The pre-Olympic whirlwind begins...

Leaving the access road at 4am on the dot I beat the first rays of sun to the fourth floor of the parking garage at the Portland Jetport. Portland was just lighting up and the sliver of the moon that had hung over my drive had just disappeared..

It had been a quick turn around to the valley and back to the airport after last weekend's World Cup in Argentina. Two nights in my own bed, 54 holes of golf and it was back to the road for a night to fly down to Dallas for a fundraiser for USSA. Here it comes, that hectic pace of a preolympic fall. It was reading 32 degrees this morning on the dashboard of the VW as I sped through the early morning. It's coming everyone.. It won't be long..

On my way home...

On the podium with Pierre Vaultier, Graham Watanabe, and Markus Schairer

Sipping coffee in the dulles red carpet club, tired from the travel this morning and looking forward to a shower and home..

Argentina was a great start to the year. I made the right call in delaying my trip south. I got to enjoy a beautiful week in Maine while my teammates went stir crazy in the rain in South America. I showed up in Bariloche along with the sunshine and got my first two days back on snow there. A short training course brought the feeling back and let me test run my new board shapes which turned out to be amazing.

We packed up and headed north to the town of San Martin de Los Andes and settled in for the kickoff World Ccup week. After a couple of rest days the clouds cleared to a foot deep powder day and a lot of fun riding with Ross Powers and my Italian friend Alberto Shiavon ripping around finding little stashes.

The next three days were all business as Curtis Bacca (my was tech) and I set out to glide test my new boards and see which ones were up to speed. While our days on hill got eaten up by counting hundredths of seconds, I had neglected to check out the construction of the course. When I showed up on the first day of training I was dumbfounded to see what looked like an unridable opening roller section. This was not what I had hoped to see. What I soon came to realize though was that when things look unridable, my experience can allow me to best the rest of the field. Two runs later I was linking the section that was knocking my competitors to the ground.

The rest of the course ran well and I went away excited for the Friday time trial. As I crossed the finish line for the first time of the season the next morning under a clock I looked at the Swatch score board to see my name back atop the rankings. A few minutes later Pierre Vaultier of France edged me out by a 13 hundredths of a second but no one else got within half a second. The sun was beating down and changing the snow consistency but I executed the second run even better and posted the fasted second run despite the deteriorating conditions. At the end of the day it was Vaultier 1, me 2 and last year's World Cup champion Marcus Shaierer in 3rd. I can't help but feel that I will be dueling with these two the rest of my career.

Race day and I started to get that great inner feeling going again. I breezed through winning the first three rounds including taking down Marcus in the semi final. The line up for the final went 1,2, and 3 of us from the prior day's trial, and a truly motivated graham watanabe. Full all-stars. I had a horrible start in the final and colided with both Marcus and Graham in the opening roller section but stayed on my feet and started hunting down Pierre. On the course's third straight away I closed a thirty yard gap and had the chance to pass on the third turn but I got bucked by a rut and botched my toeside turn. Pierre pulled away again and I went back to work, railing the next two turns and gunning it into the two final kickers. I juiced the final landing and closed to within a foot at the finish line, Pierre and I both wheelieing across the line fighting to push our board noses across first. He held on for the win but I went away with my first Olympic qualifying result in the bag as the top American and my tank of confidence topped off as I head into the next two months of training at home. The mission was accomplished as the Olympic clock is ticking down every second in downtown Vancouver. My quest to February in going to be an amazing journey, but I am well on my way!! See you all at the rack over Homecoming weekend. I am pumped to be headed home to the Loaf for the fall and as I saw spring blooming in South America, winter is just around the corner for the rest of us. Bring it on!!

Surfing in a Hurricane

Big monday.. Hurricane bill came ripping up the east coast and bringing with it massive waves to the coast of maine. Tragedy struck when a young girl was washed out to sea from MDI'S Thunderhole, but last monday when the winds calmed down and I sat outside the gate of Scarborough Beach State Park in the pre-dawn darkness of 5 am I was filled with nothing but anticipation, for I had not stood on a clean wave since my last morning session in Costa Rica at the point of Matapalo on the morning of June 1st.

My friend Ben Coombs pulled up along side me and opened the gate with the swipecard and we were in! The first two cars for what I heard discribed afterwards by many as the best swell to hit Maine in August in years. My first paddle out sucked me into a fast rip that sucked me 70 yards down the beach and right in front of an 8 wave set. Severely winded, I paddled out the back to meet Ben grinning at me amidst the rolling swells. As I stroked into my first wave of the day some minutes later I was brought back to that magical feeling of standing on water, flying along in a place visited by very few. The moments I experience in the waves of the world are only matched by my most zen moments in Alaska and fill me with a contentment in life that is very hard to find.. The day was epic indeed.

As I drank my third red bull of the night to stay awake on the drive up 27 north that night after some 7.5 hours in the water I was reminded once again of just how special Maine is. It's been a good week of golf, training and landscaping, and now I find myself in seat 9k ready to fly to Beunos Aires. I am going to the winter and the task at hand is upon me. The quest to repeat in Vancouver begins. I will awake in Argentina and cross the continent in a search for snow. To test the Kessler boards I have designed and to meet my comrades in competition. I am less then six months away from the opening ceremonies and couldn't be happier to be embarking on this quest. When I return home the color will be coming into the maples and we will all be moving closer to snow on the Loaf. Have a great couple of weeks Maine. I will see you soon...

Switzerland - Part 2

...Stepping out of the train (cog railway) I was greeted by the logo that adorns my boards, and a sign: “Kessler, snowboards for winners.” I realized I needed to tell him that “champions” might be a better translation to English. When your company can boast of six Olympic medals in the last two games the signage shouldn't sound like a feel good moto after grade school gym class.

 

Kessler’s products are simply the best handcrafted boards on earth. So the little village of Braunwald is “autofrei” as the sign boasted and I started my walk steeply uphill in dense fog as instructed by the woman in the Kessler sport shop. “Ten minutes up zee path…”

 

Thirty minutes later the pee soup had clearly obscured anything that looked like a factory and I placed a call to Hansjuerg, the founder, bummed that I hadn't been able to just drop in. When I found the place I realized why it hadn't stuck out. The Kessler factory is nestled in the back half of a shared barn/carpentry shop and is surrounded by sheep pastures. Bells were clanging away in the background.

 

We spent the day catching up, having lunch, talking about our own personal snowboard histories, plans, then got down to work on the computer coming up with designs that we would build.

 

I returned to Mollis for the night after a great lakeside bbq at the Klontal Lake. Surrounded by two-thousand foot cliffs that were peaking in and out of the clouds through the moonlight we dined on brats and bread till everyone was ready to turn in.

 

I awoke early to martin saying he wanted to go shoot a time lapse and that I should join him. So we had a nice morning rally back to Klontal passing one of my old world cup friends who was walking to a launch point for an early morning paraglide, and found upon arriving that the lake was shrouded thick in clouds. It might have turned out alright for Martin’s time lapse but I only had ten minutes to wait before going to catch the 6:50 am train back to Braunwald to lay up the boards.

 

The building process was a lot of fun to see and really drove home for me the true difference in handmade craftsmanship vs the way the big manufacturers cookie-cut mass quantities of product. At the end of the day I left with two beautiful boards built exactly to my specs and ready in my eyes to carry me to the top of many a podium on the world stage.

 

In all my years of working with people like Burton, Atomic, and Rossignol I had never received such treatment or seen such a perfect finished product. A big thank you and props to Hansjuerg Kessler and his team there in Braunwald for truly being artisans of the snowboard world.

 

So with the work of the trip done I headed off to Thun, to catch up with Tanja Frieden, the other 2006 snowboardcross gold medalist and stay with my alaskan freeride partner Ueli Kestenholz. Tanja and I had a great talk over coffee about what the whole process was looking like this time around, the pressure, the journey and just catching up on life. It was really nice.

 

A few miles around the lake of Thunersee in the village of Gwatt lives my good friend Ueli. Ueli and I went to Alaska for the first time together in 03 and he has been a big part of the development in my life and in riding to transition to big mountain riding. He has also been a pioneer in the development of the sport of speedriding. Check out www.playgravity.com to see what it’s all about as it defies explanation. Three dimensional freeriding is about the best I can do to put it to words. Shortly after our AK trip this spring Ueli successfully made the first ever descent from the summit of the Matterhorn with the aid of a speedriding canopy. I only saw the still photos but it was sick!

 

He is also about 5 months into fatherhood and we had a great time catching up on all fronts. In the morning he woke me and said we just had time to fit in a wake-surf before I would need to run to Zurich to catch my flight home. So under the shadow of the Eiger on the lake of Thun we surf our legs off for a couple hours before the clock was really ticking on me. Settleing back into my seat for the quick trip home I was in awe of my favorite little country away from home and was so glad I had made the jaunt. A couple weeks at home and it will be time to head for South America and the start of it all. Can't wait!

Switzerland - My Home Away From Home - Part 1

Ahhhh Switzerland. My home away from home. I always forget how amazing the Alps are in summertime.

 

Pulling away from the Zurich airport I got my little Citroen rental up to speed and pretty much kept it there everywhere I went during a busy four days. Driving in Europe has always been one of my favorite parts of life on the road.

 

My first task was to find my way to Braunwald, check out the Glarnerland valley and find my friend Martin Babler. When I was more or less at the turnoff from the highway to Glarus I stopped at the Glarnerland Raststadt for a severe jet lag nap. Two hours later I awoke in my driver’s seat and wandered inside to enjoy the unbelievable highway food stop cuisine that the Swiss provide in abundance. A fresh blueberry shake and my first favorite Swiss salami sando of the trip and I was back on my way exploring the narrow little country roads of the Glarnerland. Now when I say narrow, it feels crowded on the street when a motorcycle approaches, and at times you have to straight-up stop for things larger then a VW. But when the streets are all yours at night it reminds me of the driving scenes from A Clockwork Orange (minus the ultra violence of course) and they are so much fun.

 

So with the Braunwald Bahnhof located I cruised halfway back to the little village of Mollis and awaited a call from Martin who was in an afternoon meeting. I parked in a lot with a beautiful mountain view to read A Champions Mind by Pete Sampras. Below me the local kinder practiced soccer. The Swiss trains flew by (no doubt on time). The cows rung their bells as they sampled the fine looking grass and Switzerland was in the process of being how it is - idyllic.

 

I got Martin's call and he sounded as though he hadn't spoken english since I saw him in Alaska last April. I struggled through some directions and eventually found him waving with a massive smile on the road side.

 

Being welcomed into the Babler family home was an experience in and of itself. Of the six kids (all grown) five are living at home and all I can say is the parents have reason to be proud. The oldest works as a helicopter pilot and paraglide instructor, the next is finishing studies to be a doctor, Martin is an award winning cinematographer, commercial producer and part time gymnast training the local kids, the next youngest is employed as a dancer by the ballet, next is a music composer who makes all the original scores for Martin's movies and doubles as a filmer as well, and the youngest is finishing her university studies. Wow.

 

After a traditional Swiss dinner lead we headed out to a local pub where I caught up with two old friends from Glarus who are retired world cuppers. The next morning we had a wonderful breakfast and made the drive to catch the train up the mountain to Braunwald and the Kessler factory, where I would get to work designing the boards that I’ll ride all the way to Vancouver…

home at last..

[No text]

boreal to baker,

so from x games we headed east to denver, it was a long travel day made more so by glennwood canyon being a parking lot when we got out of the the roaring fork valley and went to turn onto i-70. we waited that one out then after a painfully long breakfast we were on our way again. telling funny stories with palmer and nate holland. topics like what's your best story that involves beer and a boat kept us in stitches most of the way. I-70 can be an absolute mess and it still amazes me that for people who live in a state like colorado and deal with snow all the time as a population they might just take the cake for the worst winter drivers in the country.. we passed no less then fifty accidents and at one point had a funny interaction with a police officer reprimanding nate holland over his loud speaker to slow down even though we were going fifteen miles an hour under the speed limit in a four wheel drive suv and watching the cop in his rear wheel drive caprice fish tail all over the place.. who was the real safety hazard? so after having to follow this officer of the law a painful fifty miles or so we just missed flight one of the day out of denver. no big deal there was another one in six hours. movie time! one viewing of clint eastwood's gran torinno later and we headed to outdoor world to kill the rest of the time.. somewhere between the fish tanks, getting food and admiring all the things one could ever possibly need to hunt we left with only ten miles to d.i.a. and an hour and ten minutes till flight time.. when we got back on the highway it was another parking lot.. and so left our second flight of the day to reno without our seats occupied. we got rerouted through san fran. and what should have been an eight hour travel day to tahoe turned into eighteen.. at least there was no snow to miss the next day in tahoe. 

  so arriving to warm temps at night in reno and no signs of winter on the surrounding hills my mind switched to golf. graham watanabe and i played twenty seven holes over the next two days and switched mind frames for a minute. it was nice.. i struggled with the floppy rental clubs but the few pars i made had me dreaming of moments to come and the laps around the course at the loaf this summer!

     so boreal was what it was. no snow.  a course that was not fun to ride. i did alright though taking my first three hole shots of the day and ended up backing off in the finals and letting nate, graham, and nick, race it out as i had the far right hand start gate in a course that went left after thirty yards and presented no passing opportunities after that. then it was off to baker!

     baker is one of my favorite spots on this planet and the ski area that takes me back to the feelings i had as a kid the most. 32 dollar lift tickets, nothing corporate, and access to some of the best backcountry terrain for very little hiking i have ever found in the u.s.. on tuesday, weds, and thursday we just hiked laps around the shuksan arm, dropping into snow on the north facing wall that had been protected from sun and wind. even though it hadn't snowed in over a week we rode snow a foot and a half deep on pitches up to fifty five degrees. it was the first real freeriding i have gotten to do since alaska last spring and it was so much fun. to be able to get your heart up into your throat before committing to drop a fifty degree line with mandatory air in the middle is my idea of having fun and it had been way too long! a highlight of the week was hiking a lap with temple cummins and tom burt. while i geeked out at the top getting some panoramic shots tom dropped into the line i had ridden the day before. a full rollover ak style that lead into a really steep ramp spotted with pepper. it felt good knowing that having looked at the mountain the day before i chose the same line tom burt did! sick.. as for the race.. well i kinda blew it which really bums me out. i had put all bets on an unseen board showing up from my shaper in switzerland. it arrived thursday, the day before the race starts. it will be the last time i ever ask for a specific board without really being specific about the side cut radius.. when i took it out for the first run on friday it simply didn't turn. ok, last minute change of plans.. i rode my unwaxed rock damaged fish that day to a fifth place qualifying time. the lowest i had ever placed at baker.. saturday i borrowed a board from nate holland and ended up third. ok i could do this on borrowed equipment i thought.. unfortunately in the finals on sunday it didn't work out so well. i let it fly first run as the course deteriorates so badly you don't want to leave it till your second run.. two thirds of the way down i came smoking into a tight shicane turn and got ejected. damn.. no my game plan was shot and my legs screaming at me.. it was not meant to be. i spun out in turn three on the second run and backed off too much after that. well off the podium i left baker for the first time without one of the coveted rolls of gold, silver, or bronze, duct tape..   next year.

korea to x and on to tahoe..

  as i settled into the first class seat in seoul south korea after the never before and rarely heard of double bump i couldn't help but think that things were looking up. i grabbed a copy of the herald tribune as the newspaper cart went by and started reading about the next days impending inauguration and my excitement was barely containable.. when i got to page two my eyes got far wider however and i was happy that we were already taxiing down the runway. on that saturday north korea had "fueled up" whatever war heads they possessed and had sent massive reinforcements along the boarder to levels unseen since the end of the cold war.. i felt lucky to be lifting off and getting the hell out of there.. goodbye korea i may never see you again.. parting can be such bliss.. so we got to aspen settled into the house in snowmass and i spent tuesday celebrating along with the rest of the nation on the couch watching the proceedings from washington. through my eyes what has already transpired this past week is much like coming out from under the rule of a brutal dictatorship.. i have at times these past eight years felt a weight in my heart so heavy from the direction we have been lead with the losses to freedom and civil liberties that at times i couldn't help but feel as though we were living in an Orwellian reality.. goodbye thought police hello freedom and transparency! thank you kindly mr. Obama!!

so x-games..  at night when you look south from snowmass for one week a year there is a glow that outlines the aspen valley's peaks and it is the circus that espn creates. it is a total conflict of interest with itself. they talk about having a green stance toward the environment and yet the light pollution alone is a disgusting sight to behold in and of itself..  i really can't decide if i still like it anymore. it is one of the only times that the american public can see what i do but it is so skewed towards its own self importance and the fact that sal masakala says that its core.. its really quite annoying.  for an organization that claims to put on the worlds best event they overlook the most major details that even our own sugarloaf comp center could teach them the reality of the most important "real" issues with hosting an event. for instance when you host a winter sports event there is a chance that it might even snow. you would think that this reality might have crossed espn's mind in the 13 years of x.. you might want course workers or maybe even course slippers for an event the whole world is going to see but no.. on qualifying and race day it was up to the athletes to make sure the foot of powder got removed from the mile long course.. rookies. so all in all it was what it was. qualied 3rd despite a couple major mistakes. won the first heat easily. got the hole shot in round two and got clipped by an out of control teammate from boston.. damn mass drivers.. they even change lanes unexpectedly when they're on snowboards.. so i went back up and won the small final for a seventh place finish but its kind of the story of the year so far.. bad luck in the semifinals is really hurting the overall results. if only i was in baseball. having won 13 of my 19 heats this year it would be an all time average for the hall of fame..  well at least there is always next week. the whole x-games skew continued sunday night as we all went up to watch the pipe.. so glad i am not in judged events anymore. kevin pierce absolutely killed it sunday night and lost to judges apparently influenced by the corporate sponsors of the shaun white games. not to take anything away from shaun but he more or less threw a training run when the pressure was on and i am sure he couldn't have helped but notice the lack of a cheer that went up from the crowd when the scores were posted.. oh well. there is a reason kevin has been beating him internationally for the past two seasons.. end of story. on to tahoe..

 

the end for sung woo

so we lucked out on race day. for the second time we awoke to snow in sung woo, a welcome sight that i knew could save the race. time trials had proved to be sketchy as the course speeds were simply way too high for the size of the features that had been built. it dumped and dumped as hard as i've ever seen it snow and at a rate of around 2 inches per half hour the speeds on the course slowed back to a doable level.. the first heats went great. i crushed the first run. had a poor start in round two but played it patient and got by the swiss rider mid course. the semifinal wasn't to go as smoothly. after getting a great start i literally rode the start sequence too well creating too much speed for the first minor wu tang jump. i overshot the whole landing and watched as the other three riders caught tranny behind me and reeled me in on the way to the first turn. that was where it all went wrong. i got the board tangled with my friend tom velisek of canada and teh next thing i knew i was mid heelside catch whipping myself onto the wall of turn one. watching the others ride away.. i got up but with the lack of momentum as well as passing lanes my fate was sealed to not challenge for the world title for the first time in my career. i made up for it in the small final taking my third heat win of the day to bring home fifth. the low point of my world champs record but all things considered the best i could do on the day after the crash.. more on all that followed soon..  

sung woo day two..

so i awoke to a sight i have never seen in korea this morning... actually i awoke to darkness as the time change au natural hasn't worked great so far.. lay there for an hour and a half until it was an acceptable hour to start making noise around my roommate graham. but then there it was, i pulled back the curtains and snow! actual snow falling in korea. granted it was just a trace but it really brightened the mood and i even had hopes of it slowing down the treacherous ice luge of an sbx track, but in the end it did the opposite and the speeds got faster..

despite this i pretty much got my skirt pulled off today in training. although i think it might have caught a bit on my back binding which kept me having this speed checking twitch but at least i got it over the boots.. it was a carnage factory out there again today. blown knees, broken bones.. lots of start stop! (this is said in a very austrian accent and means someone is broken down below and no one else can ride until the korean ski patrol has slid in and sledded said broken person away) sort of like the wayne's world version of car!, game on on the street hockey game.

at the world championships there is a nations quota system so that all the countries that are too bad to qualify onto the world cup get their guaranteed start spots so the iranians, israelis, and kahzakstanis are all in the proverbial house giving it a go. makes for a long day but some good entertainment.. the broken ones were not just from the untalented pool and i was left  scrambling in my role of playing god for x-games and admitting new riders into the big show in the name of getting extreme!

so i have to hand it to the korean breakfast cooks. they are pulling off something i have never seen before and cooking omelets to order with chopsticks.. it involves a very patient flipping method with many little handle taps to get the flip.. so it is off to start a new book and fight the jet lag longer. jet lag took out a contract on me earlier and the snipers got me face down and pinned me there for many hours this afternoon. my battle continues..