40 Year Olds, Beers and Ramps

 

What could possibly go wrong with that combo, right? Billy’s birthday on Saturday, plans were hatched for a surprise bday party. Chris and I figured nothing quite says you’re over the hill like a broken femur and whittled a small ramp on Saturday AM (note that while small in stature it feels WAAAAY higher than a similar sized ramp would have felt at age 12, and any growth spurts/center of gravity shifts haven’t helped). This is just the first piece/proof of concept of the master plan – a 3′ high, 8′ wide garage halfpipe. Beers were drank, a mini launch was tentatively ridden and a few people may carved their names into the Harlem Shake meme tree.

There’s something about the bones of a ramp that I’ve always loved seeing

Forgot to bring a gang of stickers and a can of Krylon. Plan B was sign letters. Note the lack of drill holes on the coping – we were proud of that

Sometime around midnight this still didn’t seem like a bad idea…

Playing around with the GoPro time lapse during the build. I should have kept switching the angles to make it a bit more visually interesting, guess I’ll have to do that when we start building the full half.

Ramp from Justin H on Vimeo.

I blame Dani for the below. The Harlem Shake is probably the least funny meme the internet has brought us yet but whatever, it happens.

Just Another Tour

 

“Superhappy Erik this is Poormansheli, do you copy?”

I didn’t expect the radios to work from the parking lot up to 5k feet but he copied, we toured and shit was rad. One day I’ll be a verbose blogger again, but today is not that day.

If this kind of view ever gets old to you it’s time to quit life

Can’t tell from this pic but it was WINDY on the summit right before winter moved in. Little funnel clouds were going up Monitor like it was a quarterpipe.

It was full on winter when we set up the tent. This is after the wind/snow had relented some. Perfectly level pitch.

2013/14 Nike tent booties

Waiting for my contact lens to melt out of it’s frozen saline tomb

Lap one and two, nothing crazy just volcanic pow bliss. We were the only two dudes riding on the whole fucking mountain.

I will carry this turn with me over the summer

Pow dance

Helens from Justin H on Vimeo.

Three takeaways from the trip:

1) The Mountain Hardwear Trango 2 tent is smaller than you think.
2) Big Agnes Insulated Q-Core is bomb
3) Getting old sucks

Weekend Pow

 

This was me after the 2nd lap on Helens.

TR: Oregon Splitfest

 

You missed it, it was two weeks ago. I conveniently forgot to post anything here as I didn’t want to contribute to the Googles crawler blowout and having it become a Baker Splitbrofest complete with 500+ attendees doing their best Dikembe Mutumbo/Shaq imitation, posting up on and knocking over women and small children to get a t-shirt.

Anyways, good attendance, good crew, good weather with a BEAUTIFUL blue sky and nice snow (well, the wind can suck it). Props to the sponsors and especially to Geoff aka El Jefe for organizing it. He’s not in the bro scene so faced an uphill battle in dealing with those that are. Also a big thanks to El Jefe and my homey Eric1 as they both know I’m not on the forums anymore and hit me up to let me know about this Splitfest (as well as the reunion fest for last year’s crew at a not to be disclosed location…).

Only photos I took were during the touring or after, no riding shots. It was the closest thing to a long pow run I’ll get this year and I wanted to enjoy it fully aka without stopping. If I don’t bring the SLR I tend to not give a shit about photos. There’s a photo dump thread here if you need moar.

Night 1 campground

 

6′+ in the back of a Subaru = human Tetris.  Kept the tailgate open the following night so I could stretch out.

 

Chevy ground cloth

 

 

Frozen solid

 

Closest thing to a riding shot I’ve got

 

Barley on Hood

Barley’s been touring with us a lot lately. As I’m currently dog free it’s nice to get some shed/slobber/this is the greatest fucking thing I’ve ever done dog time in.

Post-tour grillin’

 

Refrigerator

 

 

Eric1 and I decided to take a sunset shuttle lap through the resort in luchador masks.  Shitty beer + alpenglow + insane sunsets + wrasslin masks = always a good time.

 

 

 

 

See you next year! (probably not)

Playing on Inefficient Modes of Transportation

 

Yup, just another crappy day spent struggling on inefficient implements for crossing snow. Transition times were so slow that we had enough time to drink a tallboy every single time AND I forgot my camera so had to use the phonecam. FML.

A gaggle of best friends. Glad I’m a dude as these are far more fun than diamonds on a tour.

There is an old sailor’s adage “Red circles on NWAC play in the trees out back”

If it weren’t for that large mountain in the background I’d swear this photo was from the east coast

Dog the Pow-nty hunter

Prohibition era workaround (from Pfriem brewery/post-tour beers)

Blown Out

 

Nope, not a surf related post. Headed up north to kick it with the Tacomeys this weekend. Hit up a local beach to try and catch my first sea run cutthroat or resident coho on the fly. Wind. Wind. HOLY SHIT WIND! I’m not exactly skilled with the bug wand, and what semblance of skill I’ve got is pretty much negated by any wind…or people looking on intently…or holes in waders in 50 degree water…

Between the wind waves, the boat wakes and the double upping of wind waves with boat wakes made me wonder about the little points around the sound, if any of them ever get a little sand bar or filter the wind just right to where you could bring a longboard out.  Granted by the time most of what you see breaks it’s in 1′ of water over oyster/barnacle covered rocks, but maybe there’s a little spot with sandy bottom that filters it just right….

Not a single fish was convinced that the bundle of pink and white feathers with flashy tinsel and lead eyes was something edible. Ahh well, was a beautiful day.

That video reminds me I’m getting ugly in my old age and growing one of those bulbous old man noses.  WTF?!?! I guess the good news is it will make my eyebrows look smaller.

Same spot day later, lower tide

Crazy blue starfish

Shoulda Been Here Yesterday

 

…or more accurately Saturday. The sun was shining, the weather was sweet, it made me want to move my touring feet.

Best friend for a day

Mini Alaska was monitoring our every move

Stopped to enjoy the beautiful April day

Pole cam is a -10 friend point deduction

Maritime Goes Intermountain

 

Did a quick tour with the homey Erik from Superhappywax on Saturday.  Nothing crazy, just a get out and stretch the legs/start working off the Christmas cookies tour, plus this was Erik’s first time on a split so we just did some low angle volcano skipping.  Weather varied between beautiful bluebird and cold to fogged in and flat light (fortunately we had a few beers to help us wait that out).  Snow varied between bulletproof and wind scoured to little pockets of fluff.  The snow was that crazy dry ultra abrasive/shining like diamonds in the sun stuff, not your typical PNW conditions.  I think this is what the the Utahrado folks ride on the usual.  Only saw five others on the mountain all day.  Good times, good times.

Nothing like breaking in a pair of boots on a tour. Shout out to the homey drex from nwbroweather! Still owe ya

 

Erik adjusting to skiboarding

 

It was sorta blue early on

 

Who knows?

 

Alaska?

 

 

Nature’s topo map

 

Waiting out the flat light

 

This Was Interesting

 

Sugar much?  It’s like Utahrado came to the PNW.

Go read this trip report

 

Go read this trip report.  It’s got everything a TR should – exploration, cabins, coolers and pow.  I’m jealous.  A-man killin’ it, no red pants needed.