Sam Murphy Snowboarding

NEW WEBSITE

2010-08-05T01:00:00.001-07:00

CLICK HERE TO SEE MY WEBSITE!

this is where everything is going to be going on from now on so bookmark it!

SM

Big man down...

2010-07-24T19:22:00.001-07:00

The other day Patto took a pretty big hit on the tramps out at sport and rec... The big man was trying double corks and landed kinda funny on his ankle.
Anyway turns out he took a chunk out of his tibia and has a spiral fracture of his phibia.
He's out for about 6 months i think which is really unlucky because he was killing it this season...

Image courtesy of Jarryd Williams.

SM

New Blog/Website

2010-07-18T17:41:00.000-07:00

So i've been working on a new website.... it's going to be a somthing somthing .com which will be good as it seems a bit more proffesional...

I've been working on it for about 2 weeks now and it's coming along nicely i just have to write up all the about me and contact and upload a bunch of photo's.

Anyways thats all for now i'll put up another post soon as there has been a bunch of stuff happening.

SM

First weekend.

2010-07-01T00:11:00.000-07:00

Wow it's been a while since i updated my blog... i promise from now on to update more... sorry guys.

Last weekend was the Demo weekend up at perisher. I got to meet some really cool people which was good and had a fun day shredding with friends.

Shaun Belmore from Wet Socks was up there with his camera and we made a little video of a park lap... now you all know that i'm no good on rails but i try haha. Take a look at how bumpy the park is after about half a day of a million people riding it.

Here is what we came up with...

Sam Murphy. Perisher Park Lap from Shaun Belmore on Vimeo.

SM

Spare Change Premiere

2010-05-29T19:26:00.000-07:00

This Saturday the 5th of June at the Strike Bowling Bar on Chapel street is the premiere of Wetsocks Productions' Spare Change.

If your in the Melbourne area make sure you come down to check it out....

See you there...

SM

Spare Change Teaser

2010-04-02T15:24:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Shaun Belmore sent me the Teaser for his latest project Spare Change.

Spare Change is a movie showcasing Australia's best up and coming talent in the snowboard industry.

Anyways make sure you check it out.

Tell your friends.

Apointment with surgeon.

2010-04-01T15:32:00.000-07:00

Today dad and i once again got up super early to head upto Sydney to see DR. Bokor. I slept most of the way up as I'm pretty sick from Tonsillitis.

We had an 11am booking but rocked up at 10ish and they got us in to see him pretty quickly.

Bokor moved my arm and shoulder round a little bit and did some comparison with my other shoulder and pretty much said everything is going really well. He said I was good enough to get back on snow at the moment but another two months wouldn't hurt.

On the way home we went to a place called Tempe Tyres... biggest wheel shop in all of Sydney... Lets just say the forester is getting some new shoes soon...

Lupe Fiasco

2010-02-28T02:30:00.000-08:00

Last Night i was in Canberra to see Lupe Fiasco play at the University of Canberra. He was supported by local crew Koolism and some other people who I didnt get to see...

DJ Danielsan was there and he wasncrazzy. But the main focus was of course on LupeAs soon as he appeared on the top section of the room the whole crowd went crazzy.

I was towards the front of the crowd at the start but it got way too hectic so i moved over to the side where i could still see.

Lupe's set was amazing... he had a drummer and an electric guitarist with him which made the experience just that little bit more interesting. The drummer had by far the fastest double kicks i've ever seen, He was insane.

Here are a few photo's.

Then today I came home and tonight I went fishing with my friend Dunk and his boss Craig... it turned out to be a pretty good night and we caught ten fish... pretty stoked.

I know there are only seven in this photo but trust me we caught ten.

Cribs

2010-02-14T19:30:00.000-08:00

Jarryd just sent me through a link to Patto's cribs episode...

Patto is living in Jarryd's walk in robe because Benny and Anthony are staying with them for about a week.

So this is Patto's crib...

Enjoy.

Skate

2010-01-14T04:29:00.000-08:00

James is my friend from Maleny in QLD. He came down to do the season in Jindy and he found something about this lovely town attractive so he decided to stay for the summer...
I found out the other day James is a sick skater, we went for a skate yesterday and straight out of the block he busts a double kickie... i thought it was pretty sweet then he bust's a hardflip to fakie on the big bank at Jindy skate park. The rest of the day was followed with countless tricks i could only do on xbox and cool lines...

So today i asked him if i could take some photo's of him skating. Luckily he agreed...

This is what came from today...

This was pretty gnarly... there is about a two foot ollie up just to clear over that little wall...

Hard to tell because of my crappy composition but He is ollieing from the top of the box thing over the rail and into the bank...

This was by far the gnarliest thing all day! i think that's like a 6 foot bowl... He ollied down into the flat! not only that but stomped first try!

the consequences

Not really skate related but i thought it was cool lighting...

That's all folks.

Down Time

2010-01-11T18:07:00.000-08:00

So i've had alot of time to just hang out, and be a kid and have some time at home.

Christmas was really good, first one i have had at home in about 5 years so that was nice.
New Years was a bit of a let down i didn't finish work untill 11:30 then had to work new years day at 10 which wasn't fun.

So pretty much my days have been filled with either working, hanging out down in Canberra or going out on the boat that we acquired. It's pretty sweet it's got 50hp on the back which is enough to wake skate behind.

Oh also lately i've been skating a bunch and taking photo's of my friend James who kill's it! switch hardflips and what not... yea pretty crazy...

sorry for the lack of photo's in this post... I promise i'll make it upto you in the next one!

SM

Post Surgery.

2009-11-29T20:26:00.001-08:00

Sorry about being real slack with updates lately... I've had a fair bit going on and I've been in canberra most of the time since surgery.
Everything went really well with the surgery apart from the not having the right tools and me having to wait an hour while I was super high on something they injected into me, and being asked about 20 times which shoulder is being done... It made me wonder if they knew what was going on?
The surgery took about forty five minutes and only left two little puncture holes on my shoulder which I'm pretty stoked about...

It's been about 10 days now and i just got the stitches out this morning, the front cut wasn't quite healed so another three stitches where put in just to make sure.
I can start my usual gym program up again in about 4 weeks but for the time being i'm just riding on the bike for about 40-60 minutes a day to stay a little bit fit.

Until next time.
SM

Sydneeyyy.

2009-10-08T18:54:00.000-07:00

Usually I don't like doing posts without any photo's or video but I think this can be an exception as it's kind of important in relation to what's going on with my shoulder.

Last night we got to Sydney at about 5:30 or so. We checked into our hotel which is pretty cool, it's right in the city so yeah we went got some dinner at The Red Lantern... So good!

Our booking with the surgeon was at 9:15 this morning. He pretty much just looked at the MRI's and gave me three options. 1. do nothing 2. try a strength program (which we've already tried) or 3. get surgery and have 6 months off.
When he first said 6 months off I was a bit bummed... but I guess that's not so bad... At least I get to have a christmas with my family and it gives me a chance to get a job and make some cash. I should be back overseas for a Spring camp if it happens again this year.

We hung out in the city for ages today I got some new jeans and shoes. pretty stoked.
Anyways now we are waiting at the airport for my plane back to Canberra. Hopefully I'll hang out with Rob, Phoebe and Grace tonight and maybe go out in the city... should be good.

SM

Canberra

2009-10-07T13:11:00.000-07:00

So it's Wednesday and I'm in Canberra hanging out at my dad's place.
This morning I went to Canberra imaging to get an X-ray and an MRI done on my shoulder. If you've ever had an MRI you'll know that it's super scary, they give you these ear muffs and it's still super loud. I was stressing the whole time.

Here are the MRI photo's... it makes no sense to me...

I've always though X-rays looked cool...

After we got this stuff done I got some COMRADES stickers printed i should be able to pick them up on monday.
Now I'm just killing some time before we fly out to Sydney to see the surgeon.

SM

Drifties at Luke's

2009-09-26T03:10:00.000-07:00

So seeing as i haven't been able to go riding lately. Today I went out to my friend Luke's place. He lives on a pretty big property and for a while now we have been meaning to make some sort of rally track. After a bunch of rain over the last few days this weekend was the perfect opportunity to do it.

So this is the first track we carved out of the countryside. It's just a mellow figure eight the corner at this end is pretty long then the one at the other end is nice and tight.

Charlie getting sideways in the Hulk...

It was inevitable that this was going to happen. Kane just got unlucky in his RX Imprezza.

Such a fun day. Although I'm not sure how much more of this kind of punishment the hulk will be able to handle...

If you know anything about rallying/throwing your car around aggressively... send me an e-mail murphy.sam@hotmail.com thanks!

SM

Shoulder Surgery... lame

2009-09-21T00:59:00.000-07:00

So about a week ago i thought it would be a sweet idea to learn backside rodeo's at the bottom of the pipe... it seemed like a good idea... the snow was soft and it was a super sunny day. i wasn't getting them at first they weren't flipy enough then i decided just to throw it straight over and it turned out pretty sweet until i landed. i put my arm out to brace myself. i felt that same pain i've been feeling everytime i put my arm out when i fall for the last year or so.

My shoulder has been progressively getting worse so it was inevitable that surgery was down the road somewhere.

I was my surgeon today and he's given me a reference to get an MRI and an Xray on the shoulder then we'll go from there and see if surgery is the only option.

I'll keep everyone posted on what happens with it when i know more info.

SM

Charlotte's road gap.

2009-09-11T00:16:00.000-07:00

Sorry for not updating this past week i've been pretty tired and busy.
but about a week ago now Charlie, Pat, Ryan Willmott and some filmers went upto Charlotte's pass to hit the road gap.
the weather on the day wasn't the best but we still made the most of it and got some cool shots.
We rode upto the resort in these sweet over snow bus type things what where pretty fun.

And this is a photo of the road pat with Pato standing under the road gap.

Sorry for the short post but i have to get off to work.

Come back tomorrow for another post on a photoshoot in the pipe with Clint Shirvington

SM

while you where sleeping.

2009-08-31T01:00:00.000-07:00

Sunday nights are usually very relaxing and it's a time to goto bed early.
But for Charlie, Belmore, Ash, Willy, Cohen and i we went out to hit this kink rail in Jindabyne.
I turned up without any boots... silly me. So Charlie was pretty much the only one hitting the rail.
Like all street rails it took a while but he got the shot in the end...

SM

Stylewars finished.

2009-08-29T21:52:00.000-07:00

Stylewars finished up on Friday with the only day on the jump. We had one hour of practice in the morning then from elven o'clock until one o'clock we had a judged session on the jump.
The jump was around 70 foot but unlike other 70's i have hit, you had to take alot of speed into this jump, which i wasn't too stoked on at first. After warming up on the jump a bit i started to throw some tricks...
The winner of the event was Sebastian Toutant with a backside double cork 1260 then a cab 270 onto the down bar and a 50-50 back 360 out of the flat bar.
Mikkel Bang won best trick with a switch backside 1260.

navigate on over to SNOWBOARDERMAG to check out some photo's and a video. I'll post up dome photo's soon.

SM

Stylwars - 28 Stairs.T

2009-08-26T21:13:00.000-07:00

The Stylewars nighttime rail jam was on last night. The setup was the same as last years but defiantly still pretty gnarly.
Everyone was throwing down and it was really good to watch. I decided to let the rail dogs do their thing while i watched from the sideline and took some photo's.
Charles Reid and Sebastien Toutant shared first place which was cool because they where both throwing down all night and pretty much running back up to get in as many hits as they could.

There is a full wrap up over HERE at snowboarder mag or HERE at the Stylewars website.

Stylewars day two.

2009-08-25T03:08:00.000-07:00

This morning we woke up at about 8:30 to hot breakfast which was amazing... the weather outside really wasn't very good... 100km/h winds up the top of the mountain so the contest got called off. Andrew, Charlie, Cohen and I still decided to go out riding so we could check out the jump. The jump looks like it would be super fun, it's not too big and not too small. it's around 60-70 feet.
Hopefully tomorrow is better weather and we get to hit the jump even though the forecast isn't looking too good.

Again i cant upload photo's because every man and his dog is using the internet here. I'll try upload some when it's a bit quieter.

SM

Stylewars day one.

2009-08-23T23:12:00.000-07:00

Saturday night Andrew, Charlie and I arrived at Mansfield for Jason Maxfield's 18th birthday party. Hectic to say the least...

We found an even better trestle bridge then the last one we came across on our way down this way.

The next day we got back in the car and drove to Mt. Beauty and stayed the night listening to Charlie breath like a Lama, as we thought our accommodation for stylewars did not start till tonight, Monday night... it turns out we were wrong.

This is a sweet lookout we found on the road from Bright to Mt. Beauty.

In Mt. Beauty this morning the weather didn't look too bad but on our way up the mountain the weather came over and started to rain, all the lifts where on wind hold until about 12 when we when out for a few turns. We got a chance to check out the Jump which I'll post a photo of tomorrow when i get to hit it.
As you can see there isn't heaps of snow here at Falls.

Check out the Stylewars website for more updates on the event.

SM

Teenage Rampage

2009-08-15T01:26:00.000-07:00

Today was the pipe event of the Ocean and Earth Teenage Rampage at Perisher.
The weather for the event held off which made for a fun day shredding.

Lauren dropping in for her first run.

The format was 30minutes practice then two runs, best run counts. I only did about three practice runs which kinda sucked and didn't get all the tricks i was hoping for. But my run seemed to be big enough and clean enough and i pulled through to impress the judges who put me in first place. I was pretty stoked with the result even though i knew i could have rode better. As this is the only halfpipe contest for this season I'm even more stoked to have taken it out.
Well done to the other boys especially Ben Randal who was riding really well on the day.

SM

NSWIS blog and Snowboarder mag video.

2009-08-09T22:34:00.000-07:00

A while ago Chris who manages the NSWIS website asked me to write a blog for their website. Sometime last week i wrote it up and sent it off to him.
Here is what came of it.
CLICK HERE

Also Ryan Willmott has a post up on the snowboarder mag website about our shoot on Sunday with a little video CLICK HERE to have a look.

SM

Busy Busy.

2009-08-09T03:16:00.000-07:00

This weekend has probably been the busiest weekend i have had in a while.
It all started by having to wake up at 3am on Saturday morning to let Jason and Simone (Jason is the rider manager and Simone is the producer of a movie I'm doing for ride productions.)into their accommodation as i had the key because odiously they couldn't check in at 3am.
Them on Saturday morning at a reasonable time i went up the mountain to meet Kris who was going to be filming Nate and I this weekend. Kris and I went out to find some drops and stuff that we had in mind. after we got that stuff done it was about lunch time so we got some food then rode the park with Nate and got some really cool shots...

Saturday night i went out to dinner with Jason, Simone, Nate and Benny A to discuss more about the movie and discuss idea's. Benny also told me about a photo shoot that Ryan Willmott wanted to do in the morning.

So on Sunday morning i woke up at 6:30 to catch the 7:20 tube up the mountain so i could get some riding in before Ryan showed up and i had to throw down for the camera's.
I was pretty flogged by the afternoon so i just chilled while about 4 people filmed Nate... i found it kinda funny.

This first photo was from when i woke up at 6:30. I thought it was cool so i put it up.

The gang chilling after our pipe session.

Kris getting the cool angles with Nate. A bit hard to see in this photo but he's up there.

SM

Big man big flip.

2009-08-07T01:32:00.000-07:00

Every Friday afternoon we have a trampolining/gymnastics session in the gym with Anthony. We've learn stuff like standing back flips on the ground, front flips on the ground, all sorts of hand spring stuff and a bunch of stuff on the tramps.
But what we did today was the creme de la creme... we learnt those crazzy running up the wall then flipping things that you see in the movies. Pato was the only one to get them without being spoted. i got a few good ones round but wasn't confident enough to go solo. Jarryd also got some nice ones.

When you watch the video below look at how high Pato goes... and how far from the wall he lands...

Pato wall flip. from COMRADES on Vimeo.

Such a fun afternoon in the gym.

SM

Pipeing.

2009-08-06T19:36:00.000-07:00

Sorry for not really keeping this updated the last few days. I've been flat out with school and riding.
Anyways, Perisher got its pipe up last weekend and i'm pretty stoked that it's up now. We've been working on trying to ride it switch a bunch so we can eventually move onto switch backside tricks.

Here is a quick photo of the pipe.

SM

Stepping Up

2009-08-03T18:39:00.000-07:00

Last Wednesday the new issue (Issue 3) of Snowboared Magazine came out.
Towards the end of last season Ryan Willmott sent me some questions and told me he would run a check out for me in the second issue. Turns out the checkout got run in the third issue which is still pretty cool.
So if you get a chance, go and grab yourself a copy.

SM

Baw Baw night shoot photo's.

2009-07-30T02:53:00.000-07:00

Jason sent me an e-mail with the photo's from the Baw Baw shoot a few weekends ago in it. The photo's turned out really well. Brendan started his photography life as a fashion guy and is trying to make the switch to snowboard. I must say he is a very talented behind the camera.
He was very picky about getting the shot and Charlie ended up doing about 20 gap back lips on the double kink rail just for Brendan to be happy with himself.
Once again it was a very fun weekend and thanks everyone who joined in.

Gap back lip. Charlie

I dont even know what this is but turned out to be a dope shot. Chris

Back One over the rail. Me

SM

Friday Film.

2009-07-26T02:37:00.000-07:00

On Friday i went up the mountain with Andrew again and this time I took my camera. I was just planning on taking pictures but we ended up searching everywhere for some cool stuff we could film which I would turn into a little video for here.
The blog has been a bit boring lately so i thought i should make a little movie to spics things up.
I know this is no Mack Dawg Production but it's kinda cool and I had fun making it...
So here goes.

Thirty Second Friday.. from COMRADES on Vimeo.

Thanks for watching.

SM

Avalanche?

2009-07-23T05:24:00.000-07:00

I must say that today was probably the most fun i have had riding in a long time... I rode with my sister's boyfriend Andrew and some of his friends. We got up around 9:30 and went pretty much straight over to Interceptor quad chair. Then we hiked out over the top to North Perisher T-bar. We found some pretty sweet lines over there and did some more laps on the t-bar. After we shredded that for a bit we hiked over the top again and Andrew dropped in to the right and i went to the left to hit this little rock line. After I landed I heard Andrew yelling and looked over and saw that he had set off a little avi. So that was one of the small highlights of the day.

Such a fun day shredding!

Tomorrow we are heading up again hopefully its just as fun as today was...

SM

Tripping to Baw Baw

2009-07-20T03:32:00.000-07:00

On Friday afternoon Charlie and i Ventured our way down to Victoria for the Forum Battle At Baw Baw. We stopped at most of the little tourist destination's along the way to waste some time.

And even stopped in at Super Cheap to buy some flood lights.

The Competition was on Saturday morning so we stayed at Jason Maxfield's place in Mansfield, woke up the next morning at 5:30 to continue down the road to Baw Baw which none of us really knew the location of, so it was a bit of an adventure. The drive there wasn't exactly cruisy... after the long stretches it was a solid hour of narrow windy.

We arrived at about 9:30 and sorted out our lift passes and parks pass for "The Hulk" (my car). After that stuff was all sorted we pretty much got straight into practice for the rail comp. Now as some of you may know I'm not the best rail rider so i needed some practice for sure.
The rail comp didn't finish till and 2:30 with Robbie Walker taking out the open's and Andrew Roth taking out the juniors. Once this was over we got some food to eat and decided we wanted to do a night shoot on the stair case rail the competition was held on.

The view from the top of the mountain was pretty cool, it looked way down into the valley and all the plains below.

Sunday was a super bad weather day so we had a meeting the with producer of the Ride productions movie and spoke about her ideas and our ideas and really brainstormed and asked alot of questions. We also got given our contracts so this is pretty legit now. Just waiting to get a bunch of filming done.

On the way home as we where going through Wodonga i copped a speeding fine. Not very fun at all, $243 and three demerit points for going 99 in an 80 zone. I didn't even mean to be speeding, there where cars both in front and behind me. I must have just vagued.

I was super excited for this trip on Thursday and Friday and it more than exceeded my expectations! Was super fun hanging out with Jason again.

Sorry for such a long post but... Thanks for reading!

SM

Transfer blog post.

2009-07-14T05:34:00.001-07:00

Just after i got back from Mammoth i was speaking with Russel Holt the editor of Transfer snowboarding magazine and he asked me to write up a blog post for his "Pro-Blogs" section of the Transfer website.
It seems that he likes what i wrote and posted it up on his website. there are some cool photo's on there and a little video that has been featured on here too.

Click HERE to have a look or jump on over to transfersnowboarding.com and navigate yourself to the pro-blogs section.

Hope you like it.

SM

Flagged.

2009-07-05T00:59:00.000-07:00

Just as we got to perisher this morning to go riding we where walking across the bridge towards front valley. Then Jarryd yell's out "oohhh ssaammbboosss" i was a little puzzled at first then i looked back and saw him pointing at one of the flag's up ahead. It seems one of the photo's from a shoot with Ryan Willmott last year ended up getting used by perisher. Super stoked!

This was a good way to start out the day which turned out to be super fun just shredding around the mountain.
Perisher is still yet to get up a decent jump. When they get some more features up i'm sure a few posts will come with this.

SM

Sunday.

2009-06-30T20:50:00.000-07:00

Sorry for this late post I've just been waiting on the photo's from Shirvo.

We got up the hill pretty early on Sunday. Did a few laps of the park while we waited for the Filmer Kris. Once he got there Charlie and i went over to finish off what we had semi set up the day before.
Charlie and I rock paper scissored to see who would hit it first. It came down to the last draw and unfortunately i had the pulled the short straw and was up first. I was a little bit scared but thought that it was pretty make able so i just sucked it up. We waited a bit more for Shirvo our photographer to get there and set up. Then i did some run-ins to see for the speed, and hit it straight away.
Stomped it first try but needless to say it defiantly wasn't the most stylish thing i have ever done...
Second try didn't stomp. went tumbling straight over the top into a tree further down the landing which we all thought would be the worst case scenario of this hit. Glad to get that out of the way early.
Charlie had a few goes. first try not quite enough speed and he hit the rock... pretty scary.

We kept sessioning it for a bit longer until Shirvo had to go back to the burton demo tent to finish up the day.

Although the light was super flat and Shirvo couldn't get his flashes working we still ended up getting some good shots.

Here are a few from the days work.

Spare Change...

2009-06-27T01:08:00.000-07:00

So tomorrow will be the first day of filming for the Wet Socks production Spare Change. I've been told not to give out too much info on the whole project but you now know that i shall be in a movie this year.

Today we spent most of the day building stuff for tomorrow so we can try and get a few things done.

We have found about three or four possible things to do. So it should be a fun day.

Here is a little sneak peak at what we have planned for tomorrow.

So we are going to be taking off from where I'm standing at the top and landing in the bottom right of the frame. well... That's the plan anyway.

I'll put up another post with some more photo's after tomorrow.

SM

Shooting Guthuga

2009-06-20T17:48:00.000-07:00

Friday afternoon i got a message from Photographer Mike Cooper asking if i wanted to do some photo's the next day. Of course i wanted to get shreding but i wouldn't pass up a chance to get some good photo's.
So saturday morning, myself, Charlie Steinbacher and Matty Gillings all met up in Nuggets at 9 and discused what we where going to do. We all decided to head along the road to Guthuga and try to find something along there somewhere that would look cool.
We found something pretty quickly, it was a tree tap type deal.
We started to build the jump right away so we could session it. The speed for the jump was super fast and it didn't put you up very high so our approach changed a bit and we decided to start jumping through the tree we where tapping and another tree that was only about 1 or 2 metres away to the left.

Here are a few photo's from the day.

Issue two of snowboarder magazine.

2009-06-18T04:18:00.000-07:00

The second issue of Aust & NZ Snowboarder magazine has hit the shelves and i seem to have managed to score myself a nice little photo. Super stoked on this as it's my first real published photo.
The photo was from one of the days that Mike Cooper charlie and i went out to Charlottes and worked hard to get shots. Well all that hard work seems to have paid off and we both got shots from those days. Charlie's photo is the big one, mine is on the right.
anyways here is a snapshot of the page for you to have a look at. Also stayed tuned for my checkout coming in issue three.

First shred at the new perisher not so blue.

2009-06-09T23:41:00.000-07:00

I had to go and get my pass from the ticket office this morning which i couldn;t get without my letter from NSWIS. So after signing about 10 pages of forms i got my letter and then went and got my pass!
By now it was around noon so Andrew, Grace and I headed up the mountain for a bit of a shred. There was a lot more snow at perisher than i expected which got me stoked to go riding.
There where heaps of little hits around front valley and off to the sides. It was quick laps on the V8 back to the top. They have some little boxes up there which where fun to session.
For only one lift being open it was a very fun day.

SM

Home

2009-06-05T15:01:00.000-07:00

After 30+ hours of travel I'm finally at home in Jindabyne!
So i'm not allowed back at school for another week because of Swine Flu and what not, which i guess is kind of good because i can catch up on some of my school work.

It's pretty cold here at the moment and it's been raining alot too. Hopefully this rain turns into some snow so we can get up the mountain soon enough. The resort officially opens this weekend but aparently they are only going to have a rope-tow up on front valley.

Anyways i'll put up another post when i get to go riding or when Perisher gets some jumps up.

SM

Coming Home Early.

2009-06-02T14:11:00.000-07:00

Seeing as it's been raining for pretty much 3 days straight and it's getting even hotter we have made our decision to head home early as it is becoming near impossible to get good training sessions out of the pipe and there is no park.
On top of all this the pipe cutter is broken.
So we are leaving tomorrow morning to Reno at 7 in the morning then get some stuff done in Reno then fly from Reno to San Fran, the to Sydney i believe then I'm not sure if i go from Sydney to Canberra but I'm hoping i do.

My time in Mammoth has been super fun seeing as most of the time it's sunny in the morning then the clouds come over in the afternoon and let out a bit of rain. which isn't bad because we are usually off the hill by about eleven or twelve o'clock.
In the afternoon we usually go to the gym and have some fun on the tennis courts and do a bit of a workout.

Here are some photo's of where we where staying.

Jason, Myself, Charlie and Pat hanging out at the bottom of the pipe.

These two are our place. The second is where the pool is and where we can kick a footy and what not.

This Bird would come to our window ever afternoon.

So yea spring in Mammoth has been super fun now it's back home for our winter! I'm really looking forward to this season hopefully it will be just as much fun as the last.

Jason has done his shoulder again!!

2009-05-31T19:59:00.000-07:00

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?

2009-05-31T19:44:00.000-07:00

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...

2009-05-23T21:34:00.000-07:00

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.

2009-05-21T21:33:00.000-07:00

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.

2009-05-19T20:37:00.001-07:00

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!

2009-05-19T20:19:00.000-07:00

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...

2009-05-10T05:15:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-08T00:53:00.000-07:00

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!!

Colorado Video

2009-03-26T03:19:00.000-07:00

It's definatly been a long time since i got back from America. I've been flat out with school and what not but here is the video that i promised from Colorado.
It was all filmed in about a day or two, it was still good fun filming a little bit.

Anyways here it is... feel free to contact me about anything at murphy.sam@hotmail.com

CO Video from COMRADES on Vimeo.

SM

Copper

2009-02-03T21:23:00.000-08:00

It's coming towards the end of my trip so I thought i would give everyone a little look at what the facilities here at copper are like.
Usually the weather is pretty overcast but it never usually dumps snow (I met a guy that explained this to me the other day it has something to do with the weather systems not being able to make it over the pass "full" so by the time they squeeze over they are empty and we just get the clouds but not very much snow). This isn't such a bad thing as it keeps everything in good shape.
So here is a photo of one of the higher lifts on a bad veerryyyy cold day i think around -20.

Then there is the pipe that's built by Frank Wells and his team from Snowpark. It's Always in pristine shape which is really good as a training facility, having a reliable pipe
This is how the pipe looks on most days when it hasn't snowed at all.

Anyways I'll be back home in Australia in not too long. I think it's about a week. And i might even have a little video to post up on here for everyone to see.

SM

Revolution Tour Copper Mountain

2009-01-17T19:30:00.000-08:00

A few days ago i competed in the Copper Mountain leg of the Revolution tour which was a pretty stacked event. It was the kind of event you compete in to get a grasp of what is going on in the youthful American snowboard scene. Some of the tricks being thrown down where combination's of back to back 900's and 720 i even saw some 1080's in the mix. I couldn't manage to hold down a run all day which was getting frustrating but i still did what i could. My run wasn't enough to make it into the finals which was hotly contested.

Here is a photo from the competition:

SM

Welcome to my blog...

2009-01-17T17:35:00.000-08:00

I thought it was about time i should get my act together and make something on the web to keep everyone updated with whats going on with my snowboarding and travels. I'm going to try and keep it updated on a fortnightly basis. So check back every once in a while or you can subscribe with one of the Gadgets to the right.
If you would like some more info don't hesitate to e-mail me at murphy.sam@hotmail.com about anything.

SM