Where to begin. Mammoth is one of my favorite places to travel to. Although there may be no urban rails, and there may be no panda express, in-n-out or other quality restaurants, there are plenty of things to shoot, you just have to keep your eyes open. I enjoy shooting things that no one would ever think to shoot. I think it allows me to be a bit more creative and gives me the freedom to shoot something knowing that no one has ever done it before. Javier Silva (pictured) is a rider who rides to the same philosophy. He would rather spend all day free riding through the trees than lapping the park. He believes (and if any of you have ever seen the movie motocrossed on the Disney channel you will know this too) that if you spend your time free riding you will become a much better all around rider, and it will make you stronger in the park for it. Because of that I really enjoy riding, and shooting with him.

Sorry for the lack of imagery but I will explain why this entry has no picture in a second.

So to fill everyone in: I spent 4 nights in Tahoe, only to be kicked out of the house I was staying at. Well, the kids I was staying with were not the most welcoming people in the world, and in fact I have never felt more unwanted in my life. They only let me shoot one rail, for some reason or another. But on a positive note, I am kind of happy that they didn't want me to shoot more, because every single rail they wanted to do had been in one of the Neoproto videos, they never thought creatively or tried to find their own stuff to do. So the third day I was there, we were at a rail, I wasn't shooting, because Jake Devine had already done better tricks on it than all of these kids combined, and frankly, it wasn't that impressive. So the plan for the following day was originally to go to ASI, build a jump and shoot on it, but at that rail they changed their minds and told me to be out of their house at 6:30 the next morning because they were going to South Lake and I wasn't invited.

From the demo days in Mammoth I made my way up to Tahoe. Today was our first full day up here and we definitely made good use of our time. We drove around scoping for spots and then had a fun backyard park session before we packed our cars and headed out to this handrail we decided on shooting. It was a great session, there were a lot of great riders. We had it all, people throwing every trick they could, pushing themselves to do the tricks that didn't think they could pull.

Last week I was in Mammoth shooting with a friend of mine named Javier. The lack of snow limited our options and forced us to think very creatively about our possibilities. We walked away from that week with a few good shots, and a whole new appreciation for the creativity that should go into every still image you see. I really like the photo I attached to this. It may not be the most challenging thing to do ever, but the gap was reasonably big and the trees were very close together.