Aftermath of Opening Weekend

Two things that I'm really excited about-

1. I got a photo on snowboardmag.com's recap of opening weekend. This is my first time getting a photo on a snowboard website and I'm so humbled. I can only think back to four years ago when I was sitting in high school reading snowboard magazines and dreaming about the day when I would be able to go to the events they wrote about and showed. It's not the same as the photos in print that inspired me all those years ago, but it's one step closer. (Gallery on the article won't load right now so I can't screenshot but this is the photo)

P: Binky

(Article Here)

2. I sent the same photo to Monster, and they posted it on the homepage of their Monster Army website. Really stoked about this too. Gives me motivation to keep pushing myself everyday. Hopefully getting photos posted by people other than myself becomes a trend this season. 

Mammoth Opening Weekend 2013

I love Mammoth Opening Weekend. I haven't missed it for three years now. Even last year when I was broke off I still came to party and take photos. This year rocked because 1. I wasn't broke off so I could ride, and 2. I was 21 for the first time. I mean, I still partied the other years, but this time it was legal. Woohoo. So anyways here's somewhat of a recap:

Pre-Opening (Wednesday night):
Summer gets to my house. We do girl things. Like painting our nails, talking about boys, and buying denim shirts to turn into matching vests for our new crew, Woof Mob.

Opening Day (Thursday):
Summer and I get to the mountain at 7am, and get in line. There's probably 30 people in front of us. The chair doesn't star for an hour and a half. Mammoth posted a photo of us waiting in line, but we don't look as cool in the photo as we actually did in real life with our sweet matching vests so I'm not sharing that photo. This was one of the most fun days I've had in a while. Pure joy. We met up with the Zeal guys in the parking lot a couple hours later and they hooked me up with a pair of goggles (and later some shades.) Thank you so much! I love them. You rock. Then we went and rode more. And had more fun. I think later we went out and partied and stuff. It was a good time.

Burgers & Beer with Zeal- seriously, amazing company. Thx 4 lunch

Beautiful day for some snow sliding.

I'm about the selfie lyfe. Dope Zeal shades.

Day 2 (Friday):
Another great day. We started a little later today and got to the mountain after the chairs started running. Ran into good friends. Had fun laps. Saw some friends from Arbor. Tried out a pretty rad board (the Cadence). I was unsure of it being rocker, because I only ever ride camber, but I was surprised by the stability of the board. It had the power of a camber board, and the pressability of rocker. Took a couple runs on it. Later in the afternoon I hit my head so I started taking it mellower. That night I went to Underground. Got my face painted. Danced. Consumed alcohol. Found a ride home. Good times.

Locked the guys out on the deck and this happened.

OMG LIGHT UP FOAMY STICKS

Regina and I with our hipster face paint

Seriously, there was a face painting area. Underground knows how to party.

Me and some random kid. #drunkselfie

Day 3 (Saturday):
Today was my first day "training" with the Mammoth Snowboard team. In the morning we met our coaches, talked about stuff, and then went riding. It was a pretty fun day until the last run when I hit my head really hard. I busted my helmet. Definitely concussed. Chilled out the rest of the day. Didn't make it out to party. Couldn't be bothered to take photos.

Day 4 (Sunday/Monday):
Took riding really easy today. No rails or anything. Kept it mellow after riding too. Just went and played with weapons with Summer, and chilled at the Zeal house. That night Summer and I woke up at 3am and sneaked into the guys' bedrooms to paint their nails. Or maybe that was on Monday night. IDK. I was concussed. Things blurred from Saturday through Monday. (Which is why I'm leaving Monday out of this write up. I honestly don't remember many details from the three nights after hitting my head.)

AMERICA FUCK YEAH

Just having a good ol' time.

Lounge Lyfe with Zeal.

And that's about it for Opening weekend. I had a good time, but could've done without hitting my head twice. Looking forward to the rest of the season here. Mammoth is already so much fun. I can't believe I'm living here.

Mammoth Opening Weekend

This past weekend was Mammoth's Opening Weekend, and because I've been into torturing myself by going to the openings of all the mountains around Tahoe, even though I can't ride yet, I made the send to Mammoth.

On Thursday it started snowing while I was in school so I left as soon as class got out,  unsure of how bad the storm might get. I arrived in the Mammoth Village a little after 7pm and realized I had no idea of what I was doing for the night. My phone was stolen a couple weeks ago so communication is basically impossible. The only way I can find my friends is by just guessing where they'll be and going there. My first stop was Sushi Rei for the Volcom VIP Reception. I ran into friends there so I hung out a drank for a while. I ended up meeting a ton more people too and we eventually all made our way over to Lakanuki to party more. Sometime around two our little gang rolled up to our friend's condo up the street and crashed there.

Friday morning started off slow but eventually everyone got their stuff together and went out to ride. Lucky me got to stay inside the condo all day and watch Real Housewives of Atlanta/attempt to do homework. When everyone came back from riding we hot tubed and then went down to the village. I watched a couple minutes of the Horgasm: A Love Story premiere but Lakanuki was too crowded for my taste so I left to find something else to do. I ended up running into some of the Yobeat guys outside Gomez's and hung out with them. Together we ventured over to Corey Smith's Spring Break Snowboards art show. There were some amazing photographs there, as well as the craziest boards I've ever seen. After the show we went up to this amazing huge suite (I think it was Transworld's) and did some party preparation. Then it was back to Lakanuki for some madness. Back in the spring when I blew my knee out I had emailed Cale Zima, who was about 3 months ahead of me in recovery, and chatted with him about knee stuff. I met him for the first time in real life at Lakanuki and did some more knee talk/shot drinking. Super cool guy. At the end up the night I somehow was convinced by a couple friends to drive up to their spot at the mountain. There we got into some shenanigans (asbestos was definitely involved) and then passed out.

On Saturday all the guys in the house went out pretty early to ride and because I was already at the mountain I figured I'd go out and take some pictures. I spent the day chugging Monsters and hiking the park in my jeans and tennis shoes. Meanwhile, Matty Mo kept the tunes fresh in the lodge all day. After quitting my photog endeavor I went back to the Mammoth Inn where I had spent the previous night. The rest of the evening involved watching Skeleton Crew's new video Media Offline, playing a multi-story game of Hot Lava with Ethan Deiss, discussing how wonderful riding pipe long and hard is, and drinking Monster-Vodkas. Eventually our gang made it out to Sushi Rei for dinner and stuffed ourselves with the good stuff. I felt kind of bad that Monster payed the tab and I probably shouldn't have been covered, but my one roll and a Soppora probably won't dent the company's financials. We were at the restaraunt for a while because different friends kept sitting down and kicking it, but at some point we got out of there and went up to the 32 condo. There was a girl there- it was so exciting. haha I finally got to hang out with another female for the first time that weekend. Our huge group loaded up a bus and ventured up to the lodge for the RZA concert. I managed to walk into the Vestal VIP lounge with the rest of the group, despite being non-very-important, and enjoyed the free vodka drinks and foam-glow-stick battles for the two hours we had until the show started. RZA was ok, but I couldn't understand a word he was saying so I just talked to friends for most of the show. The last stop on Saturday night was to Mason Aguirre's house for his birthday party. That was pretty fun and low key. Really awesome way to end the night- surrounded by friends, good energy, stale McDonald's french fries, and more vodka.

I had never decided what day I would leave Mammoth on, but when I woke up Sunday morning I felt like it was time to go. It had been a full weekend and I was ready to get home, sleep in my bed and do a major party detox. I'm glad I went to Mammoth because it definitely motivated me to kick some physical therapy butt so I can get on the snow again. I'm pumped for the season and I can't wait for more good times with friends.

Here's a couple photos I took, before I got lazy and stopped pretending to be a photographer.

Mammoth Opening Weekend 2012, a set on Flickr.

And Here's a video of the weekend that I didn't make: