Surf | 4-25-13
Last night at one of my favourite places in the world (I realize I say that a lot – this one for real though)
Bolton Valley | March 30, 2013
Wednesday was amazing, lowest water content I’ve skied all season. Last year we had an epic 30″ dump of pure blower powder and Wed. was almost as good. I headed up early and met up with John Howland and Dane Weister, Wilderness and Timberline were both closed for the day so we had plenty of prime terrain for shooting. Four hikes later and a full memory card I found myself cruising home with some serious wind burn and a perma-grin. Enjoy the photos and get your butts up to the mountains this weekend.
Nemo | February 8-9, 2013
Well, it happened. Nemo is gone, having left over 2′ of snow across much of New England. I read about this storm all week and started to make a plan of attack for the weekend. Ryan Dunfee and I agreed somewhere in Central NH would be our best bet. As the storm drew nearer, we decided a night session at Crotched would be a good way to get things going. They ended up closing at 9pm instead of the normal 3am because of the high winds and deteriorating driving conditions. We ended up staying in a local B&B just off the mountain which was an amazing break from the 40 mph sustained winds outside. When the morning came around, the report was saying 26″ of new snow in the last 24 hours. We kept our options open so that if another resort in the region had gotten more snow, we could take off early in the AM but the decision was made to stick around. The drive to Ragged (reporting very similar snowfall) would take too long and we really had enjoyed ourselves the night before. We arrived to beautiful, low water content powder and a very empty ski hill.
After shooting all morning with Ryan while Max did some scenic photography, Ryan went in for a break. Max and I went out for a few turns before we headed back to the Seacoast and that’s when the trip turned a bit sour. Max landed pretty hard on a rock and blew out his knee. Ski Patrol was called (thanks to the party of skiers who went down to inform them) and we waited. Max seemed comfortable but it quickly became apparent that he would have to be taken down by sled. Turns out, it’s not his first ski patrol sled ride. Ski
Patrol arrived with the sled and helped Max down to the bottom. Thankfully, after four years of carrying these orange Voile ski straps around with me, I had a functional and semi-emergency use for them – I tied up his skis as well as both sets of poles and we headed down.
At the bottom we reorganized to headed back to the Seacoast, one man down. Special thanks to Jane, Geoff, Isaac and the other helpful Ski Patrol at Crotched, truly professionals. Also a thanks to John at the Crotched Mountain Inn, if you’re ever looking for a B&B in the area – this is the place to go. Hopefully Max’s MRI went well this morning and he can get back to shredding. Max is an extremely talented skier and photographer. Take a look at his work.
Mr. Dunfee has a wonderful piece up on powdermag.com that chronicles our adventures and includes some of my shots, have a look.
http://www.powdermag.com/stories/nightskiing-nemo/
The calm before the storm.
VeeTee BC | 2.13.12
This past Sunday I headed up to Bolton Valley once again, this time with my longtime friend Ryan Flynn. We suited up in the balmy 0 degree weather, we packed up our now slushy PBR’s & started the trek upwards. We crushed the skin to the view in about 40 minutes thanks to Ryan’s pace. Our mission was mainly recon, to scope lines for the next storm, although we’re not holding our breath. The turns were great, but after being plagued by slipping skins and a looming 3 hour drive home – we made the most of our last decent and headed south.
I spent the last couple days up at Cannon Mountain helping teach some kids from Belfast, Ireland how to crush it like a local. The basics were covered: callouts, pole whacking, radness yells, etc.
Mittersill | January 22 & 24, 2012
Snow cover in NH isn’t quite as solid as Northern Vermont right now but it’s still skiable. We spent a few days skinning the Mittersill at Cannon this weekend in search of their reported 12″ of snow. Well, they didn’t get 12″ inches but what they did get was as dry as it gets and it skied extremely well.
Late Week Snowstorm
This my best rendition I could muster from my Utah Trip during the holidays. 5 Resorts in 5 Days; Park City, Canyons, Deer Valley, Snowbasin & of course the almighty Alta.
Looks like a moderate snowstorm is shaping up for the mountains later this week. It’s still a little sketchy as to whether or not it will fall as RA*N or the white stuff but seriously, what a winter we’ve had so far…..this one is long overdue.
Some forecasters are predicting 15″+ for VT and ME….right now the Loaf looks like the sweet spot but we’ve got our hopes up for some green mountain shredding. Famous Internet Skiers weather desk has this one dialed – Check their report on the link below. Hoping to head up to northern VT on Friday or Saturday!
Spring Verses | Part 5 – April 17, 2011
I haven’t seen the ocean churning like it was this morning in a long time, we’ve had a massive snow year without having any significant winter swells. It has been a pretty busy spring as far as surfing goes, a swell each week for the last month or two. The buoys were reading 15ft+ this morning and it showed at the beach, a massive washing machine all over. Finally a few guys decided to give it a go at the Rocks and across the way at Linkys. Broken boards, barrels and beach weather make for an awesome day. I’m not going to touch on the crowded roads or the insane parking jobs that I saw today because I know it’s going to get worse as the summer goes on. I will mention that it’s important to be safe, if you have any doubts about going into big surf on any particular day…think twice and choose another day, there will always be waves NEXT spring!
Below slideshow photos (except for two landscape photos that I cannot seem to be able to remove) by: Lucas Van Oss (alpine live media)
March Madness | March 7-8, 2011
The Alpine-Live.com team constructed new mount for the Gopro this week and just as we came up with the idea a blurb on the weather showed up. At first it was a mild rain event, then a huge rain event, then a huge snow event. Places like Sugarbush were reporting 32″ before dark on Monday evening. I got up there Monday morning and stayed the night at the Bolton Hotel – super awesome experience and I will be staying there again in the near future.
A few of the boys joined me today (tues.) to get some leftovers at Bolton, Vista Quad had shut down around 1pm the day before and it was still snowing extremely hard so the hopes were up that Vista terrain would be real sick this morning, one because nobody had skied it all afternoon yesterday but also because the winds were wild and would refill the tracks from the morning. We got up around 8:00am to bluebird skies and zero wind, pretty much went all out from there until 1pm – pretty stoked on the whole trip, I’m always telling myself this but it may have been the best storm of the season. 
Below is Part 1 and Part 2 from March Madness at Bolton this week and a Bonus edit from our friend Ryan Dunfee over at SASS Global Travel from his latest trip to Powder Week at J-Hole.
Part 1 on Vimeo
Part 2 on Vimeo
Ryan’s Jackson Edit on Vimeo
Paradise | February 25-27, 2011
What a weekend, so much to write with so little energy. Firstly, I’d like to introduce our new rider Nick Goinos, a.k.a. ‘Mick Jager’, a.k.a. ‘THE Cuban Missle Crisis’. Nick was introduced to us through a mutual friend a few years back and we’ve been trying to schedule some riding time since. Finally this weekend we put it together, starting with a 9pm-3am night session at Crotched on Friday. It was super fun, they had gotten 12″ of snow during the day and wind was minimal on the lower mountain. We met up with Adam and his cousin Christian around 10:00pm and took a few laps down the park. Lucas and I were really impressed with the terrain park they have, some pretty serious hits towards the end of the big section. We all had a great time but theres limited terrain at Crotched and we needed to get up North.
Saturday | 2:00am – we left Crotched and the journey began, another 2 hours up to Lyndonville, VT to Nick’s cabin in the woods. The cabin is located half a mile from the main road and wasn’t plowed. Our hike in at 4:30am was pretty difficult but it kept the blood flowing — the cabin is off the power grid and is heated by a wood stove so that added to the adventure. ‘Mick’ had told us he had a sled at the house but that it had broken down the last trip up there, after getting the fire started and putting our packs down we went straight into the garage and took a peek. First pull this thing started up and it was on.
After we got wood together and had a little nap we took the machine for a few runs around the field and initiated the festivities. We started in on the Jagermeister, Brandy and Bud Light and stopped operating the sled all together – not riding on the 36 acre field of deep blower powder what-so-ever, no over the head powder whilst screaming at the top of my lungs going 75 mph, nada, zero. 
After a sweet gas powered bonfire and some deer blood we passed out — waking bright and early at 6:00am to another 3″ of new snow on the field. We packed up the gear and lapped it back to the car with the sled, onto Bolton. Below is the sunrise in Lyndonville at Nick’s pad.
Nick’s first rodeo at Bolton and it was a blast, a little bit dust on crust but they were reporting an 18″ storm total since Friday morning. The whole weekend is still a blur, we already have the next trip in the makings so stay tuned.
Side Note | Andy called today – he’s back in Jackson, WY from his 13 day adventure living in a snow cave out beyond the gates at Grand Targhee. They received over 30″ of snow in one 24 hour period, but he’s making a big trip report and I’ll let him chronicle the expedition.
Tenney | February 2, 2011
Tenney was the choice today — moderately close to home and we found some good stuff there last week. Andy Elliot joined us today — Alpine-Live.com team rider.
It was snowing heavily all morning and we measured around 8″ up top by noon. We got some solid footage and photos despite the terrible lighting and snowfall rate. It’s deep out there folks — take the day off tomorrow!
We’re headed to VT!
Storm to effect the Northeast
It’s now almost guaranteed that the entire Northeast will see atleast a foot by Thursday morning, get your gear packed and schedule your days off of work! The Alpine-Live.com crew will be shredding Vermont for the majority of the week so stay tuned!
GET STOKED!!
Tenney | January 27, 2011
Got a late start today and decided on Tenney Mountain, a recently closed resort located off the Plymouth, NH exit. Andy heard this place had some good terrain and it’s moderately close to home compared to our regular adventures. The place was a ghost town but there was a lot of cat tracks running up and down the trails, almost like someone’s been doing snowcat laps. There is some awesome stuff over to the skier’s left but the majority of the main trails still had a ways to go until it could be considered full coverage. We had a great time anyways and prospected some stuff for future trips. Finally replaced the broken D5000 with a Nikon D3100, here are some photos…back to the grind tomorrow.
Andy just bought a splitboard — much more accessibility.
The up.
Next time we know where to go.
Shot from my backyard, these most recent storms have been all coastal, hopefully things turn around.
