Off to PA

In a couple hours I'm jumping on a plane with about ten kids from my team here at Mammoth to fly to Pennsylvania. First we'll compete at the US Open Qualifier, and then a couple days later is Rev Tour. I don't feel quite back to 100% in the pipe yet, but hopefully everything comes together in the next couple days so I can qualify for the Open by placing top 5, and then podium at Rev.
Crossing my fingers

I'll update soon. :D

December Edit

Quick little one I made with some shots I got in December. Let me know what you think!

Volcom PBRJ Mammoth

This weekend was the first stop of the Volcom PBRJ tour. I hurt my back earlier in the week so I had to fight through some pain to make it through the contest, but I was able to hold it together and finish in 2nd place. I'm really excited to podium at this event since it was my first real rail jam in two years. (Last season my knee kept me from doing the bigger jams)

Anyways, this means I am going to be invited to the finals later this spring. It should be a ton of fun. I can't wait.

Gotta rep the WOOF MOB

Top 3 Ladies

The contents of my Swag Bag

First edit of the season

This month has been pretty awesome. I've been riding with the Mammoth snowboard team pretty much every day and been having a killer time. Lots of fun with a great group of kids and sick coaches. Every day I feel like I'm progressing, and I've been working on a bunch of new stuff to put in my December edit. Can't wait for the rest of the season.

Here's my first edit from the couple days that I filmed with the team, just getting back in the groove.



November 2013 from Jenise Spiteri on Vimeo.

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.

Summer o' Shred

Funny how quickly time goes by. I had planned on writing throughout the summer, but now I find myself at it's tail end without a single post.

It's been a pretty good adventure, and I don't really know where to start. Maybe I'll just jump around the highlights?

This night takes the cake for the best of the summer.

I spent the first six weeks of the summer living in my car. It wasn't too bad, and it was nice having my home go wherever I went. I spent most of my time off the hill just hanging out in town and being social, which was definitely a positive. I also went out almost every night during that time period so I could spend as much time not in my car as possible. My party-animal ways changed once I got a house. My amateur-hour mistake was not bringing a pillow. Sleeping on something hard and not having neck support for that long really messed with my back and neck.

While other people were soaking up the sun and sand, I was hanging out on top of the clouds.

I rode every single day in June, which might be a personal best. I don't know if I've ever done every single day of a month before. I maxed out at 32 days before taking a break to go celebrate 4th of July in Bend. For the beginning of the summer I lapped public park all day. Then I started riding Mt. Hood Summer Ski Camp. When High Cascade sessions started I jumped on the dig-to-ride program and rode there for the rest of the summer (I'll discuss my digging to ride experience in the next post). Annnd every once in a while I jumped over to Windells and played there.

Beer. Flag. Roof-top. 'Murica. 

4th of July in Bend. Wow. First excursion out of Government Camp for the summer. We started off by floating the river, and then hung out in the park with all the "freedom-riders." After that we went to a party at a kid who works at Windells' house. It was crazy. At one point probably around 100 people were posted up on his roof to watch the fireworks show. It seemed like everyone from Hood relocated to Bend for those couple days. I'd say a good majority of the High Cascade and Windells work force joined together for the party.

Me and Mom outside Bellagio. I stole her hat. Sorry.

For one of the in-betweens I dipped out to Vegas for two nights. I blew it when I partied at the Ark the night before my flight and missed my 6am departure. I was supposed to leave for the airport at 4am so I tried to stay awake until then, but crashed around 3. I had to spend an extra $250 for another ticket, but it was worth it to see my mom. I met up with my mom at the Vegas airport and then we went out to the strip. We had a pretty good time seeing Cirque du Soleil, eating awesome food, and checking out all the themed hotels. It was nice to get completely away from snowboarding and the same old crowd for a little bit.

You wouldn't believe how many people squeezed into the van.

Speaking of Ark parties, yeah that happened. I mean an Ark party is basically just standing outside the buildings drinking, but it's nice to be around a different crowd for a bit. Seeing old friends, and making new ones. The night/morning I missed my flight was probably the sweetest Ark party I went to this summer. We canoed out to an island behind the Ark, made a giant bonfire, and then raged inside a van. Yeah, Michael Wick has the coolest rape-van ever. Carpet on the walls and ceiling, strobe/colored lights, intense sound system. Add 15 people into the mix and you have an out of control van rager.

The Drink Water Rat Race went down at Hood mid-July. It was 90% invite, so I didn't think I'd win, but I figured I'd give it a shot and have fun since the $35 entry fee went to a really good cause. It ended up being a really fun day, and I surpassed what I thought I was capable of. I'm glad I entered. Afterwards was a BBQ at Clear Lake where lots of food was consumed, and the awards were given. I ended up not doing so badly- I placed 6th behind some pro chicks, so I'm pretty satisfied with that. Leanne Pelosi's pro model Dakine gloves were one of the first pairs of gloves I owned, so I'm not bummed about her having a faster time than me at all.

I pipe jocked out for most of the summer. I spent all but 2 of my High Cascade days just riding the super pipe all day. I spent the first couple of sessions just getting as comfortable as I could with airing. Then after talking with one of the Canadian coaches, and former Olympian, Crispin Lipscomb, I decided to commit to "training." I worked with him and a girl he coaches, Katie, for the last eight days and had crazy progression. I got so much more comfortable moving in the pipe, tried back 5s for the first time (and locked them in- my new best and favorite trick), worked on getting my front 5s consistent again, and started trying cab 5s (land them every time, but they aren't very pretty or clean just yet.) He also helped me sort through the madness which I first alluded to in this post. I still can't say exactly what it's about, but hopefully I can reveal that soon. I'm really excited about whats going on with that whole situation and I can't wait until things are confirmed and I can officially announce what I'm up to.

Annnd now we're caught up to today- last day on hill for High Cascade. There's one more session but I'm cutting my summer early to head back home and see my physical therapist/doctor. I need to get some things checked out before I possibly travel to New Zealand for the World Cup/Winter Games. I'm really happy with this summer. Even though I still couldn't get a job at camp, I was basically part of it. I was on hill for every day of every session, and helped with some of the off-hill activities at camp. I'm stoked that I was fortunate enough to be able to snowboard all summer, but I'm also stoked to get back home and hang up the ol' shred stick for a week and then two months.

Hope everyone out there in the webosphere had an awesome summer. Take it easy this fall. Get pumped for the winter. :D

Till the Bowling balls,
CKOS.

Mammoth again.

from the top of Chair 23

Where did all the snow go??

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.

May Pow

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.

Grenade Games 9

Went to my first Grenade Games. Oh my.

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.

Roxy Ride Days at Mammoth

This past weekend I went down to Mammoth for Roxy Ride Days. I didn't know what to expect because they've never done this event here in the states before, but I figured it would be worth it to take a year off from Flaunt It and check out what Roxy would put together.

I'm so glad I went. The weekend ended up being really fun. Here's the weekend in pictures.

 I drove down to Mammoth on Friday. Pretty uneventful drive. I stopped at 3 Flags Trading Post and bought a prickly pear sucker at one point.

I got to Mammoth at 6:05, just missing Happy Hour which ended at 6. I was going to be staying at Danika's but she hadn't told me where her house was so I killed time by getting a margarita anyways. A gaper from Hollywood was sitting next to me at the bar and I endured some painful conversation while I waited for Danika to call me.

I finally got to Danika's house. Her whole family was there- two cousins, two aunts, Mom, and Dad. Her family was really rad and super nice. I felt like I was part of the Duffy clan for the night. In a crazy small world coincidence, it turns out our moms used to compete against each other in ice skating.

Also, Danika has the sweetest dogs ever.

 Saturday morning started with registration and a free hot breakfast. I was put into Danika's coaching group with the other Advanced riders.
I didn't realize we were getting breakfast so I had already eaten. I grabbed an orange juice and breakfast burrito to put into my Roxy swag bag for later.
I just now realized the burrito is still in my bag. Think it's still good after sitting out for 36 hours??

After a quick group yoga session, we jumped in the gondola to take a warm up lap from the top of the mountain. This was the group I was in for the day. From left to right is Matilda (Sweden), Skittles (Tahoe), Nora (Sweden), and me.

 We met Kelly Clark at the top of the mountain. She was super nice and it was rad to chat with her. Seriously, amazing, down to earth girl. Stoked to have the chance to hang out with her for a couple minutes

We sessioned the forest park jumps and jibs for a couple hours and then went in for lunch. Roxy hooked us up with meal vouchers so I got a badass edamame salad, gluten free strawberry cupcake, and green juice. Eating healthy feels so good!

When we went back out it was time for the game of ROXY. It was basically just skate and Erin Comstock called out tricks for us to do on the down box. I started out bad, getting a R on a poor boardslide, but then breezed through the lipslide, back 50-50 front 180 out, and half cab-on rounds. I got my second letter (O) on a bummer front board. I kept it together for a 5-0, but then picked up an X when I dropped the ball on my stock nose press. By this point it was just me and Skittles (RO) left. Time was running out so Erin called front blunt to regs. My first ever attempt at a front blunt wasn't so bad but I sat down as I rode out so I took a Y and Skittles took the game.

We were short on time for the jump contest so instead of ROXY style we played a game where the first person to do five tricks won. If you didn't land a trick you had to keep hiking and trying it until you landed it. The five tricks we had to do in order were back 180, front 180, switch back 180, front 360, and back 360. I was already tired from hiking for the rail jam, but I wanted a win and knew I could do the tricks so I power-hiked my heart out and put the tricks down one by one (with sweet grabs, might I add.) I ended up winning the contest and got this crazy Paul Mitchell blow dryer and hair straightener as a prize. It was an amazing feeling to win a contest- I'm pretty sure this was the first time it happened for me. I'm really pumped now too because I spun jumps for the first time this season and my knee didn't hate me for it!

Roxy gave out some more prizes for a couple dance offs. I got in a conversation with someone and when I looked back a leg wrestling match was going down. Awk.


















My phone died so I had to stop taking pictures but the rest of the day was rad too. I went out with Danika and her boy for Happy Hour at Lakanuki, and we ended up staying there for a couple hours. Then we went back to her place and I hunted for my car keys which had gone missing. They never turned up so I took a nice little run down town around 11:30 to go to the after party at the newly opened Underground Lounge.

Roxy had a table and it was awesome to party it up with all the girls I had met that day. I saw a lot of other familiar faces around too because a lot of guys had come to town for Nike's Snakes & Hammers contest. A dance contest went down during the party and I walked away with a $100 Roxy gift card. Score! I made it back to a friends house around 4am, we hot tubbed, and passed out at 5am. I got a ride back to Tahoe at 11ish and had my landlord come unlock my house because my missing keys are all together somewhere.

I'll be heading back down to Mammoth on Wednesday with Danika and my spare car key, and then driving my car right back up (not looking forward to that so much.)

I'm really stoked on this weekend. I met amazing people, tried some new tricks, and learned I'm capable of more than I've been giving myself credit for. I'm so looking forward to the rest of the season, and then this summer at Hood where I'll see some of my new friends again.

Weeeeeeee. Dangerously Stoked right now.

The "training" has begun.

Last year I didn't have much progression and I'm kind of bummed about that. The big issue I think was me not having a coach. I don't have the fundamentals of snowboarding in my muscle memory like the kids I ride with who have been doing it for years have. Without a coach I just kind of send it and hope for the best. For me to get better I really need someone who knows what they're doing to tell me what to do.

This year I'm going to be working with this awesome coach, Chris Hargrave.  I worked with him a little bit two seasons when I was on the Northstar Snowboard Team and he was one of the coaches there. He really knows what he's doing and has coached some really talented riders. Chris focuses on fundamentals and perfecting every little piece of what goes into each trick, and that's what I want. He is also someone who actually cares about coaching. I think that's a very important quality for a coach to have- passion to help others get better.

I met with him last week for our first session together. I thought we were only going to take a couple runs but we ended up riding for like 2 hours. We spent that whole time basically just making turns. He broke turning down into a bunch of little parts and tried to fix the way I move on my snowboard. The objective was to make powerful turns that would translate into effective pumping/edging in the pipe. We also worked on switch ollies for a bit, and I've never felt so awkward trying to ollie before! haha

In this past week I've been making a conscious effort to use the things he taught me. I think I'm really starting to get it, and my switch riding almost feels as comfortable as my regular riding now.  Because of how my riding has changed, my knee no longer hurts when I'm making turns. Good Sign!

I have a great feeling about this year. I think my injury might have been a blessing because I now have the opportunity to basically relearn snowboarding, but correctly this time. I'm super excited for what's to come!

First Days Riding

I finally got cleared to snowboard! (kind of)

First run of the season!

I saw my physical therapist on the 21st of this month and she said snowboarding wasn't a good idea because I was still "at high risk" for reinjury. However, she also said I'm still gonna be at high risk until June, and I've done everything I can personally do to prepare myself to ride so if I want to ride it's my personal choice (but she and my surgeon would prefer it if I waited longer.) So I took that to mean I was cleared.

Couldn't be Happier

I rode by myself for my first two days. Honestly, I was terrified before going up the magic carpet for my first run. Since I wasn't exactly given the green light, I wasn't sure what to expect from my knee. What if my ACL ripped out the second I made my first turn? The one thing I really shouldn't do right now is fall, and I did that twice during my first run. Luckily I was moving slow enough that my falls were basically me just sitting down. I definitely looked like I was just learning to ride because I had beginner stance my first couple runs- you know, all weight on the back leg with knee super bent, and front leg completely straight out. It was bad. I kept in on the magic carpet and The Big Easy for those first two days, and only got like 5 runs in each day before my knee started feeling sore.

Me, my Mom, and my Dad at the top of Zephyr

Then my parents came up on Christmas eve. After spending two hours getting their rentals in the village, we got on the chair to mid-mountain. My first chair to an actual run! Taking real runs instead of just the bunny hill was kind of scary. I ventured up to the summit with them, and took it real slow the whole way down. I think I got seven chairs in on that day, but my knee was definitely sore right away. It only actually felt ok when I was riding switch, which really surprised me. I was also surprised to find out I don't know how to carve switch. Maybe I just couldn't turn because I was babying my knee. Who knows. Once my knee was really feeling done, I told my parents to ski some more without me and I went and chilled by a fire.

I took Christmas day off to rest my knee and my parents headed back home. Once they left Tahoe I realized I left my knee brace in my dad's car, so now I can't ride until that gets back up here in the mail. It should come in tomorrow and then I can go make some turns at Boreal while my Northstar pass is blacked out.

Making turns like a BOSS.

My surgeon had worried that I'd try sending it as soon as I got back on my board and get reinjured, but that won't happen. I'm so happy to just make turns that I don't feel the need to even go into the park yet. My main priority is still strengthening my knee and not pushing it too soon. I have my first competitions coming up in mid-January but I'm gonna wait it out on "training." If those contests come up and I still don't feel ready to get in the pipe or jump, I'll drop out. I have big plans for next season and I'm not going to throw away a huge opportunity for a Rev Tour stop or USCSA event.

For now, just strapping in is enough to be thankful for.

My mom and dad are rad, btw.