Return of Winter (Part 3) | January 21, 2014
What a ride it’s been.
So grateful to have a patient touring crew for Tuesday, -10 degrees and not a single complaint all day from anyone. We checked out an old zone that I haven’t ventured into this season and it paid off pretty well. Bolton was reporting like 10″ since the weekend started but it seems as though this East aspect we were skiing (Bolton being West) had atleast another 4-5″. Our crew consisted of John Howland, Sam Chalek, Ryan Kinner and a wonderful new addition – Morgan Marzo. Enjoy!
January 23, 2014 | Categories: Bolton, Snow Related | Tags: alpine live media, alpine-live, alpinelive, backcountry, bolton, Bolton Valley, east coast, january 21 2014, Powder, powder skiing, Ski Touring, Skiing, Snowboarding, vermont, VT | Leave a comment
Friday October 18, 2013
Sunrise session with minimal crowds, game on.
October 21, 2013 | Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: alpine live, alpine-live, Alpine-live.com, alpinelive, east coast, new england, new england surf, new hampshire, new hampshire surf, new hampshire surfing, surf photos, weather | Leave a comment
Fall on the Seacoast | October 1, 2013
Finally! What a release.
After a long, flat, ordinary summer and a dismal hurricane season (so far?), we’ve received a welcomed autumn swell. The small Easterly swell direction and funky tide made for wobbly and sometimes walled out conditions in many of our favorite spots. Alternatively, it lit up some not-so-frequented spots along the coast that accept the E swell exclusively. Regardless, I spent most of the morning Tuesday doing the run around bullshit. The ‘is it better over there?’ complex.
I face this conflict all the time when we go skiing. I ski at Bolton enough to know what spots will be poached first and which spots don’t see much traffic. The conflict often arises on powder days, evaluating the risk/reward for going to spot A on first chair vs. spot B or C? The classic maneuver is leaving your super secret stash for later in the day because you’re confident no one’s going to poach it. It’s more practical to ski out the more popular and usually better/steeper/deeper terrain until it’s tracked out.
Short but semi-relative tangent – My brother used to tell me that when he arrived in Bozeman, MT in 2007 and got his first season pass to Bridger, The Ridge terrain was preserved until the afternoon. Skiers wouldn’t hike The Ridge from first chair, primarily because everyone was under the ‘code’ that inbounds terrain was first to get tracked out and when it’s done, then everyone can pillage the ridge. This was well before the Slushman’s backcountry access lift was put in.
You’d think that a new lift put in place to turn previously out of bounds terrain into new resort sidecountry might help to spread skiers out but instead it seemed to just add more chaos, and with the chaos came the cave-in and relinquishment of the ‘code’. It’s difficult to draw a parallel here and I guess there’s really no way to compare the two sports in this manner.
…..BUT if there ever was a similar code in surfing, the last bit of the foundation caved in when the first stand up paddled into a wave.
Crowds aside, most of the time these small one day swell windows make for crunch time decisions on the high tide. My solution is simple, and probably common:
Follow the speed limit and scope every friggin spot in question.
At the least get some recon from a friend. As annoying and unnecessary as it may sound, I can relax knowing I made the best possible decision. Additionally, for as long as I can remember I haven’t had to endure any ‘Oh man, you should have been there’.
I’m sure everyone scored on this last swell. It looked like there were good waves at every spot I passed but for me, in the end it’s about the adventure and maximizing the potential of the day, the lighting, the subject or the equipment and it’s also about producing an image I’m happy and confident showing to other people. Unfortunately for me, these photos just don’t come from simply driving down to Rye and clicking the shutter.
The photographer has the ability to reference the images and prove that the team has made the best decision, in the case that they did make the best decision. Unfortunately Matt and I didn’t win on any images Tuesday, we didn’t even come close – but it’s good to work the rust out, remind the surfer of his weaknesses (just kidding, not his flailing arms) and explore new spots that we’ve never seen break.
DAMNNN it feels good to be shooting at the ocean again.
A little all over the place on today’s blog – it’s been a while since I posted anything and I may be in a state of seasonal confusion.
October 3, 2013 | Categories: Bolton, Surf Photos, Surf Related | Tags: alpine live, Alpine-live.com, alpinelive, bolton, Bolton Valley, Bozeman, bozeman montana, Bridger Bowl, bridget bowl, east coast, hurricane forecasting, hurricane swell, new england surf, new hampshire surf, ryan denning photography, Skiing, slushman's, slushman's lift, surf photography, surf photos | Leave a comment
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.
March 22, 2013 | Categories: Snow Photos, Storm Chasing | Tags: alpine live, Alpine-live.com, alpinelive, bolton, Bolton Valley, east coast, new england, Powder, powder skiing, ski, Skiing, Snowboarding, vermont, vermont powder, VT, vt skiing, weather | Leave a comment
Surf | November 13, 2010
Chyea, solid today.
November 13, 2010 | Categories: Snow Photos, Snow Related | Tags: 2010 hurricane season, alpine-live, Alpine-live.com, east coast, forecast, hurricane forecast, hurricane forecasting, hurricane swell, Maine, new england, new england surf, new hampshire, new hampshire surf, new hampshire surfing, surf, surf photos, surfing, winter weather | Leave a comment
Surf | 11-6-10
Woke up this morning absurdly early because my sleep schedule is mangled, I could hear the ocean from my house and that usually means it’s pretty well raging. Stevie O’Hara from Pioneers was absolutely shredding, the majority of these photos are of him.
Edited to add that Kelly Slater has also won his 10th world title today. No one else in sports history has won 10 world titles. Congratulations Kelly!
November 6, 2010 | Categories: Surf Photos, Surf Related | Tags: 2010 hurricane season, east coast, hurricane forecasting, hurricane swell, Maine, mexico, Mike Stanek, new england, new england surf, new hampshire, new hampshire surf, new hampshire surfing, pioneers surf shop, steve o'hara, surf, surf forecast, surf photos, surfing, tobey parke, winter weather | Leave a comment
Sunday River | Snow Gun Testing
It looks as though the temperature dipped into the 20s last night up in Newry, ME and Sunday River got a chance to test out 40 snow fans on South Ridge and 40 tower guns on Locke Mountain in preparation for the upcoming season. They’re hoping to be open by mid November, last year they were open for a total of 6 months and 6 days which is pretty impressive. For the last three seasons Sunday River has been the first to open on the EC……they’re hoping to make it happen again this year. Check out the video here: Snow Test
December 2009 @ Sunday River, lets just hope December is that deep this season.
Photo: Barrett Cox
PRAY FOR SNOW
October 10, 2010 | Categories: Snow Photos, Snow Related | Tags: east coast, first resort open, snow guns, snow making, Sunday River | Leave a comment
Some Local Flavor
This was shot by a VT Local, Chris Nelson.
Edit: We don’t know these guys but Mammoth got an early season teaser with something near 5 inches, check out this little pre-season, first-of-the-season edit..
October 6, 2010 | Categories: Snow Photos, Snow Related | Tags: Chris Nelson, east coast, East Coast Powder Skiing, powder skiing, Smugglers', TGR, vermont, VT | Leave a comment