Utah and Telluride by Train

So Will Cardamone, Jake Sakson, and I decided to take a trip out to Salt Lake for the Outdoor Retailer show. We hoped on to the Amtrak train in Glenwood and went Salt Lake Bound. I have always wanted to take the train out there, and try to eliminate the expenses of driving. It turned out to be an awesome way to get out there, cheap, easy, and comfortable. In fact I am going to take it in a few weeks for a Telemark competition in Tahoe.

When we arrived in Utah the snow had already been falling pretty good, and we all were psyched for some pow it had been ages for all of us. Noah from the Powderwhores picked us up at the train station and took us to the PW mansion at the base of big cottonwood. We all got our gear unpacked and got psyched for the days to come, we knew it was going to be deep.

On our first day out we headed up to the backcountry playground of Butler Fork. Once arriving at the trailhead I knew it was going to be deep, there was big ol snowbanks as well as lots of snow surrounding the skin track. I was pysched, face shots again.

Once we got to the top and dropped in, the feeling of skiing bottomless pow on my Megawatts was fulfilled once again. God I love these skis in the bottomless stuff, they are just amazing. We ended up filming and skiing about 5 or 6 different runs and got some good footy for the upcoming PW film. Our mouths were full of powder and we headed back down the canyon for some nice and tasty lonestar burritos…. It was dumping all day and we knew it was supposed to dump all night, so manana was going to be sick.

We woke the next morning hungry for more faceshots… We headed up the canyon again, and decided the same place would be just as safe and still really good, Butler Fork called again. As we pulled in we knew, today was going to be epic…. it ended up being beyond epic, it was by far the deepest day of my life. The snow was so light, and there was so much of it that it was just absolutely amazing. We were creating 5 ft troughs, and it was just so light. Check out the vid and you will see:

After receiving nothing but epic pow in Utah, Will and I had to head out for a Backcountry.com photo shoot down in Telluride. We were going out with Lee Cohen, Tommy Chandler, Jen Berg, Jonny A., Dustin, and Nick Devore. We had heard they got slammed with the snow storm as well, so we were pretty psyched about it.
We arrived at our pads just slopeside and got settled in for a fun-filled day on Telluride. Kim Havel, who lives in Telluride helped show us around the mountain and take us to the spots that were good. It was pretty sketchy avy conditions so we had to keep it on resort for the duration, which was fine because we still were able to get some goods. Here is a video from that day:

Unfortunately on the last day we all picked up a nasty sickness, and we couldn’t sleep at all on our last night there. We headed back to Aspen that Thursday, a bit groggy and still really under the weather. We were all really tired and after about an hour outside of Telluride, Jonny dosed at the wheel and we went off the embankment and totalled jonnys truck. It was crazy none of us got hurt but the truck was done for. It was a somber end to an epic 8 days of skiing. Luckily we all were ok though, and we took a tow truck to Grand Junction, then my pops came and picked will and I up. What an epic it was, and we all are very fortunate none of us got hurt. Here are a few pics from Tommy Chandler, from the aftermath:

Will observing the aftermath!

The Track to Destruction

Jonny bummed about his baby

Until next time, pray for snow!!!

Chris

Summer overview

Hello everyone,

it has been quite some time since my last post, but life has been pretty simple…. Work, Bike, sleep, pedicab, and a few other things in between. The summer was awesome to say the least…. I started my own pedicab business with friends, which took off in town, and everyone was riding the cabs.

Around the begining of June, I headed down to Santa Fe, New Mexico for a natural building intensive. It was based out of Econest The course was amazing to say the least, I learned so much in a months time and it made me so excited to continue doing Natural Building in the future.

We learned such techniques as: Timberframing, Light, Straw, Clay, as well as Natural Plasters, Earthen Floors, rock foundations, and conventional metal roofs for help in rainwater catchment.

The course was perfect for me, I was getting a little caught up in the conventional building techniques and it was perfect to learn some new things that will come in handy in the future when I start my own Natural Building company.

 

Then after I returned from the course, I spent a few more months working until our Grand Canyon trip came along in September.

After a great summer season, my girlfriend and I were invited on the Grand Canyon for 22 days, by my best friend Talbott Walker.

The trip was incredible to say the least. It was so amazing that you could go down a desert river and have there be tons of crystal clear side creeks filled with tons of green, and other rainforest like organisms thriving. It was mind boggling, there were cliff jumps, hikes, great fishing, waterfalls, and constant fun.

Erin and I had our own raft, which was awesome because it gave us space from the other people and we had our own system together. Every camp we stayed at had its own unique experience and having such a wonderful group of people helped out tremendous. Not to mention the rapids were a lot of fun…. intense before every one, but after the greatest feeling ever of accomplishment.

Here are some photos from the trip and the Econest course, to help you understand the epicness of this great National Park and Natural Building.

 

Yogi’s Living Room

The Yogi’s House

 

I will be posting periodically throughout the winter, from trips with the Powderwhores and other skiing trips I go on. I also just acquired a new clothing sponsor: Stoic, a brand from backcountry.com… go check them out.

Thompson’s Pass

Sorry for the delay on the next post…. Thompson’s Pass was epic to say the least. After being in the area a year ago and getting mostly skunked the whole month we were there, it was nice to score some good days in the two weeks we had this year. I was accompanied by Jason West, Jake Sakson, and Jonah Howell of Powderwhore productions. It was a great crew, and everyone skied amazing. It was a great opportunity to see the young crazy antics of Jake who was so quiet when selecting lines, but always had something up his sleeve(which you can see in the upcoming film from PW.) Mr. West had the skills of a Veteran and slayed his lines with ease, and also was not hesitant to huck himself which is always great to watch. Jonah was just a character the whole time and made us laugh throughout the trip, especially with his stinky insoles. It was a great crew and we all had a great time together.

Now lets get to the skiing…. it was incredible. Having the opportunity to heli ski fully for the first time was amazing. In the begining of the trip we did a lot of touring and the weather was the hardest thing to deal with. After having a few days of doing one drops and touring, we figured we had not fulfilled our heli budget so we decided to go for it on our second to last day. We splurged and went for 5 runs with the heli on a bluebird day…. they all were worthy too, which I was super stoked about. We skied off the Python twice, went to the Books for 2 runs and finished with an amazing descent of Diamond. All in all that day made the trip, especially the Diamond run. A huge descent and consistently steep the whole time.

Unfortunately on my second to last run of that day I took a pretty serious tumble coming out the flats after I slayed my run. I ran into some serious wind funk that was super hard and ended up injuring both my knees. I was super bummed because I skied the hard part with ease and then, just tomohawked in the flats which sucked. The knees are feeling better though after about 2 weeks of rest, my left one still is hurting pretty good, but time and rest will help that.

I have attached a couple photos and soon I will be posting some headcam footy from the trip!

Jason entering The Promise Land

Headin' to the Iguanabacks

North Face of Diamond from the heli

Andy our heli pilot...one badass mo-fo, droppin' us in the goods

Top of my line in the Banana chutes

The two lines I skied in the morning before the Banana chutes

Jason in the Banana's

Shreddin'

Our Guide Dylan, with a sick mohawk!!

The Python

The Tusk

Ramps in the Books

The Heyden Glacier, aka The Books

Thompson's Pass from the Tsaina cabins

cheers

chris

Headin to Thompson’s Pass

So I leave today for AK… Should be an interesting trip, Mt. Redoubt has been shooting ash, so flights have been cancelled, but hopefully she will let off for us to get in there.

We will be heading up to Thompson’s Pass on the 4th, with Jake Sakson, Jonah Howell(www.powderwhore.com), and Jason West. It will be good this year having a little smaller crew, and hopefully we will get some nice blue holes. We will be flying with Valdez Heli Guides and ABA.

I am super stoked it should be an epic one. I will keep you posted on the days ahead, and hopes that the Chugach blesses us with good weather and deep snow.

till next time…

peace

Hello world!

Here is a little video from earlier in the year up in the Lenado Backcountry.

Thanks to Adventure Eye Video Systems, for there support in providing the Head cam.

check it out.

Chris