There weren’t any serious dumps this week, so I thought Jay wouldn’t be so hot. Then, I remembered Jay is always best when it snows a few inches throughout the week. I ripped around Jay Saturday and finally got to the backcountry spot Ian and I reconed last Fall. I’ll let the video speak for itself.

By the way, there’s a good crash segment at the end of this video.

The storm that was suppose to hit on New Years slowed down and hit us 2 days later. Unfortunately, it was a wild one. Smuggler’s Notch was the place to be with waist deep snow, while Stowe, which is just on the other side of Smuggs, was all windblown on the trails and wind packed in the trees. Jay Peak wasn’t any better. I know the wind protected pockets well, but it didn’t do Ian or I much good. Instead, we skied until about noon and then headed to the cemetery to ski some short, open lines we’d been eyeing since the Fall. Those buried in the cemetery must have been skiers because the snow was deep and extremely light.

Special thanks to Rogge at Ski The East for writing the article, I Ski Dead People, on this and all the props from the TGR and Newschoolers crowd.

Ian got some great shots of me wreaking havoc on the pow. Click the video link below and make it full size in HD. I threw Ian’s stills.

I woke up at 3:45 am, pounded my typical hiking breakfast of oatmeal, whey, peanut butter, milk, and yogurt, woke up Ian, and started hiking Stowe by 5:45 am. It was well below 0F, +30 mph winds, and we were still sweating. It was our first time shooting together (hopefully, of many). Then, the radios froze and we winged it. Everything, but the light, came out really well.

Below are a couple of the good shots. Click the thumbnails for the full sized image.

Lower Lord

Lower Lorder got Deep

My first weekend on skis was December 19th and 20th at Jay Peak. Like normal, all the closed stuff was awesome. Here’s some POV footage I shot with my GoPro HD. Click to the Vimeo film for the HD version.

Trip reports rock! I love experiencing epic conditions, even when I’m sitting in the office. The stories are great and pictures are always gorgeous. Most of the time, however, I have no idea where the TR took place. That’s why I love seeing GPS tracking.

I completed the custom table cells for individual posts and replies in the forums. There are a few redraw issues to fix. Unforunately, three20’s custom table doesn’t support its TTStyledTextLabel. When the HTML is rendered, the standard height calculations don’t work. Resizing custom cells should be available soon, as well as asynchronous images.

As promised earlier, here’s a screenshot.

I’ve been developing my first iPhone app for the last 1 1/2 months. The app fills a sorely needed space in the skiing community and while the website will remain nameless, if you happened to stumble here, you know exactly what site I’m talking about.

I’ve been very lazy about updating. Why? I’ve been skiing and working. This past weekend was dope. Jay got a multi-day dump. They’re claiming 20″, but they’re also liars. Mandy and Cody came up. Then, out of no where Brad and Shev. Then, the icing on the cake.  Margaret had Saturday off and came up Friday. She brought 12 PBR pounders, food, and an awesome attitude. Keeper!

Saturday was a decent snow day. A lot of tracked pow. The entire group broke apart throughout the day.  Mandy got cold and does was she does; goes to the bar, gets drunk, and becomes friends with the bartender.

Brad, Shev, and I did the Dip at the end of the day and Margaret went to pick us up.  Before she went in, Shev was suppose to rush down and stop her. He wanted to warm up before going over to the Dip. He missed her and she ended up sitting at the Dip for at least 40 minutes. She ran Pablo and Afsheen on a few laps though. My bad. I felt pretty bad about it even though it wasn’t a big deal.

All my friends left Saturday night, so Sunday Alan, Patrick, and I did some backcountry exploring.  We found a really sick spot. Below are two of the videos.  The first is me following Alan and the second is me coming down a line above the Dip parking lot shot by Pablo.  Zero complaints.