Rip Curl Pow Shred

Last week the awesome people at Rip Curl Canada decided to fly Tim (my co-worker from our Burlington store) & myself to BC for a quick day of catboarding.  Why?  Pretty much just cuz they're rad I think.  What's catboarding?  It's when you get into one of these:

  

(actual cat we piled into)

So that you can shred terrain like this:



(actual run we did)

The travel itinerary looked foreboding:  the plan was for us to catch a 7am flight out of TO to Vancouver then boot over to the Rip Curl offices for a little chat then jump in vehicles & start in on an impressive drive to Rossland BC.  The first flaw in this fine plan was when I missed my flight.  Yep, first time for everything I guess.  Slept right through my 2am alarm & woke up to the sound of Tim texting my phone: "en route to the airport, how you doing?".  I was not doing good at all, in fact I was pretty much having a hernia.  I had enough foresight to pack the night before so in a mad scramble I frantically threw everything in my car & stomped on the gas.            

       Leaving Huntsville @ just after 5am for a 7am flight is like trying to get into The Pub at 7pm on St. Patty's day - not happening.  Nonetheless, I made the effort & my poor car valiantly reached new speeeds and I rolled into the airport at the exact time my plane was taking off.  Fortunately, Vancouver is a popular spot, and thanks to Tim's research I was able to catch a flight just an hour and a half later @ 8:30, upon landing I would have to just cab it across Vancouver to the RipCurl offices.  Disaster averted.

       I had planned to meet my friend and former roommate Tick at the aiport for a quick bit of bro time as he lives out there now & I rarely see him but I hadn't counted on missing my flight.



Tick.



Thankfully he didn't have much else to do that day because he actually stuck around & was waiting with 2 empty coffee cups when I stumbled into the luggage zone. Bro time was had while I waited for my board bag to get spat out & then we both hopped in a cab & headed to North Van.  After dropping Tick at a skytrain station I ended up @ The RipCurl Head Office to some well deserved razzing after which we promptly hucked our bags on the top of the rented Navigators (yeah, RipCurl does it proper) & headed out of town.

I love driving in BC, and it had been a while.  As we made our way out of Vancouver the scenery turned from foggy and flat to mountainous and beautiful and us Ontario boys, tired as we were, ate it up.

We stopped in Hope for a truck stop lunch.
Going by the graffiti in the bathroom stall
there wasn't much hope in Hope.


We soon picked up libations that fit conveniently in the cooler-type compartment in the middle of the Navigator as well as other posse members and continued on to Kelowna.  There we met up with the other Nav which was filled with Rip Curl dudes plus some retail folks that had won sales contests in their respective shops & thus were also in for some catboarding the next day.  After many road beers and a stop at a wicked pizza joint we rolled into Rossland.

I forget what this place was called or where it
was, but the pizza was ammmmazing.

The Chalet the RipCurl guys had was right at Red Mountain, & was dope.  4 or 5 bedrooms + a hot tub on the deck is my kind of chalet.  After finally unloading and finding rooms it was about 11pm, - factoring in the time difference it meant that Tim & I had been awake and sitting on our asses in planes & other vehicles for a long, long time.  We were slightly drunk, full, happy, and were dead asleep very quickly.

The next morning I woke up extra early (somehow) for 2 reasons:  I was sore and having some kind of idea of what I was in for that coming day, I needed to try to become unsore.  Hot tubs are awesome for that, and so while I watched the 6am snow fall on Red Mountain I stretched as best I could and got stoked for the day.
       By 8:30 everyone was geared up and hanging out in the living room where we met one of our guides for the day, a radical Aussie named Keiran who was also one of the proprietors of the catskiing operation we would be with all day, Big Red Cats.  Waivers were signed, we all piled into a party bus and eventually unloaded after 20 minutes of upward driving at "the pit".  The pit is the staging area where we would be going over avalanche safety procedures, loading into the cats & then heading the rest of the way up into Big Red Cat's 20,000 acre tenure in the range behind Red Mountain. 
       As our other guide Chris went over avalanche safety with our group I quickly came to realize that this was not going to be anything like even my few times riding tracked out pow days in Whistler.  Judging from the looks Tim was trading with me as we strapped on avalanche transceivers, he felt the same. 


More than happy to wear one.



After a quick practice session searching for each other (actually our transcievers) under the snow, we all piled into the cat, it lurched into gear, & we continued our journey upwards.

What followed was the best day of snowboarding of my life.  The top of our first run was breathtaking because a) I was pretty much scared of ending up in a tree well my 1st run but also because b) there was sweet, sweet knee to thigh deep powder in all directions.  Even the members of our group that had done this before were beyond stoked on the conditions, so we knew we were in for some gnarly riding, and that's exactly what we got.  It took 2 runs for Tim & I (the only Ontarians) to get our powder legs, and from then on in it was face shots, huge layed out slashes & giant smiles the rest of the day.



Timmy, stoked.



The runs were diverse & our guides were amazing - right away you could tell they knew the terrain inside & out and clearly loved their jobs (no doubt).  What does it feel like to ride powder like that?  One word: floating. We cruised wide open powder fields, tight trees, steep stuff, burnt tree zones & for a few of the shredders whose riding clearly indicated they had put in some heavy days this season, cliffs.  It was so rad to watch Rip Curl dudes Myro & Drew, as well as other posse members & our guide Chris send it off cliffs & drops from the bottom of a run.  Awesome.  

 

The only glitch during my epic day came on the 2nd run that I decided to film with my helmet-mounted gopro.  Using this trip as the perfect excuse, I had picked one up 2 days beforehand and was stoked to try it out.  The sticky mount that held the cam onto my helmet seemed pretty secure, a perceived fact that I had even mentioned on the cat ride up.  About 3 quarters down our second run, with my cam happily filming away, my general stoke-age overcame me & I cranked up my speed, popped off a roller & promptly cartwheeled, starting with my head, into a giant mound of snow.  The first thing I noticed, other than that it feels great to fall into powder, was that my gopro, inlcuding helmet mount, was long gone.  After frantically looking uphill towards my bombhole I quickly realized that the chances of finding my cam in 40 sq ft of knee deep powder were about the same as winning a Toyota on Roll Up The Rim.  Luckily for me, Tim was sticking with the buddy system & had stopped up above.  After frantically digging up snow, even more frantically after I realized everyone was waiting at the bottom for us, Tim came up with gold at the exact moment I had stood up to leave it for the bears.  Thank You Tim - there would've been that oh-so-bitter edge to the day if it were not for your methodical chopping search method.  Stoked, we rocketed through the rest of the run and jumped into the cat to continue with our awesome day.                              

 For footage of this little tumble, check the footy to the left  - when it's clear the camera is buried, fast forward a bit, cuz I don't know how to edit these little vids yet, sorry                          

The rest of the day was epic, and we wrapped things up after an impressive 11 runs (even by the guide's standards they said) and smiling like retards we headed back to the chalet.  A hot tub session avec beers was definitely in order and after some dude soup time, we exited the tub & freshies in hand were treated to an amazingly delicious catered dinner that stuffed us all to our eyeballs.  After dinner mandatory Shot Ski shots were done by all, using the nicest custom made shotski that I have ever laid eyes on.  Really, a custom made shotski, with double sized skiboot shaped shot glasses.  Now Drew had cleverly gone into town before dinner and picked up a pile of beer, which we got right into & managed to completely decimate by the end of the night.  Beers turned into drinking games and those that had gotten past the exhaustion level sat down to an intense game of ZOO.

It would have taken at least 3 buckets of water to wake me up from my sleep that night, but it was another early morning the next day that saw us all half-heartedly toss our board bags back onto the top of the trucks and head back out on the road.  After a delicious lunch at a sweet euro deli in Kelowna & lots of high fives Tim & I caught a flight back to Van and finally Toronto.  Being weird, I can't sleep on planes and by the time I rolled my board bag outta the aiport it was almost midnight EST and I was starting to get to that strange beyond tired point where people probably start to see things.  Undeterred I chugged the coffee that Tim's mom was gracious enough to provide for Tim & I upon arrival, jumped in my poor car once again & this time made my way slowly home.  My car though, still harbouring feelings of hostility about its treatment on the way to the airport, had other ideas. After making sure the fuel gauge was not working it promptly ran out of gas right before Barrie.  Which meant after a friendly cop & finally the weird CAA dude stopped by, I rolled into Huntsville around 3am.  I only mention this, because even with the rattling start & end to my trip, it was still worth every second.  

       HUGE thanks to everyone at Rip Curl Canada that made this happen, Chris & Keiran @ Big Red Cats & all the awesome people I met on this trip who made it epic!  Cheers!

http://www.ripcurl.com/

http://www.bigredcats.com/

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?id=515222261&aid=293551#!/pages/Surf-Paradise-Huntsville/166519540065757

  

The weekend & also my fear of tree wells & flying.

       Weather aside, this weekend was quite nice - as in no craziness, no drama, no retardation, which when you have a 7am flight on Monday morning is a good thing. Friday night I checked out of the pub early only to learn that when you leave your door unlocked for friends that may need a couch to crash on, you may have 3am visitors.

      My pilot friend Tobin was in town for the weekend which was awesome because pilot schedules are pretty crazy so whenever he has time to spend in Huntsville it's good stuff.  However, he came down with some kind of crazy migraine deal pretty much as soon as he got here and headed home after a couple. It just sucked that I had no Advil or Tylenol (as per his request) on hand to help him out.  I know it sounds weird but I just literally never take that shit so I don't really have any in that spot behind the bathroom mirror that most normal humans do.  My bad - sorry Tobs - a good "hey how are ya" Friday night was had tho, all traveled safe.  Afterwards, I went down to the pub with the boys (Ben, Cory, & later Tebby & Lev) for a couple pints.  

       Now I don't know about you, but when a place is super mellow, & you're already feeling mellow it doesn't exactly make you want to rage, even if you are kinda tipsy.  So after a couple tunes & pints of Sapporo I grabbed a slice of pepperoni & hit the hay.  It wasn't until the next day that I learned that Cory Ben & Tebby had paid a clandestine visit to my abode to collect Tebby's 26 of Vodka that had been residing in my freezer since the other weekend. (I don't drink hard liquor).  It's kind of a weird feeling to know that people were in your joint doing whatever while you're passed out haha - I'll deal.

    Saturday night was live - all the homies over, doing silly shit, being dumb, shotgunning PBR, whatever - it was sweet.  Sweeter was when we all (Mopey, Ben, Tebby, Cory, Tobin) traipsed down to the pub at about 1:00 to find the place all but empty but receptive to drunks.  When you're drunk you're drunk & one of the awesome things about the pub is being there on a night when you and your crew can just wild out, which is what we did.  Refilling pints behind the bar?  Check - long as you pay for it.  Slide your tunes onto the system?  Check - long as it's not shit.  Gracious thank you's to Sass & Bridget - thanks sweethearts!!!  I don't mean that in a demeaning kind of way, these girls put up with Drunk Cory + all the rest of us AND played our tunes.  That's what you call serving your base - making a good night for those you know will be back.

        Anywho, Saturday night was awesome - after party @ my place including bongo drums & then slept right through that annoying daylight savings crap. Had a tasty breakfast at Louis II with James Ben & Lev around noon or whatever on Sunday.  Followed up with a solid Sunday afternoon loiter right in front of that wack t-shirt place - Big Bear or whatever.  

       Now I know you're probly thinking - skid material.  No doubt - I don't disagree.  But there was a hole in the concrete between the sidewalk & that store's front stoop. And there is nothing that draws a pack of hungover dudes's attention meandering down the street more than a crack in the sidewalk.  This thing looked like it could quite possibly be a gaping peek-hole into the depths of the abyss.  So like drooling retards watching CNN we promptly formed a semi-circle around the potential satanic volcanic eruption and hypothesized.  After about 5 minutes of poking & peering our loitering caught the store operator's attention -  not wanting to jeopardize potential business opportunities due to lurkers behaving like retards in front of his store he walked out & asked us how we were doing.  Very nice of him, but as any moron could see at a glance, we were 4 hungover dudes checking out a hole in the sidewalk - we were doing Awesome, thanks.  Turns out he was as interested in the Gaping Hole of Liability Hell as we were & we were soon carrying on a jaunty conversation followed by Tebby throwing down an impromptu dice game.

       The fellas & I split off after a wake-me-up drink at the Pub when decided not to partake in their Sunday Nature Walk and started slowly packing instead. 

       Yep, packing - I suck at it.  Heading out West for a quick 3 days of schmoozing, drinking & some catboarding, courtesy of Rip Curl.  Pics & article to follow, as long as I don't die in a tree well or avalanche.

http://www.bigredcatskiing.com/

Cheers!!     

Funnel Cup Synopsis 2011, or "why I was hungover for 5 days."

Hope you're all not enjoying this March 9th snow as much as I'm not.  Geeeez - I mean, yes, I like that we can snowboard into the middle of March now and whatever, but while I scraped off my encrusted car after work today for the billionth time this winter I just got soooo angry.  Like wanted to punch every single one of the horizontally flying flakes in the neck.  Anyways.

I previously mentioned something about about the Funnel Cup and whoever might accidentally read this thing probably won't care, but I feel the need to briefly summarize the events of that weekend.  Kind of like making a mental sausage - all the floor scraps and body parts get hucked into the machine (my brain) and then come out as a consumable & even tasty little item.

This is the friggin awesome poster that my friend Ben made for said event.  The Funnel Cup is an annual "hockey" tournament graciously hosted by my friend Lev at his cottage on Fairy lake, Huntsville Ontario.  He and his friends created TFC years ago as a fine excuse to spend a weekend on the ice getting completely sideways, and as we became friends with Lev he invited my friends and I to join in.  Now I use "quotes" around hockey because you're probly thinking about pond hockey with skates, gear etc. Due to the fact that very few of us come from an actual hockey background and doing anything on skates while quaffing copious amounts of beer is never a clever idea we stick to boots, sticks and jerseys.  As pictured below.







Aside from that, it works much like you would think but with a few additions - yes, there are two teams, chosen in a draft on the Friday night of the weekend, play goes all day on Saturday, and of course there's a

trophy.  Sunday is for feeling sore and shitty and possibly drinking more.  The additives are what makes it extra special - a keg is placed on the ice and whenever a goal is scored a lucky volunteer on the scored-upon team has to do a funnel.  (hence the name Funnel Cup - clever, no?) At random times the funnel will also include 1 or 2 shots out of a texas of whiskey just to keep things interesting.  Play usually starts around 11am, when our collective hangover from the night before starts to kick in, & by the time dusk rolls across the lake everyone is working pretty hard to put proper sentences together, never mind maintain hockey-type balance on the ice.  There have been serious injuries in the past requiring infrequent hospitalization but nothing crazy.  Here's a short run down:
Friday:  everyone made their way to Golden Pheasant Ice Dome (Lev's Cottage) where entry was gained by a)quaffing a 2 beer, 2 shot funnel, and b) donning any hockey jersey that fit.  Beers flowed, sometimes down a tube. After everyone showed up and hit enough to be feeling pleasant, we attempted to cab into town for the traditional Team Draft at any drinking establishment that would grant entry to 15 or so drunk gentlemen wearing mismatching hockey jerseys.  Here's where things went slightly awry - the first cab of people got into the prearranged Pub meeting spot no prob.  However, when the 2nd larger cab load showed up at the door entry was denied on the logical basis of having waaay too many drunk dudes in hockey jerseys pour into an already packed pub.  Thus, the group got split up with some of us staying at the Pub and getting more drunk and the other group going to The Cottage and also getting more drunk.  A slippery time was had by all and Teams were drawn up in slurred drawl by Master Of Ceremonies Lev at some point during the night.

       Saturday we awoke to sunshine with a perfect temp of about -4.  This kind of weather on a day off does nothing but make you thirsty.  Us townies headed back out to the Ice Dome as soon as we could scarf down some breakfast, grab beer (just in case, you know) and get a lift out there as we were still in no condition to be behind a wheel.  The keg was tapped, play commenced and an epic Saturday on Fairy lake went down.  The teams were pretty even so everyone got their fair share of Funnel action and by about 5 o'clock we were happy, drunk, hungry, tired, drunk, and somehow still thirsty.


Having a chef at these kinds of times is a blessed thing, and while we were all settling into couches for more beer Dylan went to work on a pulled pork feast that left those that partook extremely full.  Slightly lethargic but still somehow thirsty the night went downhill from here.  The texas of whiskey was suddenly finished.  Well, not gone, but had transformed itself from Whiskey to Trouble Soup somewhere inside us.  Not realizing or caring how much we all looked and smelled like we'd spent the day pulling dog sleds at the Kearney Dogsled Races we oozed into cabs and headed for town - again.  For reasons that were somehow made clear in a list available elsewhere, as everyone fell out of our rides in front of The Cottage & tripped towards the door I grabbed my beer & trudged through the snow back to my place.  Sweatpants and all.  After getting home and cracking beer #436 I came to convince myself that no matter what had happened throughout the day, and last night, I was simply not tired.  And so I got on my text machine and ascertained that a section of the group feeling much like myself had absconded to Cory's hot tub, just across town.  Tebby was one of them, and was definitely not ready for bed.  
       And so it ended up that along with Hughes & Katie, who were also feeling Saturday night frisky, I re-joined what was left of the group at Cory's house around 3am.  Cory, being a gentleman, soon had everyone displacing many liters of H2O in the hot tub while we drained whatever was left of any alcohol that was crazy enough to hang around.
       Watching the sun rise from a hot tub is pretty much the best thing to see before going to bed, and that's exactly what we did.
       Sunday morning is Hangover Cottage Cleaning time, which is the WORST unless you lightly grease the Wheels of Labour with...Beer.  Clean up finished, good byes said, I left the cottage occupants to their afternoon Kurt Russell movie and headed into town.  I stopped by Cory's briefly to make sure he was alive to find him and Tebby in Couch Comas after consuming what looked like a double family sized meal of Chinese, a stunning feat considering. I took a quick peek at the hot tub after which I got outta there as fast as possible.  I occupied myself the rest of the day by drinking the boringness right out of The Most Dreadful Academy Awards Ever, which in retrospect may have not been the best idea.  Looking back now it seemed like the most sensible thing to do - always does.  I awoke Monday morning (barely) feeling like I had shaved 5 years off my life & was reduced to behaving like a drooling retard with a bag of wet sawdust for a brain.  And thus went my week.
        I was to find out that pretty much every Funnel Cup participant felt along the same lines, which made me feel a bit better and made us all realize we just polished off a simply amazing weekend.

2012 is going to be insane.

Happy Wednesday, and thanks for reading this far.  Below - one of my favorite videos/tracks of all time.

                                                                                                

It's Monday in March....

And after this weekend's pounding of snow my March patio hopes have been pushed back a fair bit.  I've been thinking nice Monday thoughts like "I promise to never ever take summer for granted again" which I don't think I do, but times like these makes t-shirt weather seem way too far off.

The weekend: extremely mellow, which after the previous weekend makes total sense & about the only option that was on my excitement/party menu.  That is directly due to the infamous Funnel Cup Tournament, which I'll get to in a bit.

So Saturday night my friends and I attended a very nice semi-surprise party @ the Good 'Ol Huntsville Legion.  This place is awesome - beer is $3.75, there's 80's tunes, good people etc. & you have to take your hat off because there's portraits of Her Majesty on the wall and I guess that's just the rule when in the presence of a likeness of the Queen, no matter how faded and smoke stained.

Anyways, having left the party for a quick jaunt to the pub to catch Waterhouse live I checked out early with a take-home Sapporo glass and hit the proverbial hay.  Ben and Tebby followed later, ending up at my place after what looked like a pretty productive post 2am trip to Mac's (pizza pops, energy drink, gummy bears etc.).

 All in all a very average, chill kind of night by Huntsville standards.  It wasn't til Sunday morning rolled around that the trouble started. Tebby and Benny awoke on my couch & armchair respectively to find that their vehicles, which they had parked in front of my place to be Good Folks & not drive home tipsy, were GONE.  Not There.

Now the reason I use CAPS is because there have been many times when we've all parked our vehicles overnight there, right on Main st., either because I'm too lazy to drive around the building to my spot or because there's too many people over for other parking options. But NEVER has anyone woken up/come back to find their wheels not there.  After the hungover shocked feelings faded, thoughts were thought: theft was quickly ruled out as both vehicles were gone and there's no car thieves in Huntsville that industrious, also it had puked snow all night & the need to scrape the streets might have something to do with the situation.

To make a long & still ongoing story short, cuss words were cussed and after far too many phone calls it was determined that the inconsiderate jerks shown below, pictured sans the grade school educated doorknobs that drive them, were to blame.

Yes, the Town of Huntsville, along with Edwards Towing, without any signage or notice, decided to have all the cars & trucks that may have been in their way towed.  Apparently side streets were also no exception, according to the nice lady that talked to Benny from the Edwards office.

                               Not even so much as a courtesy note stuck to a parking meter saying

        "Hey sucker(s), don't call the cops, your vehicle's not stolen, it's just that my buddy at Edwards is hard up for cash right now so I told him he could follow me around all night in his truck & tow away anything I thought was in the way of my plow. Give 'em $185 bucks & you can have your car back.

                                             p.s. - No, I didn't feel like plowing around you."

Gee whiz, I guess having a town job has it's perks eh??  I mean besides all the benefits and passing the time by driving in circles all day.  And that's the end of my story - the rest of my Sunday was too pleasant to mention.  Next time:  Funnel Cup low/highlights.

I was going to end this by posting the link to Cdn. Shredder Mark McMorris' groundbreaking triple cork 1440 http://snowboarding.transworld.net/1000147921/featuresobf/mark-mcmorris-backside-triple-cork-1440-video/ but by the time you read this everyone in the western hemisphere will have seen it 6 times sooooo here's a nice little pic I Stumbled Upon:

boredom & reflection cont'd

Now, I realize that throwing up a sunset photo & a brief paragraph on why I started this stupid thing isn't exactly riveting material, it's ok, you don't have to tell me.
I should really have some kind of theme/catch or be able to rant really well or make fun of Charlie Sheen or talk about how lame Myley Cyrus is....but I'll start by giving you a rundown of my past 2 weekends - starting tomorrow - because technically it's still the wknd now so it really wouldn't count, plus my fingers are kinda tired.      
Now, I know you're probly thinking, "frig, weekend update, faaaaaantastic, see ya," but if you have friends like I do, and are self-effacing like I am, it will at least amuse you & possibly make you giggle.

Until then, some fresh Royksopp for ya:

why did i do this....

Late to the blog game, I know, but it's March & before this month gets crazy for me, I'm getting crazy bored.  So I'm trying this - diaries are for girls, journals are for dudes that write poetry/are into political idealism and blogs are for slightly pretentious social media junkies with no filter on their brain.  We'll see how long it lasts before I get laughed off of here.

This is the pic that I wanted to use as my background but apparently this thing says "it's too big"  but not too big to post?  I don't get this computer shtuff sometimes...most times.  I can't even figure out how to save this as a smaller res image...if you're a computer type, holler.

Taken at Skeleton Lake, late summer 2009.  Right spot, right time.