Jason has done his shoulder again!!

Yesterday on about the 4th run of the day Jass was doing some front sevens working upto nine's. when he fell into the bottom and dragged is hand behind him popping out his shoulder. I was the first to his rescue and went off to called ski patrol once Benny came down. He was sledded down to the bottom of the mountain where Coach was waiting with the car and we whizzed him off to hospital. After a little over an hour his shoulder was put back into place at the hospital.



Jason counts this as the seventh time his shoulder has come out and the second time since his last surgery. This could mean he needs another surgery and could be out for the Australian season which isn't a good thing for my COMRADE and team mate Jason.

SM

Parks Closed?

So here in Mammoth it's been raining a fair bit lately which contrary to what you might think is kind of a good thing... It means that the wall of the pipe that is usually super icy is getting pretty soft now, which is good for trying new stuff.
But because of all the rain the parks are closed!



The parks being closed isn't such a bad thing because it goves us more time to focus on the pipe and there are still 2 small jumps just below the pipe.

On the way home from the pipe yesterday i hit a rock and got a major core shot pretty much the length of my board which was a bit of a bummer but Benny A hooked it up with one of his old friends from here and got it fixed up quick smart. which i was pretty stoked about!



Anyways, sorry i haven't been updating much lately we don't have internet at our house.

SM

Mountain bikes...

So today we had a day off, it stared out pretty slow, waking up late and going for a swim in the pool. The plan was always to go mountain biking but we where a bit skeptical because the weather looked like it was coming over. Luckily the weather held out and we went up at about 12. We packed all the bikes into the back of the van and headed for the top of the hill. We did about four runs down to the bottom complete with a few spills and some close calls with people coming in the other direction up the hill.
After the mountain biking, we got some lunch at Pita Pit which was pretty amazing. Then hit up the gym for some tennis for about two hours.
Once we got home we where pretty flogged but i had to goto the supermarket to grab some supplies for breakfast.

Here are a few photo's from the biking.




Can you see that guy in the blue shirt all the way down that little trail? haha thats me...

Little Session on the big jump.

The other day Nate and I decided to take a stab at the 70 footer in the middle of unbound park. When i first saw it i was intimidated by it for sure but once i got up close it wasn't as big as i had thought and nothing compared to the 100 feet of the Stylewars jump from last season. So Nate naturally hit it first boom straight air perfect speed maybe a little slow. Second hit back 7 like butter. By this time i was following behind him to work out my speed so next run i could hit it. Nate's third hit front five, now it was my turn i was pretty scared because it's the biggest jump I've hit in a little while. First hit everything was sweet, perfect speed maybe a little big. I decided to do another straight air just to dial the speed in perfect. Nate didn't hit her this time because the sun was behind the clouds and it's a big jump to hit in the dark. Next run Nate hit it up first, Switch backside seven attempt he got smoked... toe edge just after landing, gnarliest crash he's had in a while. This time i decided to just straight air her again because Jason was following me so i could show him the speed. I took a straight line than last time and it was clear that the snow had slowed down alot under the sun and i ate the knuckle and bounced but still rode away. After that scare for both of us we called it a day and headed home.
In one of my previous posts there is a nice photo of how big the jump really is or.
For a little video click
HERE for the comrades blog. For some reason Coach recorded over half of the jump footage thats why there is none of me and only two shots of Nate... kinda lame yea?

First day riding.

After a little sleep walking scare during the night we woke up at about 7 to leave at 8 and sort out our passes up at the hill. Honestly I was a little disappointed at the amount of snow. But once we took our first run down from the top right to the bottom my mind was quickly changed… it was probably the funnest run I’ve taken all season.



The Pipe here in Mammoth is a 22-footer which takes two chairs to get to and if you want to lap it back through the park it’s the same two chairs to get back up to the pipe. The pipe was moved up the top of the mountain because of the lack of snow down the bottom. Today the pipe was done by about midday which from what I’ve heard is pretty much how it is everyday.


The park is pretty much done now. The jumps onto all the rails are washed away and the snow is real slow. But most of the jumps have held up pretty well considering… they are still a lot of fun.

Welcome to Mammoth!

Monday the 18th Charlie and I flew out from Canberra to Sydney where we met up with Nate, Pat and Holly for our departure to San-Fran then onto Reno for our 3 weeks in Mammoth for some spring riding.
Once we got to Reno it was hot! Hotter than I had expected which got me even more excited for this trip.
After some waiting around in Reno for Benny A and Ben W to pick us up we packed the car to the brim and headed out on our trip up the valley to Mammoth Lakes.


This is “The red rocket” our ride whenever we come to America.

It was dark once we got to Mammoth so we checked into our apartments and got some breakfast for in the morning. Tomorrow we are going riding to check out what the mountain is like since it is very late spring and then I should be able to upload this post along with another one, so it will be kind of a double of today and first day riding.

Here are some photos from just around the airport while i was bored and waiting.

The money shot's...

So after some e-mail troubles i got the photo's from Mike, i thought the two days turned out pretty well. It made me realize how hard it is to shoot photo's like this, these where from two days remember!


This one was the first feature we hit. It took us a long time to get this shot right.


First hit over the river gap.


Indy over the river gap.

This is the tree gap that we built. The Jump took so long to build, but it was worth it to get the shot.


I would have to say this is the best shot from the two days, Charlie over the tree gap. The landing is in the very bottom right of the frame. I was stoked for charlie when he stomped this.


The Crew... was defiantly a fun few days.

Thanks again boys...

SM

Shooting photo's with Mike Cooper

On the 5th and 6th of May, Charlie Steinbacher and I went on a photoshoot with photographer Michael Cooper for a possible article in Aus/NZ Snowboarder Magazine. On Tuesday the 5th we arrived to our secret location at about eleven to scope out some tree rails that charlie and I had built earlier in the year. We spent about two hours contemplating and then decided to build a feature which turned out to be alot of fun. Towards the late afternoon we went up to Charlottes Pass to look out for some tree's and whatnot to jump over. We got a few shots, but had to call it a day as the sun was beginning to fade.



Wednesday was an early start, leaving around eight in the morning, journeying up to Charlottes Pass. A cluster of trees caught our eye from the road, looking like a good possibility for building something that could make a nice shot.
As we trekked out to the trees we came across a river that would make the perfect shot and also looked extremely fun. Building this feature took quite some time as the snow was very sugary, making it hard to build with.
Charlie hit it straight up and the jump collapsed which meant more rebuilding and fixing up the run-in for some more speed. However the hours endured building seemed well worth it as we sessioned this for a good 2 hours.
After we finished sessioning, we continued walking towards the the trees that we spotted from the road earlier on. when we finally got there, to our disappointment we came to realize that it wasn't as good as we'd hoped. The landing was flat and there was little to no run-in.





We then got back in the cars and went to the top of Charlottes to in search of another tree to jump over. We found the perfect tree from the road but unfortunately it was getting late and we weren't sure if we had enough time to build it.
We decided to give it a go and wow, it was alot bigger than we first thought. Building started quickly and once we had it finished, I was very tired and my shoulder was hurting from the early session so i decided to sit out this one and let charlie get the shot, and wow was it a good shot...





Here are a few photo's that we took during the day. Once I get some photo's from Mike i'll post them up right away for you guys to have a look at. So stay tuned for some proper photo's!!

SM