COVER “February 2019 was exceptionally cold at Mt. Baker, WA. A few solid storms were followed by prolonged runs of clear weather, which preserved the snow for long stretches of alpine riding, a rarity in the Pacific Northwest. Here, Kael Martin sets the afternoon bootpack while Jerry Mark, Tucker Andrews, Harry Kearney and Timmy Taussig follow. It was the first day after a storm and we rode until sunset, setting up another unforgettable week at home.” Photo: Colin Wiseman UP TOP 01 “Louif Paradis found this World War II-era fortress near Briançon, France on Google Earth. It’s close to the Italian border and was built to defend invasions from the east. After a drone recon to see if there was snow, we hiked in for an hour then had to make a sketchy move over a closed gate to get in. Here, Craig Cameron airs off the top of the main bunker.” Photo: Julien “Perly” Petry 02 “It’s rare to find a perfect windlip, but Mark Carter has a little of everything up his sleeve. While trying to figure out where to go at 6:30 a.m. on a minus-20-degree morning in a remote Wyoming parking lot, Carter suggested this piece of perfection that was wide enough for the four boarders in our crew to have unlimited landing spots. Here, Carter sets down a frontside 360 tail grab 15 hits into the session.” Photo: Darcy Bacha 06 03 “I was standing atop a dam on Hokkaido, Japan, leaning over a small railing with a couple hundred feet of air between me and the ice below. Gigi Rüf prepared to drop into some pillows across a small section of water. As Gigi dropped, a couple hundred ducks that were settled close to an unfrozen pool of water took off simultaneously. A very substantial gust of wind hit me, along with the even more substantial sound of their wings erupting from the water as they hightailed it across the lake in panic.” Photo: Erik Hoffman “While on an extended splitboard trip in Arolla, Switzerland, the crew had been up scoping the day before and noticed this glacial feature. There were two jumps right next to each other over ice. Mat Schaer was super keen on the bigger one, but the other guys were on the fence about it. In the end, Mat sessioned it solo. He hit it five or six times and landed four different tricks, including this frontside 540. On one of his landings, he uncovered blue ice. By 2 p.m. we’d built two jumps and sessioned them both. All that was left was the three-hour climb to our hut for the evening.” Photo: Vernon Deck 07 04 “It took quite a battle for Ben Bilodeau to land this 50-50 in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland, the home of the main Swiss watch factories. He was hyped for at least the next 10 days.” Photo: Julien “Perly” Petry 05 “I doubt this 1914-built bridge would pass any sort of safety codes these days, but it’s too far from anywhere for anyone to care. It sits just a stone’s throw away from the Warbington’s family farm near Bend, OR and doesn’t get much traffic aside from an older British man moving snow with his Kubota for no obvious reason other than entertainment. He would stop every so often to inform us the land behind me—from the vantage point of where the photo was taken—was state land and was OK to be on, but the land from which Forest Bailey dropped in was owned by a grumpy man who owned a shotgun. A shotgun he was known to tote when people trespassed on his property. For two days there was no sign of the shotgun man, so we went about our business and shot every feature we could find.” Photo: Erik Hoffman “The West Shore of Lake Tahoe, CA, on a perfect January day. Jeremy Jones and I had been riding almost every day, so we were in tune with the snowpack. We met up for a 4 a.m. departure and began our ascent under moonlight, summiting before sunrise. After a snack and transitioning to ride mode, Jeremy nailed this turn. We took three laps and got a ton of great shots, but they were all overshadowed by this sunrise moment with cold, midwinter snow.” Photo: Ming Poon 08 “Melchsee-Frutt is a little resort in central Switzerland. I never really had it on my radar because it was said to be super flat and low elevation, and therefore not really suited for shooting. Nicolas Müller’s landing on this backside 180 was anything but flat, though—sometimes to know, you just gotta go.” Photo: Silvano Zeiter THE SNOWBOARDER’S JOURNAL 015
The Snowboarder's Journal frequency 17.1: Page 15
