I was in Jackson for a Marmot shoot of next year’s gear. Also on the shoot was Marmot athlete Mike Leake, who I just met for the first time. Mike is an astounding skier to say the least, yet such a modest low-key guy. We were shooting with photographer Gabe Rogel. And while we didn’t exactly have powder, Gabe worked his magic and we took advantage of some bluebird skies. Here’s a sneak preview of some of the shots.
After flying back to Aspen in the evening, it was on to Crested Butte in the morning. I was headed to compete in the 20th Annual Subaru Freeskiing Extremes. While Thursday was set as the qualifying day, I didn’t have to compete since I’m a pre-qualified athlete, thanks to my results earlier in the season at Jackson Hole. However, due to high winds and low visibility qualifiers were pushed back to Friday and competition started on Saturday.
Crested Butte, also know as the east coast of Colorado, has some seriously rock littered terrain, and usually doesn’t see exceptional amounts of snowfall. Day one’s venue, held on Staircase, is the epitome of Crested Butte’s standards, and it most definitely was not a forgiving venue. While I feel that I skied the top section solid, when I got in the middle section I launched by first air and was thrown backwards. Unfortunately I was unable to recover and had a good old fall on to my ass. Oh well, if you don’t fall once in awhile you aren’t trying hard enough….right?
So after arriving back home I was greeted with over a foot of powder and have just been having a blast ripping up the home mountain the last few days. Nothing like some powder to make you feel like a million bucks.
