I am a student at the University of Vermont and a member of the University of Vermont Snowboard Team. Last spring break I went to Mammoth to visit my cousin. At the same time few of the other members of the team, including my girl friend, went to Tahoe to ride compete in Forum Youngbloods and practice for USASA nationals the following week. The day I was leaving California to return to Vermont happened to be the same day as the Forum Youngbloods finals. My flight was scheduled to leave Reno at 10:00pm, unfortunately the only ride that I could arrange from Mammoth to Reno left at 6:00am. This meant that I was stuck in the Reno airport for 10 or 11 hours waiting for my flight. I arrived at the Reno Airport around 9:30am, found a comfortable chair to wait in, and resigned myself to the fact that I had to sit in the airport for 10 hours while my friends were in Tahoe riding an amazing park. To make me even more jealous, the weather report told me that Tahoe was getting dumped on. But just then there was a ray of hope; a voice from the heavens (the airport announcement system) told me that there was a shuttle going from Reno to Tahoe. I thought to myself I can’t let all this opportunity pass me by, so I ran to the shuttle office. I talked the people working at the shuttle office into letting me store my luggage in their office, which looking back at it seems like it was a major breach for airport security, but that’s neither here nor there. I bought a one way ticket for the shuttle to Tahoe, grabbed my snowboard bag and I was on my way!
While traveling to Tahoe I asked the bus driver if there were shuttles from the casinos to the mountains and he assured me there were. I took the shuttle to the last stop, the Horizons Casino, and looked for the next shuttle to Sierra at Tahoe. I couldn’t find any evidence of a shuttle to Sierra so I asked someone working at the Horizons when the next shuttle was leaving for Sierra. The hotel concierge informed me that there were no shuttles that went from the casino to Sierra! I hadn’t gone that far, to not make it to Sierra. I asked the concierge if he knew of any way I could find a ride to Sierra. The concierge told me that they had a few packages that were supposed to be picked up and taken to Sierra in fifteen minutes! So I waited with the concierge until the person taking the packages to Sierra arrived. I asked the Sierra employee if I could get a ride to the mountain, she agreed, and I tossed my board in the back of her pick up truck.
By this point the snow was really coming down, I was super excited and amazed that this might actually work out! The ride to Sierra was slow because of all the snow but unbelievably I made it to Sierra at Tahoe by noon! I took out my cell phone to call my girl friend and tell her the surprise that I was at Sierra, no service! I figured whatever, I made it, there is fresh snow that needs to be ridden, and there’s no such thing as friends on powder days anyway. I bought a half day lift ticket, went inside to put my boots on and the first people I see are my girl friend and the rest of the UVM Snowboard Team! Many hugs and high fives were exchanged then we went outside to take advantage of the amazing snow! The five of us made powder slashes and killed it in the trees until the mountain closed! It turns out friends make powder days even more enjoyable! The riding was some of the best I had all season, and it was by far the most memorable!
The icing on the cake for the whole experience was that I got to tag along for the Forum Youngblood dinner. I got a free meal and tons of stuff from Forum! We left the Forum dinner at 7:30pm and high-tailed it back to the Reno Airport in the Dodge Caravan that the team had rented for their trip in Tahoe. After many more hugs, high-fives, and a few sing-alongs in the minivan. We made it to the airport at 9:00pm, just in time for my flight. I boarded my flight with free new gear, a full stomach, and an amazing feeling of accomplishment! Because timing was so tight I had to fly home wearing my wet snowboard pants and socks!

Sometimes pictures are worth a thousand words, so is my picture worth 14,000 words? I think ill spare you an essay. Anyway i believe this picture encompasses all that is Bear Mountain. I absolutely love the place, there is sooo much to do that you can encompass many different types of shred in one day. Bear has been my home mountain for the past 3 seasons, and before that my home was Snow Summit. I have now moved to North Lake Tahoe and Northstar will be my home resort this year. I am really excited about this as it means more powder days than bear can offer, hooray for the freeride shred! Anyway heres my pic and an explanation of it below.

The reason i picked this montage as my picture for the contest is because it was one of the most fun shred days i have ever had, freeriding bear. Yes i hit features, but believe it or not me and my friends were linking turns between features, bonking snowmaking machines, racing, spraying each other with slush, learning new flatground tricks, and just generally having a blast. Sometimes its really fun to just go out and be silly with your friends, and bear provides the riders with the perfect atmosphere to do this. There is an overload of mini shred features to just go nuts on. Its not always about how big you go, how many rotations you can do, or how many x's your tall tee is. sometimes you just gotta do a micheal jackson, a double grab, or slash some slush. its always fun for me to pretend im surfing, it ads a whole new aspect to snowboarding, a different way to freeride. I mean lets be honest, nothing is more natural than surfing. i highly recomend everybody go to there resort and do a layback slash or pretend to get barreled somewhere on the mountain. Pretending is fun! To end this post Im gonna go ahead and pretend i dont have more to write about that day at Bear and snowboarding in general as to not ramble and bore the hell out of you. (thank me later, cause seriously i could write 14,000 about shredding) Anyway if all you at snow park tech want to see some more pictures here are two more at bear from 2 seasons ago.

Regards,
Eli Weiner

Yeah, that's right we had back to back sick powder days at Northstar. Now I know Northstar is not known for their sick freeride terrain, but it was just that SICK!!!! The storm showed up on Sunday and really has not stopped... Kirkwood is calling for over five feet from this storm this week with another two feet to arrive before Sunday... if you cannot see it, I am smiling from ear to ear.

Rode with Shell and Jodie on Tuesday at Northstar under true dumping conditions... seriously hilarious stuff.

Then on Wednesday we all shredded with the Oakley RSMs who came up for a little break from the office world. Krizz and Russ threw down some fun antics... plus making turns with Hoyer and Quigs is always a badass time.

This was a classic day last winter in Tahoe... man I miss those days!!!

So, we (Jodie, Michelle and I) were headed to Kirkwood on Friday morning after watching good ol' Todd on RSN. Kirkwood had received over five feet of snow in three days and were expecting up to two feet more that day. All roads were open when we hit the road and during our drive from Incline we kept switching over to AM 1610 to hear the latest road reports. As we neared the junction of 89 off of 50, we came to a complete stop and then noticed it was 50 that was closed at Meyers and we could turn onto 89. We flew down 89 headed for 88, with the pass still being open from Kirkwood till the 89 Junction of 88. Four miles into our drive of 88 the A6 came to a complete stop again... this time it seemed like the traffic had just stopped. Some dude rolled down his window and stated that the road had just closed before Kirkwood for Avalanche Control, and it would be at least four hours until the pass opened. Well, whoever made it to Kirkwood on Friday, had that whole damn mountain to themselves.

We cruised back to the junction of 50, to notice it was still at a stand still... now it's been about two and half hours in the car and I am wondering if it makes sense to even be waiting for this road to open. Michelle jumps out of the car as I start ask what the time might be for our wait and comes back to tell us we have 10 minutes. Awesome... ten minutes I can do... and another 35 minutes of driving and we make it to Sierra... and what a day it was.

Click here for a video clip of Michelle and I having fun in then snow (you will need QuickTime to view)

Although it dumped almost none stop the entire day, making visibility almost impossible at times... the amount of snow I was making turns through was insane. I had never ridden such ridiculously huge amounts of snow... at points in the woods I was looking for tracks so I could get my speed back. Michelle rode some of her first true glade runs and was killing it going off some jumps and bumps throughout our runs.

When the day ended we had a good snowball fight, some wrestling moves were exchanged, and a few road sodas were devoured. I was stoked on the day and all the events that went into it...

This story came from back in early March, Michelle is now my wife and we live in So Cal... and we miss Tahoe terribly... hopefully it's cool to post more than one story because I have another funny one from a Northstar Trip.

Yo I didnt post my schmeal in here cuz Im a freaking idiot. Can I still be involved with my post Killing Time In Aspen? Word.

!!!Worship Death Metal!!!

One day last year, my friends and I were going up to Snoqualmie for a night sesh. To make it an even better night sesh, I decided to bust out the one-piece. Purple, green, pink, and a belt in the middle make for a super retro combo. I got this thing at Value Village one time for like $20 just for fun and it is literally skin tight on me (I am kind of a big guy). So shredding in it was pretty tough until the crotch ripped out, but, it was still pretty tough.

So we were just cruising the park doing trains through the little jumps and rollers and stuff, methods, double shiftys, you name it... fun stuff for sure. Then we realized there was a new step down and decided to go hit it... I ended up hitting it first. It was probably like a 30 or 40 foot gap at the most and I didn't want to come up short, so I straightlined it down from the cat track... and overshot, by a lot, and landed on my back, in a one-piece, in the flat. I'm not gonna lie it was pretty embarassing but I got some cheers from the chairlift and I think it probably made all my friends' nights, and it hurt like hell. My elbow was all swollen and my head hurt, and my back was all crooked and junk like that, but I was wearing a one-piece, so everything was just radical. And I love Snoqualmie Pass, best park in Washington, who cares if it rains sometimes?

This isn't exactly legal, last season was the first season in 5 years that I did not ride at Cranmore. I had so much fun over the years I figured I would bother you all with a post anyways.

Some of my best memories come from my last full season on the hill. It was my first season back from knee surgery and the first year that Gunny was overseeing the Booth Creek parks. A good friend of ours was running the park and enlisted a bunch of my crew for design and building. In a lot of ways it was a dream come true, I love building kickers and doing creative stuff with snow. We got to hang out with a Cat just building whatever came to mind. My favorite didn't last long. We built this huge stopsign table, essentially 3 take-offs and 3 landings, and we put an apex rail in the middle.

I shot this photo of my friend Brent at the tail end of a day long park building session. We had private sessions of everything we had built, it was epic. I have always like this shot, its really just a shifty nose tap. Besides the lighting, it really captures a lot of what snowboarding is to me, simple style.

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Live Fast. Die.

Im not sure if this is where to post these pics but im gonna do it anyways, please let me know if this comment should be moved... enjoy

as far as the story goes... this was a pretty normal day of shredding with my crew under the sunny skies of Big Bear. However the real story was just 2 days before. After a painfull 3 hour drive up the mountian we spent all saturday slashing the first powder of Bear's season. Rope ollies and tree jibs filled the day. Little did we know it was snowing just as hard all the way down the mountian. We left at 4:00pm right in the middle of the biggest storm of the year. After my windsheild wippers desided to stop working I spent part of the drive with googles on and my head out the window. Just when i thought we were out of the woods they sent us back up the mountian on a different rout because of the snow. Later on on highway 18 we came to a stop, and didn't move for another 3 hours. A few cars had gone off the road and there was a back up hundreds of cars long. So we got out, took some food and a video camera, and had our own party on the side of a mountian. A total of 8 hours later we arrived home in San Diego at 12:00 am. To some this may sound like a nightmare... and it kind of was. But with the right friends and the right attitude we managed to have the time of our lives... plus it gave bear mtn. the snow it so terribly needed. Giving us the chance to do what you see in the pictures....

love pe@ce & chicken gre@se

waking up at 5 in the morning to drive 2 hours to bear, riding from 9 to noon with all your friends, getting a few shots, and heading back at 12:30 straight to work from 3-10:30, then waking up and doing the exact same thing the next day, priceless

Where were you March 11th 2006? After an abyssmal early season and near bankruptcy, Bear Mountain finally got the storm they deserved on March 10th. After hook and bobbin up and down the streets in Bear City behind a snowmobile all night, we caught 2nd chair to the top of Express and hiked over to Silver Mountain. These were the first turns down Quiksilver to boarder's right off Silver. Best day Bear saw last year, tragically it was short lived. By 11am all of the secret stashes in Bow and Deer were tracked and I was sitting at the bar getting ready for the long drive to Snowbird. Ooh yeah and you guys/girls would be damn fools not to hook me with the Bear pass, maybe I'll even show you Monday's

Ah, the Tollbooth! I loved watching riders try to hit that feature going up the Central Express chair this past season. They really stepped up the park this past season at Snogs.