Keep Tahoe Blue

So we're in Tahoe.
Jeremy Stompson, Mutty, Jake and I flew in last Sunday on a 1 am flight to Sacramento. We had the best light I've ever seen on a flight and got some cool shots in the Chicago airport during our layover.

Flying United Economy Plus is a plus.

Eating lunch in the Sacramento aiport.

When we got to California Jake would only talk about In-n-out. He wanted it so bad.

Jake, wanting it so bad.

Jake making out with his burger.

From the airport we headed straight to Boreal where we met up with another flow rider, Brendan. Bredan is a super nice guy and great snowboarder. We rode and filmed until the sunset, then headed to our hotel down in Truckee. Long day.

It's been good to see some familiar sights for a change. I was here in Tahoe last year at about this time, though there was much more snow last year. Jeremy has been blaming the lack of snow this year on the economy. One thing thankfully unaffected by the economy is the size of the trees, they are still big.

Big Tree.

We revisted Eagle falls, a stop on the way to South Lake Tahoe that I had shot last year.

Eagle Falls, also killing it despite the economy.

Because of the lack of snow, we've been having a hell of a time finding stuff to shoot. It seems everywhere we go there just isn't enough snow. Donner pass, site of the notorious cannibalism incident, is usually a great spot to go get shots but this year it is pretty bare. We had a hard time trying to convince Jeremy to land on rocks.

Rockin'

After our failures at Donner Pass, we headed down to one of the housing communities by the lake to search for features to shoot. Jake calls these sort of missions an "absolute last resort." We ended up getting lucky and finding a roof that lead up to a water tower. A perfect setup for a step up step down jump. After a few hours of building, Jeremy and Brendan got wild on it.


We went to Northstar the next day to shoot pipe, but it was tracked out so we headed to Boreal again. I shot follow cams as Jeremy and Brendan did doubles, Jake shot from the bottom of the jump line.

Some fifteen year old skiier asked Jeremy if he could buy herion from him and then later dangerously cut him off. Jeremy got pissed and strangled the kid with his own pole, then punched him in the face and told him to "learn some fucking ettiquette."

Today we're heading out with sleds to go shoot a natural quarterpipe across the lake. And maybe a log jam as well?

Ps- I've been watching Jean-Luc Godard's Un Femme est Un Femme (A Woman is A Woman), and its amazing. Its got Anna Karina and Belmondo, same as Pierrot Le Fou, but this time Karina is a classy stripper obsessed with getting pregnant and Belmondo plays a fool helplessly in love with Karina. "Is it a Comedy or a Tradegedy?" The characters continually question.

The night club where Karina strips.

Home on the Range

Because of weather and injuries the last two days have been really mellow. We've been staying at Scotty's house out in the New Hampshire countryside. His family owns and operates a small hay farm and its pretty cool, lots of open space.

Lagoland headquarters.

The view from Lago's driveway.

Their basement is really cool too; lots of vehicles, weapons and animals.

bEar aTTack!!

Jake and I have been putting together some of the footage so far to see if it works. Seems to be cutting well. It's going to be an interesting film, I think a lot of people will dislike it.

This morning we dropped off Scotty at the airport, he's heading to Colorado to get surgery on his hand. The doctor says he'll be able to ride 3 days after surgery. Great news.

After dropping Lago off we checked into a Hampton by the Manchester Boston regional airport. Jake and I went on a little mission to purchase 2 way radios for all of us.

Mutty on left with his girlfriend Jake upper right.

Tomorrow we fly west to Sacremento then drive to Lake Tahoe. Can't wait to return home to the left coast.

The East Coast Tour Continues

On the road again.

After our stay in Bow we woke up and drove to Waterville for Back to the Boneyard a contest being held by Pat Moore.

Shooting through the trees.

While setting up my tripod I heard a very familiar voice over the load speaker, I turned around and it was Matt Gormley my boss from three years ago when I worked at Stevens Pass. Apparently he had been flown out to the east coast by Pat Moore just for the contest. What a small world. After the contest we grabbed beers in the lodge, caught up and he introduced me to a few guys from Eastern Boarder.

Mutty and Gormley Reunite.

Sarka got another award for doing tricks. This time she won some ass wax.

Ass Wax.

After the contest Bridges insisted we go back to back to see who is taller (Bridges is a good 6 inches shorter than me). I humored him and then he farted on me. I guess he does that to everyone, its his joke.

We went to a hotel down by the village, but there was nobody at the front desk. Unable to find anyone who worked there, Mutty went into the back room and grabbed the keys to room 211. We pulled up the truck and unloaded all our gear into the room then went to dinner. After dinner Mutty did a great job diffusing one very confused and slightly angry concierge.

Humphreys and Sarka were beat from being on hill all day so they stayed in, but Jake, Mutty and I all went out to a bar in the village. Things started off quiet, but escalated quickly. While talking to T Bird, some drunken idiot climbed on our table and proclaimed he was Pat Moore's cousin. After being kicked out he came back again, again, and again. Bridges was being real civil about the matter, but Moore's cousin was looking for trouble. T Bird started calling him a "butt fucking faggot" and things got dicey.

I got punched in the camera, Mutty got a little violent, and this guy Baker "took care of him."

The next day we went to Loon to shoot Last Call, another contest. Despite perfect weather, we got no shots and the day was kind of a bust. But not as bust as Scotty's left hand. He fell on it last run of the day.

Scotty giving the thumbs up with a broken hand.

To celebrate Scotty's misfortune we got burritos with his cousin Mike.

Cousins.

Mike reminds me a lot of my good friend from back home, Trevor. They've got a similar style.

After the hospital and dinner we were greeted at Scotty's house by the rest of the team, two cases of beer, and a Party bus. D Man, a friend of Scottys and self proclaimed Turtle (entourage character) of the group drove us to the New Hampshire gentlemens club called Tens. Scotty was all over a hot Brazilian stripper, D Man looked at home, and Jake had to be forced into a lap dance.

Jake and I are getting into the swing of things, but man these kids live crazy lives. I'm gonna be beat after this month.

In other news, the trailer for Spike Jonze's Where the Wild Things Are finally came out and it is amazing. My friend Steven pointed out some similarity to the short I worked on last year, Peter.

Where the Wild Things Are

Peter

World Quarterpipe Championship

Thought I'd post a few more images of the cabin we've been staying at.

The upstairs.

Jake, Sarka, and Scotty chilling.

My bed for the past four days.

Last night ended up being more mellow than we had anticipated. After a few beers, we headed to the DC team house to party with Chaz Guldemond, the overall winner of this year's TTR Tour. We drank some beers, had a few good laughs and Scotty challenged the scandanavians to pool.

Pool Sharks.

We ended up leaving fairly early as we were all a bit tired from the Open. T Bird and Bridges from Snowboarder were at a bar in the village called the Green Door but only Mutty had the energy to go out and rage it with them.

This morning I woke up to the sound of Antti packing his bags for Finland. He's going back home for a couple weeks to relax while we continue our tour of the east coast. Mutty put us all to work cleaning up the condo and packing the cars. It wasn't until we were all packed out that I noticed Scotty was gone as well. He headed off early for a meeting with the friends crew. As the only remaining, Tim, Sarka, Jake and I headed to Timber Ridge a little ski spot on the backside of Magic Mountain.

Jake and Sarka keeping it real in the backseat of Humphrey's Subaru.

We had some trouble finding the mountain, Vermont has a lot of confusing backroads.

A town on our way to the contest.

Despite 20 degree temperatures nearly 300 people showed up to the World Quarterpipe Championship. The contest's title we quickly found to be ironic. There is nothing World nor Championship about the quarterpipe, merely druken spectacle.

Oakley bought 160 flats of PBR and about 60 bottles of vodka, free alcohol meant everyone was wasted. Especially this guy:



The contest was setup like a run, with a a jump over flames at the top.

Then a gauntlet where people threw empty beer cans and snowballs at the rider.


And finally the quarterpipe.


Sarka did some awesome backflips over the fire and won a guitar.

With a car packed full of stuff, we got back on the road, this time headed for New Hampshire.

Goodbye Vermont!

Our room at the Hampton Inn in Bow, NH.

The debauchery begins

Wednesday night began my adventures with the Flow snowboard team.

I took the ferry to Seattle, then a cab to my good friend Denver's house. There was a party and I got sufficiently drunk, spending the wee hours till 3am shooting the shit with Cam. Cam has been a good friend of Denver's for awhile, and we've known each other vicariously through Denver, but while I was back home we finally got to chill.

At 4am I was awoken by a girl I hadn't seen in awhile, Tina. We took a limo (apparently she always takes limos?) from Denver's place in Seattle's U District to SEATAC for our 6am flights. Total coincidence that we both happened to be flying out at the same time.

I flew from Seattle to Denver. A best friend of mine from high school is going to DU and always talks about the great mountains are in Denver. I couldn't see any mountains, it looked perfectly flat for miles. After an hour layover I flew to Boston where I was picked up by Andrew Mutty, the Team manager for Flow. We grabbed chicken sandwiches at this great Italian place he knew of, then got on the road to Vermont. The first thing I noticed about Mutty is that he is one crazy driver. I've never rode with someone who drives quite like him. He drives well over the speed limit, splits traffic, cuts off semis and somehow never gets in accidents.

Somewhere in Massachusets on the road to Vermont.

We arrived that night at our condo where I got to meet the team: Tim Humphries, Scotty Lago, Anti Autti and Sharka something or other. She's Czech. We had a brief meeting about the film and then all went to bed.

The next day we went up and rode Stratton. I haven't been up riding in almost a year so it was pretty weird getting back on the board and into the snowboard groove. I was a bit impressed by Stratton, the east coast has a reputation for small icy hills, but Stratton is a fairly good sized resort.

View from the top of the gondola.

Mutty hooked me and Jake up with photo passes and Team Manager passes the latter of which granted us access into the riders lounge. Burton really treats their riders well. The lounge had free food, big screen TV's, comfy couches and massage tables. Me and Jake hung out in the Rider's lounge for a long time discussing logistics of this Flow movie.

The rider's lounge well after all the riders had left.

After our discussion we headed up on hill for the US Open quarterpipe finals. It was a great show, all the riders pushed it and I ended up with some good shots.

Getting the shot.

Our boy Scotty pushed it especially hard, ending the night on a great note by getting first and spraying chamagne all over the lens of my camera. 5 lens tissues and a thourough cleaning later, my hvx is once again fully operational.

Saturday we woke up and filmed the halfpipe finals. It was sort of a down beat compared to the previous nights sucess. Both Scotty and Antti are great pipe riders but had a tough time and didn't make the podium. Better luck next year.

The guy in front of me was having trouble getting his camera up.

Saturday night we had a more in depth talk with the riders about the movie. Mutty helped us communicate our ideas and really got the team stoked on the concept. After the meeting I followed Scotty to the US Snow team's cabin where he got leg massage. He claims it really hurts and only looks relaxing.

Today we woke up early at about 7am to go shred and film the slopestyle. Got a few shots even though slopestyle is a very difficult event to cover.

Shooting the first jump.

While tucked away in the trees, I found fellow snowfilmer Aaron Leyland.

Leyland making those Burton girls look good.

Leyland, Jake and I talked gear and complained about the weather. It was my first time meeting Leyland though we've been internet friends for awhile. He's a funny ass dude and an excellent filmmaker. Burton scored him the very elusive "Super Photo" pass that granted access basically everywhere. The whole event is very elitist and strange like that. Passes are needed to get anywhere in the event and they are very serious about not letting people in to places without the right pass. Jake and I were restricted to the upper half of the course with our regular photo passes. I got us lunch and tried taking a sandwhich to to Leyland on the deck of the jump, three event security guys came up and told me to leave.

Scotty got 3rd in the slopestyle, which won him some money and made him the biggest point winner in the contest. He took the podium and was given a key to a new Volvo for his tricks. This time I was careful to stand back and shoot telephoto as not to get sprayed by champagne.

My friends at Snowboarder Magazine are in town tonight and the contest is all over so there will be some serious partying. Last time I partied with those guys the night ended with throw up all over the Nike 6.0 team vehicle. Sorry Nike.

More to come...

PS - I've been watching the 1953 musical fantasy "The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T" It's a wild and bizarre movie, the only film Dr. Seuss ever had direct involvement with before he died. Deals with the dreams of a young boy who is being forced by his mom to learn piano. Lots of great imagery and set design.

Bart decends into the dream world.