Well I'm finally here. It's been two Long years since I've been to Govy but I'm finally back.
Yesterday my mom and I left our house at 4:20ish AM. The sun was just kind of coming up as we headed through SF.
We went straight with no stops except for gas until we got to Portland. One we got into the city the first destination was VooDoo Donuts.
Then we walked over to the river where the city fair was going on. Back home we have petting zoos with llamas. In Portland they bring out the tigers, lynxes, and panthers. It was awesome. For $20 you could spend 5 minutes playing with the baby tiger. Our meter was about to expire though so I missed out on what might have been the coolest experience of my life.
I stayed at a hotel with my mom by the airport for the night. She took off in the morning and I headed to the library to print off a new cover letter and resume set for Windells and High Cascade. Then I picked up $110 of dried fruits, nuts, crackers, and ramen to hopefully keep me from starving for the next month or so. I stopped by Windells to pass off my paperwork and let them know I was in town and could come in on short notice to work. Finally I made it to Government Camp, where my first task was to drop off my stuff at HCSC and let them know I could fill any opening as well. After doing that I realized I had the whole day free and it was only 3pm so I decided to go wander in the woods. I made it pretty far down a hiking trail before I hit snow and had to turn back.
checking out some nature
Walking back through town, I ran into my friend from my first Hood summer, James Fleege. I jumped into his car and headed out to Trillium with him and his cousin Zack.
We hung out there for a while and then went over to the air strip for a skate session. I sat out because my ankle is still swollen and tender from rolling it on Memorial Day at Action. A small crew assembled and some sketchy tricks went down. We finally dipped out a little after 9.
I think at this point I'm going to go to bed. The summer pass for Timberline starts tomorrow so I'll be riding in the morning. Might as well rest up. I'm so stoked to get back on my board!! This is going to be an awesome summer.
Wow. It's kind of surreal to be writing this right now.
It seems like just yesterday that I was posting from my high school English class, writing about college applications, choosing Sierra Nevada, and moving to Tahoe for the first time.
And now I've graduated from Sierra Nevada with a Bachelors, and am moving away from Tahoe for good (or the foreseeable future at least.)
I've come a long way in the last couple years- I mean, I've grown a lot as a person. I started writing this blog as a kid, and I really didn't know as much as I thought I did. I went off into the big scary world, jumped head first into the snowboard community, and got completely schooled. I dealt with my first Internet hate (an attack on me as a person as well as my blog), and also received recognition in the form of products to test and people complimenting my blog in person.
I feel like I'm a completely different person now from when I started this site, but I've tried to keep it true to its original purpose as a diary of my snowboarding experiences, adventures, and life- an unfiltered view of my world.
Well I guess that's it. I'm closing this chapter of my life and moving on to the next. I'll be heading back home for a week, then I'm moving to Mt. Hood for the summer. After that I'll be trying to get an internship in the industry down in Southern California for a couple months. And then it'll be time to move to Mammoth for my first season outside of Tahoe.
So my second week in Mammoth wasn't quite what I had expected. I went back planning to film a season edit and learn some new tricks. But as it turned out, in the three days between trips, all the features had been pulled out of the park, and the jumps changed. All that was left were tubes, some jumps that were kind of weird, and the 15' 3 hit pipe. I almost turned back to go home after the first day, but stayed primarily because I was really having fun in the pipe. By day 3, however, the pipe was closed, and all but two of the tubes were gone as well.
Paul, Zumeiz Cat, Yannick, and Boris
I made the most of the trip and still had fun. I linked up with some guys from Switzerland and spent most of the week with them. Partying and riding with those guys was pretty fun, except for the fact that most of the time they only spoke French and my French vocabulary consists of maybe 25 words.
During the week I also dropped my resume off at ten restaurants in town so hopefully I'll have a job when I go back for the winter.
And that was it for the winter season. Anticlimactic end, but I think that's just because I always expect too much out of things. Definitely stoked to move to Mammoth though!
Playing in the slush pipe while it was still open.
Last time driving by Mono so I checked out the lake for the first time.
Last week I had class on Monday and then nothing until finals on Friday, so I went on a trip to Mammoth. It's been so beautiful that I figured it would be a great week to camp in the woods.
I got down there and it was snowing. It snowed every day. Camping was nixed. I stayed at Danika's house instead. (& Luckily I had my new Local Knits neckie with me. Thanks!)
Where did this weather come from??
Over the 3 days, I didn't get much riding in, because by noon the sun would come out and turn that fresh wet snow into glue. Kind of a bummer of a week. My plan was to learn 7s and film a bunch of rail stuff to make a season edit. I filmed nothing, and could barely even jump. On the first day I 50-50ed on my shins and they blew up too.
I'm heading back to Mammoth today for another four days of riding. Conditions should be better this week. I'm going to try camping again. Also, I'm making a list of things to learn so I'll be focused on progression. Since I only have one 5, I might put that 7 off and get the other 3 5s.
Tricks to learn over the next 4 days:
Back 5
Cab 5
Switch back 5
McTwist at the top of the wall
Get front 5 in pipe back
Front board-270 out
Hardway front 1 on, cab 3 out (probably just on tubes)
Get comfortable hitting everything backside
If I can get through that list I'll be pretty stoked.
It's taken a couple weeks to recover, but I'm ready to post about the experience now.
I've always wanted to go to Grenade Games, and this was the year to do it. I was able to get a couple names on the VIP Pass list a couple weeks before the games so I called up my girl friends to get a crew to mob down, party, and ride with. A couple things fell through for two of the girls, so it ended up just being Summer that could come with me. She's my best friend so just going down with her actually sounded awesome anyways. We always have fun together, and we make pretty good party companions (even though it usually turns into chaos like our SF Dew Tour adventure). Neither of us knew what to expect, but we did know that we could make 4 days of riding, and 3 nights of partying one of those big memorable life experiences we'd reminisce about 60 years from now.
Colin. Chad. Danny. Fuze. Strange boys.
Way too early on Thursday morning we mobbed down to Mammoth in Summer's Subaru. We rode. It was fun. My knee started hurting so I settled down on the deck pretty early and hung out with the Strange Brew boys. After riding we met up with Binky to go over to the condo we were staying at for the weekend. No one was there yet, but over the course of the night the 7 other inhabitants of the condo rolled in. We all went out to Roberto's for dinner, and then made it out to the Underground Lounge.
Tweak Bird.
Volcom threw a party and Tweak Bird played. They were pretty awesome. It was a fun night seeing old friends and meeting new ones. At one point while standing at the bar, I made some comment like "If you want it, you should've put a ring on it." At that point Dylan Alito turns around and does the Beyonce dance from the Single Ladies video. Well we became friends. Guys, if you can dance like Beyonce, we're gonna be friends. No question.
Derek, me, Summer, Frank.
After Underground we went to Lakanuki where it's always a fun time. Danced like crazy. Got my ghetto fab booty shake on. Sometime around 3am, Dylan and I walked back/ hitch hiked to Binky's place where a pretty mellow party was happening. Hung out. Gave Dylan cornrows. Passed out. Woke up a couple hours later.
It was a hot one.
Friday Morning. 9am. Time to go ride. Summer and I went up to the mountain and blah blah blah all that. I did 5s off a jump for the first time this season (better later than never right?) We planned to film but it didn't happen. "Tomorrow." we both said. After riding we went to the skatepark for some BBQ thing that going on. We didn't stay long enough to get food. Vons to buy bread and hummus. As we chowed down inside the store an employee told Summer she was going to get fat, and then an old man walked by and called us stoners. Back to the condo. Nap time. We ate dinner, picked up our passes for the weekend (I called a couple girl friends, including my old Windell's cabin mate, Janie, to come grab the extra passes we had under our names), and then went back to the condo to pregame.
At some point Summer's friend Kyle came with a van of Grenade kids to transport us over to Z Ranch for the first party of the night. Things blurred, we eventually made it to the Underground. Met this rad kid from Germany, Chris, and got into a real deep conversation about life. I lost Summer. Didn't make it out of the village that night.
Kodak moment with Chris.
Saturday Morning. 10am. Time to ride. First official day of Grenade Games. The park was closed off to people who had passes for the morning so that was pretty cool. So nice to ride a park without having to dodge people. The slopestyle contest went on, didn't notice it happening. Then the handplant contest went on and that was pretty fun. There was this bowl built with a ton of features in it. So many kids everywhere riding. It was cool.
Whole group ready for the race. I'm in the pink bikini under The Game's armpit
Then it was time for the Chinese-Eyed Downhill. Everyone made their way up to the top of Chair 23 when we were given the "15 minutes till drop" notice. An hour and a half later the event finally started. Summer and I had agreed to do the race in our bikinis so that happened. My focus was on not falling, instead of trying to go fast. No one wants snow burn on their boobs. The park chair stayed open until 6pm that day so after the race we started riding again.
Kevin and I trying to get the all important instagram shot.
I did a couple laps with a drunken Kevin Backstrom, and then started doing shots. (Summer and I never filmed, so again we said "Tomorrow.") John Travolta performed. Well, fake John Travolta. Then Dingo gave out some awards. Didn't pay attention really.
At the end of the day NOFX played a show. It was crazy. I had never moshed on snow before, but that happened too. NOFX is a really fun band to watch. Tons of people stage diving and crowd surfing. An out of control snowball fight between the crowd and the stage went down. We eventually got back to the condo, and then got ready for dinner.
@ the Underground. Didn't think about taking
a picture of Lil Jon. Dropped the ball.
Summer and I met up with Chris, Mason Aguirre, and his gf Olivia for dinner at Sushi Rei. It was a pretty mellow dinner. Mason was a really nice guy, and Olivia was super rad to chat with. The five of us headed down the street to the Underground for the Lil Jon show after eating. There was a huge crowd. Some fiasco with stolen wristbands went down, but it worked out and we got in. Drink Drank Drunk at the Underground. Missed Lil Jon because he DJed like three songs and then was done all while I was doing more shots with Kevin. Oops. I think we went to Lakanuki after. And then Mason's place. And then idk. I don't think I actually slept that night.
Wasn't too rough to do more shots though.
Sunday. Was. Rough. It had been a long weekend. Summer and I still had the determination to get to the mountain at 10am. We lapped the half pipe for the pipe contest. It got slushy and slow real quick but it was still fun. I attempted my first McTwists since my injury and it was ok. So pumped. Then it was the freestyle mogul contest. Crazy stuff went down. Like backflip gaping over three moguls (Dylan is kind of insane.) The only cool thing I did was miller flip over one of the moguls. The rest of the time I threw snowballs with the Dingo/Danny/Muddy/Monstergirls/Photog Mob at the kids trying to go through the course. Uhm more drinking then dual slalom. I raced my long lost friend Shane Heckman, and lost. So I went back to drinking. I rode the chair with Lil Jon. I really wanted to tell him he was doing great on Celebrity Apprentice and I respected his business skills. But I got shy so all I said was "Hey. How's it going?"
We try to be really cool.
Check my Toaster Strudel Steeze.
Sometime in the afternoon, Summer and I went back to the condo, packed up, and then dipped to Tahoe. On the drive back we realized "Oops, we never actually filmed. Next season?" Back in Kings Beach we intended to go to karaoke but crashed real early in the night.
We totaled maybe 10 hours of sleep and 22 hours of snowboarding over those four days. It was exhausting, incredibly fun, and I got really sick. Price you pay I guess. It was definitely a trip for the books, and another one of those ones where I can't really share the actual details of what happened on this blog. I'm glad the trip happened. Can't wait for GG10.
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