Here's to Hoping...

This winter is turning out to be one of the worst winters since I started snowboarding religiously. I was expecting to be riding street a bit more this winter because of my job, but it's the middle of January and there is no fucking snow in town! Not like there isn't going to be a winter this year just don't know when it is going to hit. This has to be on of the latest winters in Canadian history. Guess there isn't going to be any street riding just yet.

Last year I was unemployment and still managed to going riding close to forty days. That was still a horrible amount of days then the previous three years. It was easier to go riding when I lived in the mountains, I could just hitchhike up everyday, easily. Now the ski hill is a good hour away instead of fifteen minutes, and it is rather hard to rely on hitchhiking now. Last year I bummed rides with whoever I could find, but it is hard to find a lot of skiers in the prairies. Well skiers that go up everyday. Just a lot of weekend warriors, which brings me to my next point....

My job. It does get in the way. I am a cook and most of my cooking career has been working nights. Well with my present cooking job, I start at 11 A.M. Was used to going skiing in the mornings and working my nights, but that's not how it is anymore. My Boss and I had a agreement that if I was a slave to the restaurant in the summer that I could work evenings in the winter. Unfortunately it is now riding season and nothing has changed. Still doing the same shift. Okay the hours have been cut back to normal full-time, no more 200 hours months, but I was hoping I could start at 4 or 5 in the afternoon. I have miss lots of good riding days because I have had to work.

I just kind of feel stupid for buying a season's pass this year, I am really wondering if it was worth it. I have only gone riding three times, and really don't know how many times I can go out this years. As long as I go twelve times, my season pass will be paid for and every other time would be free. Here's to hoping...   

New Camera...

For Christmas, my wonderful Mother got me a GoPro HD Hero 2 camera. Pretty stoked on it, can't wait to get some sick footage at the hill. I am sure that everyone has heard of GoPro HD mountable cameras or similar ones. In case you haven't heard of it, it's basically a high definition helmet cam. Well it can be mounted everywhere, and be used to film anything. It has an impressive 170 degree ultra wide field of view with 1080p high resolution at 30 frames per second. If this is all mumbo jumbo to you, just YouTube some footage and see for yourself. In fact check out this death defying video.

That's some crazy shit, eh? Personally I would never get that close to the edge, maybe has something to do with my fear of heights. Okay I don't really have a fear of heights, more of a fear of falling to my death. That's normal... Right? Hopefully I will never take footage like that, but right now the condition of the hill aren't worth the trouble of filming at all. Not like I want to film riding over groomed runs. Boring! I don't know what the fucking problem is, it was 10 degrees today! It was a brown Christmas in Southern Alberta this year and according to my phone's weather app, there is no snow expected in the next four or five days. Fucking Sad.

Various Mounts

Most likely going to be filming most of my video with my new GoPro. It can capture incredible first person view footage, but It can be used to record follow up shots or just be used like a regular videocamera. Since it has a ultra wide fish-eye field of view, you have to be really close or everything looks far away. One of the things I didn't like about a handheld videocamera was it was sketchy to film close up, follow ups and hard to fit things into the frame. Plus with all the extra mount accessories it's possible to get a infinite amount of angles. I am sure I will use my handheld for multiple shots on the same park hit, but with the GoPro I could mount it to the park hit. 

 Before even thinking about filming, I got to get up to the hill. So far it has been a struggle to go riding, I have only gone up twice this year. Last time was over a week and a half ago, not like I am missing anything. Still nice to be able to go more often. Unfortunately my job isn't working around my schedule! The deal was if I was a slave during the summer I would only work night shifts in the winter. After working close to 200 hours a month in the hot sweaty summer, now they not holding up to their end of the bargain. Not over worrying about though, going to be asking for a lot of time off when the snow hits and business is slow.

Day Two at Castle...

Exactly one week later, I went back up to Castle Mountain for the second time. This time I was stoked, been hearing that it dumped on Sunday night up to Tuesday morning. Also heard that Red (Tamarack) Chair to upper mountain was open and Rawhide Terrain Park was somewhat built. Even with being dead tired on the way up, I was excited about seeing what was new. Last week it was bunk, fucking no snow at all. It was weird seeing the valley from mid mountain and seeing green trees.

Well I was disappointed to say the least, it was still really bare still. A lot better then last week, but still marginal as fuck. As for Tamarack be open, 140km winds stopped that in its tracks, plus it didn't look good enough to bare those winds. Whatever, still sticking to my groomed runs, working up my legs and practising riding switch. It's pathetic how I have no strength in my legs, I can't sit in the pocket, spin or land with my out my legs giving out.

Rawhide Terrain Paek is pretty sick so far this year, you can tell they just threw it together for early season. I swear last year it was a good month and a half to two months before Rawhide was set up. Last year's set up was sick, very rustic. Lots of wood, a gap to log tap, horse stable hip, barrel and a tracker tire. Of course there is the standard boxes, rails, flat-downs, breadboxes, jumps and a wall. This year they changed the opening to the terrain park for the intersection of the Coach and Tumbleweed to straight down Coach to a good ten to fifteen foot step up. You can't really see in the shit video, but it starts at the bottom of the set up to two jumps. A booter and roller, then some boxes and rails.

Rawhide is always a work in progress and I am excited to see what's to come. Now we just need some snow to play with on the whole mountain. Then we will be set. Just need to get out to Castle more. Might try hitchhiking on my days off, see how that works out...

First Day...

Castle Mountain Ski Resort opened for a sneak preview weekend last Friday. Then, I guess the resort is closing for the week and technically opening for good Friday, the sixteenth of December. Don't have a fucking clue why they would open, just to close down for five days. Might have something with do with the shit amount of snow and marginal skiing conditions. This might change. It's snowing like crazy right now, it started last night and is expected to last a couple days. My friend was out there today and said it was pretty good. As you can see in the picture above, there was nothing, it's still green in the fields. If it does continue to snow heavily, I can't see why Castle wouldn't stay open for the week. I will have to look into it.

Even with the shit marginal conditions, it's always good to ride. I like to stick to the groomed runs, and try and work on my legs when it's early season. Get my legs back and wait for the good stuff in mid season. My buddy Saucy, likes to scope out the trees whenever. He don't give a fuck, if there is no snow. We all think he has an unorthodox style, but we like riding with him. Castle is a windy place, it's famous for it's wind sifts. Saucy is always going about it. The wind can bring in more snow then the sky can, on some days. It's a double edged sword though, the wind can melt the snow a bit and it can develop a solid crust. Considering their was gale force winds yesterday at mid mountain, their was some good sifts caught in the trees. These are only good for a couple hours of the day though, they crust over in the morning and again at the end of the day.

High winds, extremely marginal conditions and crazy Saucy aside, it was a good day. Well not that fucking T bar ride, that thing is hell on a string. I thought the T bar at Marmot Basin was bad, this one trumps it easily. The thing pretty much drags you up the mountain by the asshole. Not a pleasant feeling. When we finally got up and off of that deathtrap, we weren't met will good conditions. It was scary bare. I saw some good snow on a ridge to the west of us, but it would have been a bitch to get there. Looked like some skiers hiked out there, but we decided to go the other way. It wasn't worth it. We got an extra minute of riding on sketchy runs. Better then not snowboarding, I guess.