrain parks I’ve ever been to
and definitely the best superpipe I’ve ever ridden.  My balance was off because of drinking so much the previous night but I still challenged myself to hit the biggest jumps
offered and boost out of the pipe.  I ended up getting only about 5 or 6 feet out of the pipe but it was the highest
I saw anyone go while there and I managed to spin a mute 360 off a kicker in the park that sent me about 15-20 feet up and 40-50 feet in length.  If I had better balance I would have perhaps tried something a little bit harder… oh well.  When I got back to my truck I found a note left by David that he had gotten a ride home with others earlier… I guess I was the last person of our group off the mountain.

    Saturday night I took it a bit easier.  I played Anchorman for the group off my ipod which everyone enjoyed and then put on my High School Hip-Hop playlist.  This combined with drinking led to a drunken dance party that lasted about 2 hours.  Everyone got a kick out of the songs I had on my list that were all popular hip-hop and R&B songs before 1998.  Brought back a lot of memories for everyone I’m sure.  I was also blown away to hear an echo behind me as Young M.C.’s Bust a Move came on…  Meg Palmsten knew every word.  She’s only the 2nd girl I’ve ever met to know that song perfectly!  Haha.  I ended up teaching the girls how to play Bullshit Pyramid before covering Matt with snowboards, a plant and chair as he was passed out face down on the floor.  I’m not sure what time I went to bed but at least I went to bed in my own sleeping bag unlike Friday night when I woke up in someone else’s on the hard floor 10 feet from my blown up air mattress…. Geeze.  Although throughout the night I did have to hurl pillows and other objects at someone across the room snoring like a freight train!

    Nobody decided to ski on Sunday morning because we all knew it would be too icy and not worth the money.  So after cleaning up our mess for a couple hours we packed up and drove home, but not before Justin decided to nearly plunge his Honda Element into a nearby drainage ditch on the way out of SunRiver.  Luckily we found some chains and pulled him and Meg out.  Haha.  It was a great weekend of meeting new friends outside of my COAS bubble, drinkin’, partying and skiing.  Ski Trips are always a great time! 

Today Chris
Holm and Tiffany Gregg and I decided to head up to Meadows on Mt. Hood
for some skiing. The area had been
getting dumped on for a good week and we thought that we would encounter tons
of powder…. Yes, and No. Yes, there was
powder but it was all windblown into small pockets in the trees and some of it
was so compacted that I wouldn’t even call it powder. The wind was blowing so fiercely that the
three of us could barely see 5 feet in front of our faces. This was the first time out this season for
Tiffany I believe and she ripped it up on her board despite the weather
conditions. I was really glad that we
had decided to take my truck in the morning because the roads were pretty nasty
getting up to the pass.

  We skied
hard the entire day and left around 3:30pm to head back to Chris’ brothers
place in Portland to drop off the gear we had borrowed (goggles for me, a pass
for Chris) in the morning. The whole
trip was rainy and windy. I got a call
from Mac who wanted to ride on Sunday but the weather looks terrible for then
as well. I really enjoyed riding with
Tiffany who, despite the weather and her uncovered frozen face, managed to keep
giggling her trademark giggle all day. It was some of the worst conditions I’ve ever skied in but of course I
had a lot of fun!

Today I drove up to SkiBowl to meet up with Aaron Hartz and his brother Gerald.  I got there before them and took a few runs before catching up with them at the bottom lift.  The snow was pretty crunchy off the trails and difficult to ski but once I paired up with the two local boys we were able to find some softer, deeper snow in
the woods.   It’s great to ski with people who grew up on the mountain who also ski as crazy as I do!  After a few runs we headed to the terrain park.  It wasn’t a big one but it had a small kicker at the top and some banked c-rails that we all worked on for a while.  That trail actually ended up being one of my favorite on the mountain.  It was short but fun and easy.  Hopefully they will add some more rails and jumps to it as the season progresses.

At around 1pm the two brothers wanted to stop at the warming hut for some coffee, which of course I changed to beers for the holiday!  I asked for the darkest beer the girl had and when I got halfway through it I realized it was a 16oz of 7.8%, so I had a
small buzz going when I hit the slopes again.  The funniest part of the warming hut was when two guys picked up magazines above the fireplace of the roaring fire.  The one guy had ‘Snowboarding’ while the other guy….. ‘Vanity Fair’????  I said, "what?  you have to be kidding me…. who the hell brought that up to a ski warming hut???"  Everyone turned around and got a good kick out of it and I think the guy was a bit embarassed to blantantly be caught reading that instead of the snowboarding and skiing magazines around.

We took a few more runs then ended up at the bar at the bottom for a couple rounds of drinks before the boys took off.  Somehow we got onto the subject of old school WWF wrestling… Does anyone reading this remember the match between Hulk Hogan and Macho Man during like the 2nd Wrestlemania… because I do… and as a kid it
was one of the most amazing things I’d ever seen.  I don’t watch that crap anymore of course because it has gotten completely out of control but back in the day when it was first getting popular… man it was cool.   Then somehow Brooke Hogan came up…and after thinking about I said to the guys in a drunken state, "No, seriously… I’d date the girl just to say that I was buddies with her dad Hulk Hogan!, come on… what better story can you have then telling your buddies you just got back from barbequeing with the hulk!" 

Hahaha…. anyway…. The guys eventually left and I waited around to see what the weather report was going to be for Christmas because I had all my gear to stay overnight in Government camp but after dinner and a beer I heard it was going to pour all night on Mt. Hood so I booked it home.  Atleast I got to ski in my Santa hat all day!

Today I went with my buddies Toshi (who we now call Kamikaze Kimura the Samurai Shredder - you’ll see why later) and Aaron Hartz to SkiBowl on Mt. Hood for the 2nd day they’ve been open this year.  Aaron and I had heard reports of massive snowfall over the weekend up there so we were totally stoked to get out and hit some pow.  Toshi offered to drive and we got an early start around 6:45am from Corvallis.   We drove directly to the mountain with just a quick stop at a gas station for some coffee to wake up.  We hit the snow line just a few miles past Kathy’s
Kabins which I had just stayed at over Thanksgiving.  Toshi didn’t bother to put his chains on although a lot of people who were heading further over the pass did.  When we pulled in and started to unload the car we heard the resort bombing the slopes with shells to clear any avalanche danger which is always a good sign! 

    The resort wasn’t that busy and we were able to get our passes quickly and hit the slopes.  The upper bowl was amazing and had plenty of gnarly terrain to thrash.  The lifts themselves were old school 2-person chairs with no safety gate.  I was beginning to really like this place.  It had snowed nearly 3 feet over the past 3 days so everything was soft and powdery when we got
there.  From the lift I picked out a line that dropped over a 10′ ledge at the start, carved down a steep slope of pow then dropped over a bigger 15-20′ drop at the end before heading into trees. The pic of the skier with the crossed skis is me  We gave Toshi the camera and got some film of Aaron and I crushing it.  We had to be very careful of what was underneath the snow still because the base layer was pretty much the same powder we were blasting through all day. 

    After a few more runs down that face they opened up the backcountry so the three of us
went exploring and were able to get fresh turns down some sick steeps into
trees.  I got a great sequence of Aaron coming off a pretty good size ledge HERE.  Also in the pic on left. We made the hike to the backcountry twice before the snow got too sticky and warm at the bottom making the traverse back to the lifts difficult.  My skis aren’t waxed and the snow became so sticky in the afternoon that I was able to literally "skin" up the trail from the snow stuck to my ski bottoms. 

    We took a quick break for lunch at the base lodge then went for a few more runs.  On our
second to last run I spotted some pillows (big rocks covered in snow) that I
wanted to try out.  Aaron guinea pigged the jump and I followed him.  It was a good 10-12′ drop.  Toshi was standing above and I told him to give it a try… well I didn’t have to ask twice.  I barely had time to push record on my camera as he came sailing over the edge leaving a big bomb hole below.  Check this video HERE.  On his firt drop Toshi pretty much hurled his carcass!  Aaron and I decided his new
name is Kamikaze Kimura the Samurai Shredder!  By this point Toshi’s glasses
were completely fogged and it was dumping so he headed down while Aaron and I took one more run through the pow which was amazing.  Once again Aaron and I pushed each other all day to do things we both sometimes questioned but it always turned out fine.  Looking forward to a great season!

Yup, I went skiing before Thanksgiving this year.  I drove up Saturday with my buddies Toshi and Aaron to Timberline Lodge today on Mt. Hood.  I was absolutely blown away by the terrain we were driving to.
The massive volcano just seemed to rise out of no where.  I’ve never skiied on a volcano before.  In the Northeast you can look around and see other mountains in the distance at the same elevation that you are skiing at… not out here.  Even at the base of the mountain below tree line I was about 5,000 feet higher than anything else below.  The only other mountains as high as we were were Mt.
Jefferson and the 3 Sisters to the south which were both snow capped volcanoes.   Look closely in the picture and you can see them in the background.  The weather was perfect, 45 degrees and plenty of snow for the 50% of the mountain that was open.  Lift lines weren’t too terrible and everyone around was incredibly nice.  There were dogs running around barking and I found out that the main lodge was where they filmed The Shining with Jack Nicholson. 
    Toshi was a great skier but with Aaron I think I finally found someone that is at the same level of skiing that I am at and can push me to get better and ski harder.  We ski at the same pace and with
the same style, spinning off ridges and hucking ledges and drops.  We are definitely going to feed off each other on the slopes all winter long.  I’m going to hold off on getting a pass this year but next year I definitely will.  We lost Toshi by accident at the very end of the day but he caught up to us as the mountain was closing down for the day.  We stopped for Burgers and beer at a cool bar in Government Camp on the way home.   It was a terrific day and I would have gotten more pictures if my camera’s battery hadn’t died on me.  The first picture is of the massive omelette I got at a dinner on the way to Hood. 

Went on the annual group ski trip to Killington, VT the past two days.  It was great to see everyone from my old job again.  This year we had a
great condo that was 3 stories high. It
had two baths with walk in saunas, two hot tubs, two kitches, two tv’s, a pool table
and a deck. Really sweet! 13 guys showed up this year and we had a blast. The chefs cooked up several turkeys and hams the night I was there. A real feast! I could only stay for one day but we had a
good time together. Even
though there
hasn’t been much snow the skiing was great and the green trail down to the condo
was several miles long and provided great area to practice switch skiing - and
to race the Captain! Everyone seemed
to have a
good time and it was great that we were all able to meet up the summit bar for a
few drinks together. Unfortunately I
won’t be able to attend next years as I will be studying in graduate school but
I hope to keep in touch with all the guys as they have become good friends - and
I hope to see a couppe of them at Americade this June as
well! Miss ya
guys…

Snowstorm = Me driving 90mph to Killington.  Unbelievable day.  No crowd, no lines, and skiing until 4pm when my legs were burning like fire and they wouldn’t let me back on the lift again.  Is there any sport out there better than skiing… I don’t think so. 

Skiing on Friday was absolutely amazing.  Best skiing I’ve had over Thanksgiving weekend ever.  The lines were short and there was over 60 trails open at Killington.  I actually found a few trails through the trees that led to open fields of about 8" of fresh powder and untracked.  There weren’t any built jumps yet but I found one on the side of the trail that gave pretty good air time.  The picture I put here shows how deep the pow was shows the rolling knoll I was hittin’ for some air.  I’ve also included a photo of a Gaper (If you can see past the bright orange jump suit you’ll notice she has a NIKE hat on, rear entry boots, and the oldest pair of skis I’ve ever seen).    I’m going try to take pictures of these kinds of people all year long so whenever I post about skiing keep an eye out for a Gaper.  And in the meantime support my bros in Tahoe by buying their ski movie (just click on the photo of the DVD below). Despite the weather being about 10 degrees and the blowers on some of the trails the skiing was great and I stayed until about 3:30pm.  My Bronze pass wouldn’t work because of the blackout date but they gave me a free ticket somehow anyway.  I was alone, but it was great rocking down powder slopes with my ipod and pickin’ lines through the bump runs.  I came home on friday night and was beat tired but managed to visit Matt one last time and hit up the hot tub again to soothe my muscles with him and Dennis Russell who stopped by.  I didn’t stay long as I had to meet up with Nick Kladis at 8am the next morning.
The skiing on Sat was definitely not the same as friday.  The snow had been skied off and there were more people at the mountain resulting in longer lines.  Nick and I met up with his friends George and Klute from FGM who were apparently already drunk at 10am in the morning.  They took two runs with us that dissapeared for more beers at their car and we never saw them again.  Nick was not having a good time on his board over the rough terrain and negotiating through all the people so we left after a quick lunch at about 1pm. Nick is too used to the perfect skiing of western ski resorts so he didn’t want to deal with the crappy conditions.  He was my ride so we took off early.  My skiis were pretty beat up by that point anyway.  I’m not sure what my plans for tonight are yet but I heard something about the Mathematicians playing in Glens Falls so I may hit up that…  3 days of skiing in thus far and many more to come!

PS.  I’m sure if the Gaper would appreciate the font….