USOPEN @ VAIL

The USOPEN at Vail this year enjoyed perfect event weather.  Sunny and no wind is perfect for Slopestyle and Pipe.   I had a blast riding around Vail with Retailers and following my buddy Joe Curtes around his Local Mountain.   We did a Minturn Mile run where we had 86 people and that was Nuts.  The Japanese riders brought the Heat and ended up taking 1st in Slope and Pipe.  Great Event.

chair shot

Joe Curtes and I with Retro Customs , Available Nov 2015 

20 years of Custom 

Tail grab photo,by Zach Nigro 

Selfie

86 people before dropping into the Minturn Mile 

Gretchen and Deborah from Squaw 

Stretching and Texting 

Pow Wow

There is a really cool event in Jackson Hole called the Pow Wow.   Rob Kingwill is the man putting on this event and its really cool.   Basically its just a bunch of people (120+) getting together to ride and enjoy some cool new Shapes from the 25 Brands that are there.   The Snow this year wasn't that great, but man it was fun riding around with People and getting people stoked on riding directional shape boards.  Hope Next year there is some deep Pow Pow :-)

Teton's 

Wood Fishes

Gentem snowboards

Gondola ride with Milosport dudes

Tim Shreddy Eddy

Me, Yoder, Eddy,Alex Andrews

Ed is from Spain, can you tell? 

Froth

Splitboarding

I've been split-boarding for a long time now.  I first discovered this gadget when i was living in Utah in 1995.   My Friend Brad Scheuffele was working at Salty Peaks at the time and they had a Voile Split-board as a demo.   I took it out in the Wasatch to a place i was Snowshoeing before and i was blown away at the ease of Skinning up instead of lifting your foot and climbing.  I got in like 5 runs and normally i would have gotten maybe 2.  Another Thing i was blown away was that the fact that you didn't have to carry your board up,,  The same thing you were using to climb up was the same thing you were riding down on.   I ended up Filming a Whole Video Part on a Burton Split-board for TB9.   I wanted to show people that these boards could be ridden in all typed of terrain in the backcountry.   Today I still Love when i get a chance to get out and skin around in the backcountry, but i don't get to do it as much as i'd like.  The new setup i'm riding is a Landlord split,  Hitchhiker bindings ( Colabaraton between Spark R&D and Burton ) G3 Skins and Black Diamond Poles.  The puck system with Volie/Burton for the Channel is so easy to adjust and get your correct stance.  These photos were from a Day in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in early Feb 2015.

Selfie 

Skier going up 

selfie up top 

Snowboard mode 

Ski Mode 

Skinning up