Oh, boy…. this is awkward. I am such a bad blogger…. Well since I was in Canada last year, it’s now time for the season to start again. So i guess i had better share what I did all summer with you all. Well, since Canada I finished out the season, with three more events. They went okay. However I did take one of the nastiest falls ever in the Vans Cup in Tahoe. It was horrendous! Long story short, I ended up hurting my wrist AGAIN! for the second year in a row! So i ended up with another reconstructive surgery from the amazing Dr. Viola here in Breck. I had the surgery in June, so i was riding pretty much up until then trying my hardest to get editorial coverage, photos, video shots, etc…

So Surgery went very well, Dr. Viola put 4 pins in me, and made me wear a cast pretty much all three months of summer! So needless to say, I really couldn’t do a whole lot in my time off.

I went to snowboard for a week at Mt. Hood, Oregon in July. But took it very easy and worked on some fundamentals while riding. I rode switch, or backwards for 4 days straight, to try and get better at
that in the halfpipe. It was a fairly productive week of snowboarding. Most of the time you forget about how fun it is trying new things on a less risky level. So it was a great time, and i got much better at switch riding. Though i was extremely careful and didn’t want to fall or anything.

From Hood I came home for pretty much the rest of summer. Which was great, because i got to spend a ton of time with my girlfriend and dog. We went on several camping trips, hiked all over CO. Oh and i took up RUNNING…. HA, that’s right! I did. Something I haven’t done since i played soccer and football back in high school! Good times though. I had to do something during the day, since my wrist and arm were locked up in a plaster cast for 3 months! And there’s wasn’t much else i could physically do. So running it was. I got in to it because my girlfriend Tricia was training for the Denver Marathon all summer! Which she finished in 4 hours and 30 minutes by the way!!!! So proud of her! Anyway back to me. So i would run with her, to help her train and everything. Though I would usually omit the longer runs when she had to do them. The furthest I would run would be about 8 miles. Which was plenty for me. But after doing most of the summer, and seeing her finish the marathon, I’m thinking about doing a half marathon next summer. Maybe to help raise money for Athletesforacure.org? Who knows. Something to think about all winter I guess.

Well now it’s already Halloween and I keep asking myself “where did summer go?” Although, I am so fired up to get back on snow, since I didn’t have much chance to do it all summer. Where usually I’d head south to New Zealand for some pre-season warm up for a few weeks. So now it’s starting to snow out here in CO, and getting pretty cold throughout the night, so I am definitely ready for the winter to start and the season to kick off! I apologize for the shortened version of my entire summer but I’m still very busy with getting things going for the winter. Rehabbing twice a week, working on some new deals, and hanging with my lady. So I promise i’ll keep in better touch from here on out. So we don’t have to read about the shortened version of
my days. Thanks for reading and catching up with me! Take care.

Hey everyone. So it’s been quite a while since I’ve last checked in here at the ole’ blog. Anyway, So since I’ve last left you, I returned home from India and took a good couple of days off snowboarding to decompress from all the jet lag, curry, and any other funky smell i came home with… Since i didn’t have my bag with all my clothes the entire time i was in India. But that’s old news. So anyway, I headed to Calgary, Alberta. Which is in Canada for those of you who didn’t pay attention in geography. Ha. There was a world cup there which i had to do, orders from the US team so that we can have enough spots for the Olympics in two years. So i went there a little over a week since i got home from India, and it was really nice. The weather was great! We stayed in downtown Calgary, and the pipe was pretty fun. However the walls were just a little too laid back, meaning if you went big, you ran the risk of decking out and hurting yourself. So i was riding great, but i ended up falling in both of my finals runs. LAME! what’s wrong with me this year? No biggie though. So while in Calgary i made a last minute decision to head from the world cup to the VANS CUP at Tahoe. I left Calgary on Saturday morning very early, and, get this… Boarded a private jet! Yeah, I’m a baller. Not really, it was a friends parents who invited me to stay with them during the comp. But it was really cool, since I’ve never been in a private jet before.

The pipe at Northstar was cut by the one and only Frank Wells! And it was amazing! coming from a 22 foot pipe in Canada was tough though. I had to readjust to the 18 footer again. So it took me a few runs Saturday to get used to it and was so pumped on it! In my opinion it was the BEST contest pipe of the year! So hats off to you Frank. Again riding great…. But this time, I took the worst fall I’ve had in like 5 years. Barley made it down on my own. And to top it off, I thought i pooped my pants. Yeah i fell that hard. you may laugh… but I’m still hurting so shut it. Obviously after that, my day was done and couldn’t compete anymore. However i did win the best fall award and won a thousand dollars, which was okay i guess.

I’ll fill you in on my latest trip to the East coast for the last Grand Prix and the Open. so check back in soon. later.

Breakfast here at the Hotel Heevan Resort starts at 7:30. So most of us are up and moving at that time… Thanks to a little thing called jet lag! Breakfast in Kashmir usually consists of plain corn flakes, some oatmeal type goop, and lots and lots of toast. My bag still hasn’t shown up at all so I had to borrow a bunch of clothes and accessories from the rest of the posse.We all got ready to roll as we thought we might have a very nice day of partly cloudy weather. But as we all waited to take the second part of the gondola to the top, everything milked over and the sun was gone by the time we got to the top.

This was by far the worst vertigo I’ve ever experienced! All 7 of us had to ride together so we didn’t get lost on the way down. We also had a guide named Dave Watson, who works for Ski Himalaya, which is the company we booked the trip through. So it was super cool to have a guide who knows the area very well, help us out down the mountain. I’m sure we would have had major problems if it weren’t for him. So we made our way down the mountain slowly and stopped for a game plan pow wow at the mid station. The chi tea here is pretty much the best on the planet! These Kasmiri folk know how to brew that tea right!

By the time we left the restaurant the snow was coming down harder than I’ve ever seen. Trying to motivate to get some shots we proceeded down the lower portion of the mountain in search of a jump spot. Dave, our guide again hooked us up with a great sport for some mellow jump action. We built one jump, which was pretty small, but fun for being on a main run of Gulmarg. Then James found another jump already built through some trees off the side of the run, which was really fun to hit. All four of us shred pros hit it a bunch and landed some all right tricks. Now the snow is dumping even harder than when I thought it was snowing the hardest it could. It was pretty much falling an inch per minute. Since it was snowing so hard, which isn’t that great for photos, we decided to pack it in for the day.

We got back to the hotel around 4:00pm and all crashed hard. Dinner starts at 7 so we all tried to fight taking a nap before then, but pretty much all failed big time. I only fell asleep for a little while, and managed to get up around 7 for dinner. Dinners here at the Heevan are buffet style and pretty delicious. No butter chicken, or tikka masala yet, but hopefully one of the next nights.

I’m not exactly sure what was served, because we didn’t have any menus. The food was just labeled as veggie or meat, with plain rice and naan. Naan is the Indian flat bread, which is AWESOME! Dinner was great and after everyone hit their beds hard. We all fell asleep at about eight o’clock and slept very well that first night in Gulmarg.

It’s 7:30am and I’m waiting around for my friend James to show up at my house in Breckenridge, CO. He’s running late of course, and we have an 11:30am flight out of Denver. We’re on our way to India for a feature story with Transworld Snowboarding Magazine. The crew we’re running with is James Frederick, Chad Otterstrom, Ryan Thompson, and myself. Those are the riders, and the rest of the people are from Transworld. Jen Sherowski is writing the story, Eric Bergeri is the photographer, and Joe Carlino is filming for the TWS movie.

9:45 — James and I get to DIA with plenty of time to kill before our flight. We checked our bags and headed off to our gate. After grabbing a light breakfast we ran in to Chad who had been at the airport for an hour already. He may have been the most excited about this trip, though it was I who put the whole thing together. Anyway, the three of us chilled out until it was time for boarding. Our flight pattern was a little crazy considering how far we were traveling. From Denver we headed to Minneapolis for a quick 40-minute layover. From Minneapolis we stopped in Amsterdam for a mellow six-hour layover before the flight to Delhi.

Chad, James, and I decided it would be a great idea to take a little side trip to downtown Amsterdam while we waited for our next excursion to our final destination. We almost got lost on the train, completely missing our stop and not transferring when we were supposed to. Luckily there was a guy on the train nice enough to let us know we weren’t on the right train. Then we switched trains and landed in the city center. Game on…. or so we thought. Apparently things even in Amsterdam close at a certain time. Which was exactly when we got there. We did find one coffee shop open for our biz. James and I got coffees, and Chad got a coffee with a huge doobie to smoke with it. After our little break and Chad’s joint session, we decided it was probably a good idea to make our way back to the airport for the next leg of our long trip. We got back to the Amsterdam airport without any problems with trains or anything at all. We met up with Jen and Joe from TWS and checked in and waited for the flight to board.

The last leg of the journey went smooth enough and we were finally in INDIA! Let me tell you, there’s nothing as exciting as being in a totally new place, not having any idea what to expect! The airport in Delhi was crazy; people everywhere, pretty much just a terminal for planes and baggage claim. Which SUCKS by the way. KLM thought it would be a great idea to just not put one of my bags on the flight! SWEET! Don’t ever fly KLM, they are the worst airline EVER! So I’m in Delhi with everyone, who all got all of their luggage, and I’m missing one bag. Did I mention that we only had 10 hours before our next flight to the actual final destination of Srinagar, Kashmir. Kashmir is the northwestern portion of India where Pakistan, Afghanistan, and China all border the region. This specific area is currently at war over the territory. This war has been the longest outstanding land dispute in the entire world. So needless to say this area is extremely SKETCHY!

The drive from the Srinagar airport to Gulmarg was not that far distance, but took a very long time due to a massive winter storm. We had to get out and push several times heading up the mountain, because the drivers we had didn’t believe in putting their chains on. So that was a great experience, stopping and pushing every 20 minutes or so. After a couple of hours of pushing and running to get back in the car, we finally made it to the hotel. Hotel Heevan Resort is where we’re staying and it, seems to be under construction, but nobody’s working on anything. James and I paired up as roomies, and our room is pretty awesome. Two big beds, decent bathroom, and a working TV… Which only shows Indian channels. Pretty sweet if you ask me.

Hey…. So it’s been a little while since my last entry so why not sit down and write a little ditty. So since I’ve last wrote a lot has gone on for me. I went to NYC for a long weekend with Tricia (girlfriend). Where we attended the USSA snow ball. This was a pretty cool fundraiser they put on every year in Manhattan. Then from there I went home to MN for thanksgiving to be with the family and friends whom I haven’t seen in a few months. So that was a lot of fun getting to kick it at my house.

Then I came back to CO for a DAY! Because then I took off again to head back to the midwest to Detroit. Since I’m now sponsored by CHEVY, I had the pleasure to meet everyone in the Chevy office and learn all about their new technologies, which are being incorporated in almost all of their new vehicles. I learned all about how their “Flexfuel” works, their new Hybrid Tahoe, Electric, and much more. I have to say I came out of Detroit after all the meeting VERY IMPRESSED! I had no idea what an initiative Chevy and GM were taking to help with the whole energy and global warming thing! They have several plants which emit NO WASTE! yeah NONE! and they are developing all these new cars with such great fuel options and economy. So enough about Chevy, on to my latest month.

So from Detroit I came back home to CO for the start of the season and to ride for about a week…. maybe a week and a half before the first contest of the year. Which just happened to be the Chevy US Snowboard Grand Prix in my home town BRECKENRIDGE. So I rode for a little over a week at Copper because they had the first halfpipe built in the country. And it was GREAT! Frank Wells, the godfather of pipe building built and maintained it perfectly for early season. So it was just a blast to ride. Oh and i forgot to mention that Tricia and I have a new house guest who arrived right after thanksgiving. Her name is Ellery Hollingsworth, and she’s on the US team with me and she is a great girl to have around. Tricia is teaching her throughout the winter so she stays up on school and can snowboard as much as possible while she’s out here. So that’s a lot of fun having her around.

Anyway back to the GP. So I felt my riding was pretty good going into this event and was just having so much fun doing it. So i was going in to this riding and feeling great and sure enough Shaun White showed up for our media-fied battle / rivalry. Which there is no such thing.

but the media loves to create drama for their show. Anyway, long story short, Shaun ended up winning. But I was a very close second and very happy about it! So that’s what I’ve been up to for the last month. Maybe i’ll write some more here soon. Later.

Ah, BOSTON. So much U.S. history in this city. One of the USA’s first cities. Home to the likes of John Hancock, Paul Revere, Ben Franklin and, well, just about every other important figure in the early days of good ol’ America!

So as I’m sure you’ve guessed by now, I’ve just spent a weekend in … Yep! BOSTON! Let me tell you, this is one cool place to visit! I went with my girlfriend Tricia for her birthday. We were there Friday through Sunday. We stayed at this really neat, new hotel which used to be a jail! Crazy, I know. The place was called The Liberty Hotel, and it was pretty dang cool to stay there.

The interior was very reminiscent of an old jail. The place was so new, it is one of the city’s biggest hot spots for night life. So that made things pretty exciting staying there.

On Friday, we walked around some of the big shopping areas in town … big surprise for a gal on her birthday! Kidding! Anyway, we walked around town, ate some great sushi for lunch at this place called Ma Soba, which was great! Then hung around the hotel for a while before dinner. For dinner, we hung out at Charles Street, which was a very quaint area in the Beacon Hill neighborhood. The Beacon Hill area is pretty famous for Boston’s wealthiest residents and for being home to many of the city’s government officials, like John Kerry. So it was pretty cool seeing that area, which was surprisingly very quiet considering it was in the middle of the city.

Saturday was very cool! Tricia’s dad booked a city tour, and we were able to see the entire city with a guide for several hours. It was very informative and super cool hearing all about the city’s history. Since I hadn’t really brushed up on my knowledge of Boston since … 10th grade American Studies class? So it was very neat seeing the city, Harvard, MIT and various other sites. Here are some photos I took to show how old the buildings and city are … with some modernism to compliment the gorgeous old architecture.

Ah, New Zealand. This is always the first kick off trip of the year for me. This year was especially exciting. Since I had my wrist surgery in May, this was the first chance i had to really snowboard all summer. So as you can imagine, I did not hold back. My first day, Treble Cone (local resort of Wanaka) got about two feet of fresh snow! What a way to start a shred trip. I had snowboarded a little in Mt. Hood this summer, but had to take it easy. So now it was time to unleash the fury, as i like to say…. but not really. The snow was amazing, and the mountain was great. not too crowded at all. So that was the first day. Then I rode at Snow Park for the rest of the time i was there. It was about 10 days total. So i just wanted to make sure i was riding the same way i was at the end of the year, before my surgery. And after the first day I was pretty confident that i was right where i needed to be…. in riding that is.

I pretty much landed all of my tricks on the first two days. So i was pretty pumped to be riding that way after such a long break. I wasn’t just happy with my riding in the half pipe either, i was hitting jumps and rails and anything they had at Snow Park, and was loving it. It was so much fun getting to ride with all of my friends again.Now, the fun stuff. After our NZ trip, we decided it would be fun this year to take an extended layover in Fiji! This was the coolest place i’ve ever been! Crystal clear water, warm sunny days, and the people were so nice! We stayed at a resort called Funky Fish, and it was such a great place to be. There were only a few other people staying there so we pretty much dominated the island! ha. The first night, we may have had too much rum, so Gretchen and all the other chicks thought it’d be a great idea to blow fire. Yeah you heard right, BLOW FIRE! Gretchen knows this little trick to blow fire with a shot of 151, so she taught all the other ladies in the crew how to do it. And to my surprise….. no one was injured! They even got the bar tender to do it with them. Good times! Great first day/ night right. The next day, we all went to a reef break to surf. The waves were amazing, though a little scary being in such shallow waters. We all had a great time. But I definitely had a scare…..

so a pretty massive set was coming in, and about to break on everyone, so i paddled out to get past the set. well, being that my right arm wasn’t as strong since my surgery, i was a little slower than i used to be. So as i paddled to what i thought was over the crest of the wave, was not! i got pitched over, backwards and upside down through the barrel of the wave! ha. let’s just say that ended my surfing extravaganza for that day a little early. The rest of the time on the island, which was about 4 days, we did everything we could. We went fishing, snorkeling, hiking, coconut husking, and had a cava ceremony. Now what’s CAVA you ask? Well it’s the Fijian ceremonial beverage for all the villages on all the islands. Cava is ground root from a native tree. The cava is similar to alcohol, but very different. The cava, is similar to a pain killer in the type of feeling you get when you drink it. The coconut husking was pretty awesome too. One of the guys who worked at the resort taught us how to survive on a remote island with coconuts. He taught us which ones to pick and how to open them. Over all it was one of the best trips/ vacations i’ve ever been on. I just wish my girlfriend was able to come with me.

Hey, everyone. It’s been another couple of weeks again, so I guess it’s time to check in on the blog thing.

Since the last time I checked in, I had my wrist surgery to have all of my pins removed! And my wrist feels great! I can finally move it again.

Since the 16th, I’ve been working really hard on getting back my range of motion for the last month and am already almost back to 100%. Which is very exciting, considering the docs said it would take more like two months to get it all back. I’m still doing physical therapy twice a week for the next month, so everything will be perfect by the time I start riding again … which is the beginning of September in New Zealand. I’ll be there for just a couple of weeks.

This past weekend was a blast! I got to travel to NYC to visit a great friend of mine from back home in MN. I flew in on Thursday and spent the day cruising the city until my friend was finished with work … yeah, crazy now that my friends have desk jobs! Anyway, then we went out to happy hour and pretty much spent the night out on the town! Same for Friday.

Saturday we got up, ate some breakfast then went to Connecticut for some GOLFING! This was my first attempt after surgery and, surprisingly, it wasn’t too bad or painful! Though, my game was not even close to what it was before the surgery. Then after a beautiful day at the country club and 18 holes of bogey golf, we headed back to the city for another evening of fun. We hurried to get ready, then made our way from the upper east side, where he lives, to the downtown area.

Here, we met up with some of my friends and people who work for Helly Hansen, which is my outerwear sponsor. Now, I am not sure how this happened, but we stayed out ALL NIGHT, until 5 a.m. I know, CRAZY. I am still recovering from the lack of sleep.

Oh and get this, I almost missed my flight back home to Colorado because I fell asleep! I woke up at 8:20 a.m. and had a 9:30 flight! So I get up, turn off my alarm, look at the time and say to myself … DAMMIT!! Pack up all of my stuff and run to the street to try to catch a cab. Luckily there was one right outside, so I jumped in and was on my way. I made it to the airport with about three minutes to spare before the check-in cutoff! So I slept the whole flight home and now am back working on my physical therapy!

Next on the agenda, SIMS is throwing a HUGE kick-off, kick-ass party in Denver on the 24th. So I’ll pretty much be resting until then so I can be sure to have a blast there as well! So I guess I’ll be checking in after that again … or maybe sooner! Who knows. Later!

OK, so it’s been a few weeks since I’ve checked in and a lot has gone on with me. Since my last entry I’ve been to my first concert at Red Rocks in Colorado! It was amazing. I saw Michael Franti — one of the coolest shows I have seen in a while!

Then a few days later, my girlfriend and I went to Oregon for a little vacation during the 4th! We stayed out at Cannon Beach for a couple days then finished the trip in Portland for a few days as well. She had never seen the Pacific Northwest before, so she was pretty psyched! We hiked all over the coast and Multnomah Falls which is just 30 minutes from Portland. So we were there for about five days total, then she went back home and I stayed out in Oregon so I could snowboard a little.

“Wait, I thought you just had surgery?” I’m sure you’re all asking. Yes, but i had a big ol’ arm brace to protect my wrist and arm. So I got to ride a few days during the Burton Snow Jam, which is an annual summer contest at Mt Hood. Since I wasn’t able to compete I thought I would help out a little so I judged the slope style contest. This was pretty fun, because I’ve never judged an event before… and it was tough! All the riders were killing it! But in the end it was a great experience!

After riding a little and being out in Hood for a week I came home and had my LAST SURGERY! I had all of my pins removed on the 16th! So now I can finally move my wrist again! It’s tough moving it around at the moment but should be a lot better in the next couple of weeks! Since then I’ve already been to Park City, Utah for the US Snowboarding Team’s Marketing meetings. This is a big meeting where all of the USSA’s sponsors and potential sponsors meet in Park City to develop a marketing plan for the next season. Also it’s prime for new corporate companies to sponsor athletes if they so choose. So I’m waiting to hear back from a few companies but things are looking good!

So busy few weeks that I just had, and now for some R&R for a little. But not before I take care of my new GIRO ad. We’ll be shooting on Monday for the afternoon. Should be a great ad, so check it out in the snowboard magazines in the fall and all next winter! I’ll be checking in again soon, or later.

Oh wow … I am not sure if anyone out there knows about this … but the new Apple iPhone was just released yesterday and I totally GOT ONE! I mean, wow what an amazing device! I literally haven’t been able to put it down yet! This this is probably the coolest thing to hit the world since Oreo cookies … or something like that.

Anyway back to what I’ve been up to recently. I was just back in my hometown of St. Louis Park, Minnesota! I went back for about a week. It was so much fun! I got to go up to my friend Julia’s cabin with a bunch of old friends and hang for the weekend. and during the week i was able to meet all my best buds for lunch and or dinner.

Now that all my friends finally have real jobs after college! Luke, Tanner, Danny, & Joey who is pimpin in NYC these days. But it was amazing to see everyone. I didn’t just see friends while i was home. I had the pleasure of seeing my parents too. My mom cooked out on the grill which was great! she made steaks, turkey tenderloin, and a bunch of other stuff. It was so good, i wish i could come home a little more often for the cooking. And i usually ate out with my dad, to my favorite restaurants in MPLS. we went to Figlio’s which is the best modern Italian restaurant I know of … and that’s saying a lot since i’ve traveled to world. And to one of my favorite sushi places in the twin cities, Anemoni! This is also a modern sushi joint with fresh oysters and plenty of other stuff to go round. Well that pretty much sums up my last couple of weeks … i’ll be checking in again after the 4th!