Back to Whistler

 

With almost 1200cm's this season and a 300cm base I was sure Whistler was the call.  All the reports from the troops in the field indicated a solid early March and a complete lack of people due to the Olympic Lockdown.  Tragically the end of February brought limited onshore flow, guess the IOC stopped seeding the clouds.  Combine this lack of precipitation with ever rising freezing levels and Team Get Awesome was forced to forgo our scheduled day with Powder Mountain Cat Skiing for a rousing ride on some of Whistler Blackcomb's SnoLimos.



SnoLimos now that's ballin eh!

 Here's Danger getting some Symphony Bowl sans SnoLimo.

 A little walk yielded a righteous view of Black Tusk with our friend George the Crow chillin on the boundary pole.

 Pretty sizable cornice a top Northern Flute ready to rain down death and destruction on the unknowing monkeys below.

 

Turns were had though the unmitigated pow-glory of days past was not fully realized.  All in all a good trip that brought together Team Get Awesome in the 2010.

Even Billy the Bear made an appearance

 Post shred we stopped by Chili Thom's Gallery in Whistler to get our artsy vibe for the day.  Pretty sick prints and OG acrylics on canvas.  For those who don't know Chili is the man, the myth and the legend all wrapped into one neuvo hippy-esk pow shredding visual art machine.

 

Chili Thom WASP Painting Auction

Greetings fellow gravity induced snowsliders, one of my boyz up in Whistler BC is auctioning off some of his kickass art for the Whistler Adaptive Sports Program (WASP).  Check the site - www.chilithom.com and pickup some sickness for your casa or office.

Yeah Chili's pretty much a badass, but his painting skills are hardly limited to the frozen variety of water.

 

Go get some art kids, cuz this stuff's the real deal!  What're you waiting for get movin before they're all gone - www.chilithom.com

Mt. Bald-Nuts

With the El Nino firehose in full-effect, Snowmadic headed up to the hallowed grounds of Mt. Baldy just outside of Upland and Monte Claire deep inside the Inland Empire and San Berdooo.

 

1st chair Snowmadic holding it down for Team Get Awesome

 

Oh Yeah!

 

Heeding the siren song I head toward Thunder Mt. for the goodness yet to be experienced.

 

By the beard of Zeus!

 

Once atop Thunder I was hailed by Smokey the avy dog and Sport-O the patroler,  "What ther heall'er you doin up in heerrr?  Go make it happen eh!"

 

Pretty much it's like this.... looks kinda like BC, but it's a mere 25min car ride from Ontario International Airport.  If you've got the juevos and know how to chart weather.... you're going to f'ing score and be down in SD in time to catch a glass-off sesh at SeaSide!

Seriously with the damn sun though..... I know it kinda heats our planet and makes it inhabitable, but seriously that shit's bright.

Oh but the Juice is Good!  Super sick, icy as shit in the melt/freeze sun exposed areas, but knee deep in the sheltered tree love!  Didn't hit bottom all day, which at Bald-Nuts is a pretty good sign that it's going off.  To check some annoyingly loud and shaky self-shot shed footy from Snowmadic's droid phone follow the link - http://www.biguglysnow.com/Videos/ViewVideos/TabId/61/VideoId/5/Baldy-Feb11.aspx 

Rock out with your smock out eh!

June to the Moon

Sickness with the quickness, leaving Costa Mesa at the ungodly hour of 5pm on a rainy Friday night Team Get Awesome spent 2.5hrs traveling the 15 miles out of LA.... but it was puking in the high country!

 

Rolled into June just in time for last call at the Tiger Bar and kept on groovin till Chair 1 opened in the AM.  A little fuzzy we laid down some solid face runs before heading back toward the mythical land of Chair 7.

Pretty much killing it on Chair 7, Danger and Whacky T gettin antsy!

Yeah, it was really that good.... if you look really hard you can just make out Danger's impersonation of the Y in the village people.  Bring your snorkel cuz Team Get Awesome digs the deep stuff the most!

As you can see Danger likes June.

Team Get Awesome had a run-in with Father Xmas, he was drinking reindeer blood and offered to take us for a ride in his sleigh.

  

BobMan moved to June a couple years ago and suprised the hell out of us when he popped out of the woods with his posse of migratory snowsliders.

Lost in the woods, here the boys from Team BobMan and Team Get Awesome contemplate the finer things in life, like which way to the bar?

  

Danger doing his part for the environment.

After some deliberation we found the village and began our downhill tumble to the infamous Tiger Bar.

 

Be wary of Polar Bears....

  

We eventually made it to the Tiger Bar and got down with the best of them.  After another solid day of riding Team Get Awesome had to get back to the Land of the Lame, so we departed the Eastern Sierra shred zone and began the trek south to the concrete jungle.

X Games 14

The day began early circa 3.15am somewhere near San Diego....

The coming sun brought the first traces of snow near the California/Nevada border.

 The prayers to Ullr were clearly heard.... the snow started early and was blanketing everything east of the Utah border.  Weirdness afoot in the land of the lost.......

East bound and down load 'em up and truck 'em, we're going to do what they say can't be done.  We got a lonnnggg way to go and a short time to get there, so come on out and watch old bandit run!

Just keep driving.... from sun up to sun down Snowmadic just keeps rolling.  Wherever I go my beer is cold, my house has wheels!  After 14 hours and 1,000 miles Aspen appeared shimmering on the horizon like some yuppie nouveau Shangri-La. 

BONG!!!

+ Monkeys =

Temple of the flying circus midgets!  With all the product placement one would think the athletes subsisted on energy drink and beef sticks.  Navy and Jeep were also huge sponsors, I was half expecting a Naval formation flyby or perhaps a contingent of SEALs HaLo dropping out of some rocket enabled Jeep Liberty with Todd Richards driving.  Now that would've incited some fist pumping and virgin sacrifice from the 2 stroke sledneck contingent a couple hundred feet to the left (and thankfully out of frame) of the Grande U-bend.  I say Bring it on Sir! Then I realized that someone with more sense than I denied the masses booze. Can you believe that?!?!?  Good thing the Goose was loose in the VIP!  Team Get Awesome holds it down and on this particular night a fellow covert operative came across a case of Arrogant Bastard that needed some friends.....

Last Day in Whistla DOA

Where to begin.... it was a trying season as far as conditions, finances, and injuries go, but as always Team Get Awesome found tasty treats for the monkeys to eat!

Snowmadic's Last Day at Whistler, looking to Blackcomb Peak from the Peak-2-Peak Gondola. For those who know we were en route to DOA, and for those who don't look for the tiny little white chute on the looker's right of the massive peak.

Looking eastward toward Decker, Mt. Trorey, Mt. Pattison and Tremor.... fun and games await those prepared, but death and destruction are close at hand to thin the heard.

Post DOA... Team Get Awesome knows what's up with the Power Claw! Safety tip of the day - If you get scared, don't pee your pants, cuz they'll freeze to your leg.

Be wary of the sharks, they lurk in the shadows! Top to bottom, big sweeping turns are how we do.

All in all another surreal year in Whistler. This time chillin in Bayshores, Snowmadic and Team Get Awesome where once again running a muck from the CreekSide base. Frequent lift closures, unstable snow conditions and a complete bullshit operating budget from Intrawest combined to drive Team Get Awesome deeper into BC's absolutely belligerent terrain. Come with me won't you on a 3,000+ mile journey from the flannel shrouded Great White North to the land of street tacos and swine flu. These are the Pow-Centric wanderings of Snowmadic-

Post Whistla Day 1 (PWD1)

Circa 6am - In search of the Gnar I boom eastward out of Whist-la toward the infamous Revelstoke-yah.... little did I know what awaited around the bend.

Zooming toward the illustrious "Duffy Lake Road" from Whist-la to Lilloo-icious, the storm clouds began to blot out the lazily rising sun.....

It got pretty hairy navigating the storm and I ended up sacrificing my camera crew to appease Ullr's bloodlust. Tragically I was unable to get any photo's, but I did manage to wrestle the camera from them before they were swallowed up by the unyeilding whiteness.

Before long I was cuttin trail and spottin wildlife... this guy was lookin for a lift, but I didn't like his disposition.

Remember - Only you can prevent forest fires kids

After 7 hours, a few hundred miles and a some solid whiteknuckle driving induced adrenaline, Mount Mackenzie emerged from the clouds and shone down upon Revelstoke.

Long after the sun set, the full moon shone bright and the pagans danced throughout the night.

Ullr heard the calls of the heathens and before long the full moon and streetlights alike were shrouded in the falling of goodness from above.

With morning fast approaching I tuned up my snowsled and put on my gofast pants, for tomorrow would hold wonders yet realized.....

Revelstoked!!! PWD2

As the sun sparkles through the trees on my first chair of the morning at Revelstoke, I ask myself what could be better? Scooby Snacks would be pretty sweet....

Peering over the edge into Separate Reality Glades dilutions of grandeur dance before my eyez.... Thinking I'm TRice I launch off some pillow and proceed to execute a flawless triple tomahawk headplant to body pretzel. Let's just say twinkies can also be used as impact reduction devices.

These little buddies were just chillin on the west side of Sub Peak like some paste eating grommet went crazy with a soft serve machine. I'm kinda wary of the supernatural, but these snowghosts didn't seem too bad. They were actually kinda yummy looking so I took a bite of one..... they didn't taste as friendly as they looked.

A little walk and vuala! the not-so-secret egress to Greely Bowl. Over the mountain and through the chutes to crazy deep pow fields I go!

Making Team Get Awesome proud I searched out a tasty couloir to get some sweet air and lay down some elephant turns.

Looking back up Mount Mackenzie the tasty couloir I annihilated (which I later find is called Powder Assault) can be seen to lookers left of the massive igneous rock outcropping dominating the right side of the pic. Get Awesome today, stay awesome tomorrow!

Snowghosts and snowdogs seem to have struck an accord in Rev's back 40 Glades. Seen here frolicking in the AM sun, how could you not be stoked? Maybe if you didn't have a jacket, or pants.... that would be a little chilly. Luckily I was equipped with the bomber gear and the beta on where to find the sickness, but still no Scooby Snacks.

Sometimes while zooming through the forest on your shredtastic journey you may come across, or in my case fly over, some crazy hobit looking terrain like this. I was half soaring, half falling/crashing off the waterfall in the middle when I realized Snowmadic = not so good at spontaneous unplanned flight.

Sometimes extra goggles are the difference between a call to the wah-mbulence and continued gravity induced SnowShredding. When seeking adaquate camoflage from the Pirates and the Tali-bra lurking in the shadows always opt for neon. Nothing says "you can't see me" like CalTrans Orange.

Once it hits your lips.... the pow is so goood! Grab your snorkel and get ready to romp!

Onwards and southwards, though Rev was more than hospitable, there was weather coming to Rossland and I was on a pow-centric shred mission to find Ullr. Packing up the Suby I was ready to spread the spirit of stoke and propagate the Snowmadic modus operandi.

Boats are pretty cool, and I've yet to install water wings on the Suby, so onwards toward Rossland Capt. Stubing! And watch out for those pirates, I didn't bring my slingshot.

Many hours, miles and a couple rock induced dents later I rolled into Rossland completely exhausted and ready for the omonious clouds on the horizon to begin their onslaught.

The ambiguity associated with a Snowmadic pow-centric journey can be unsettling for some; however I've found it liberating to check the latest weather reports and make the call at the last minute regarding where to go and when to get there. In this case luck was on my side and the flakes were falling heavily before I succumbed to delirium.