After a month of Summer, it’s finally snowing around the country. Good thing, snowmaking only goes so far and the masses don’t recognize a small pile of man-made as a powder day, nor should they.
Mammoth is reporting 29″ at their Main Lodge so far and is currently collecting more, Tahoe reports 8-12″ (less due to lower elevation and high snow levels on Friday.) SoCal came up with a whole bunch of rain and not much else unless you count a mediocre night of snowmaking. Another storm is rolling in as I type, pictured above, which is forecasted to bring anywhere from 4-18″. That’s quite the spread but no one can seem to agree on a total, so let’s use the old stand-by and count it as it falls. 6″ would be great, 12″ is a party, does that sound agreeable? I’ll update tonight when the snow starts stacking up.
This video is awesome. Torstein takes on a skier in the park. Money quote “can you guys do frontside/backside.” On a side note, Keystone’s park looks on point.
I watched quite a bit of the Dew Tour this past weekend. All four of the events were solid, skiing slope and pipe as well as snowboarding slope and pipe. Shaun White did his thing, scoring a 95 and defeating Vito. Tom Wallish threw down during skiing slopestyle taking the gold. Throughout the broadcast I heard a variety of things that seemed a little be odd. How can a sport that has two different boards, stands in a different direction, and has to hold on to two poles have the same tricks as a board sport.
Skier after skier dropped, and over and over I heard grabs like japans, and mutes. How can you do a Japan grab on skis? A grab originally from skateboarding that requires you to grab on to a singular object and tweak it like no other. Below is Tony Tsuruda throwing a Japan Air on his skateboard back in ’88.
Notice the board being grabbed and tweaked back behind his body? This is a Japan Air. This trick is not possible when you have two objects on your feet and you are standing forwards. I am not here trying to say skiing is dumb, quite the opposite. Freestyle skiing has exploded in the past several years with major influence from all action sports. It is in the mainstream more than ever and it is time for freeskiing to start moving in their own direction. Below is a Japan Air on Skis:
There is not even the slightest resemblance in a skiing Japan as their is to one on a snowboard or a skateboard. It is physically impossible to perform that trick with the given equipment.
Nick Mueller, inverted Japan air, sick.
Moving along, some of the greatest advancements in action sports filming came from one company: Mack Dawg Productions. The now retired production company have filmed some of the greatest movies in the history of snowboarding. Below is the famous night powder part from “Picture This” released in 2007.
Now in 2011, Level 1 productions come out with the movie “After Dark.” While expanding on the concept of filming at night, many of the lightning and filming aspects of backcountry powder sessions is very similar. Four years after Mack Dawg.
Remember how most of us were dressing in 2008?
Here were are in 2011 as skiers:
Skiing you are doing fine…I just feel you need start moving in your own direction.
P.S. At least Skiing won’t embrace the travesty of tight pants…
Yesterday, Kevin Pearce rode his snowboard for the first time in nearly two years. It’s great to see Kevin back up on the mountains of Colorado. He was joined by several locals for his first laps of the season. Although not doing anything too crazy, it looks like Kevin remembers how to ride his board. It will be interesting to see where Kevin goes with his career form here. Kevin, Congratulations on your recovery and good luck.
Check out this slopestyle course for this weekends Dew Tour even. This course is massive featuring 4 big jumps, a number of technical rails, and a crazy up rail over stairs with an optional up wallride over the staircase. This is going to be sick, finals are on Sunday.
Was the idea for Bear Mountain’s “Hot Dawgs and Handrails stolen?” I don’t know, but this video raises some serious questions. What do you think? Freestyle skiing in the 1970′s is interesting!
“Scenario (Remix)” appeared on the B-side of the 12″ single and cassette single as well as the limited edition release of the group’s final album, The Love Movement (1998). The remix also features Leaders of the New School and newcomer rapper Kid Hood, who was murdered three days after recording his verse. Blender magazine ranked the remix at number 216 in its list of “The 500 Greatest Songs Since You Were Born”.[3]
