Salt Lake City, UT - - Snow has been pounding the Cottonwood Canyons for the past few weeks, but a few wind events and some days with high temperatures created some less then stellar conditions. However, yesterday while skiing at Solitude for the Freeskier Magazine the snow started to fall once more and over night left us with 10-14 inches. It was a good relief after a few days of hard pack skiing with the memories of skiing in nipple deep powder just a few days before.

Last week was very successful as well as I was shooting with local photographers Mike Schrif and Will Wissman at the Snowbird and Alta resorts while the conditions were near epic. With my state of mind nearly emphatic after skiing days of powder, to say I was living the life an understatement. Then my friend Corey Tibljas from Two Plank Productions came into town so it was time to step it up. Expecting sunny weather, and waking up to clouds and wind, we decided to go to the base of (location anonymous) and build a jump. We found a wind lip along the side of a building and built the kicker that cleared over a road about 55 feet and down about 15 feet to the landing. This was the first large, non-park jump that I have played on in a few years, so it was a great experience for me to get back at it. I started out slow and hit the jump straight to be safe, however, I over shot the landing by about ten to fifteen feet. Using our makeshift helicopter (Toyota Tacoma) to take us back to the top, we looped around to hit the jump again. With the camera rolling, and friends watching out for the local public safety officers, I rolled into the jump again and stepped it up to try out a “rodeo.” A rodeo is an off-access back flip with a full 360 degree rotation of sorts. The first time I landed on my feet, but under rotated a little. The next few attempts got better and better, although with fresh snow on the track leading into the jump it was hard to gage our speed. At the end of the day I was desirous of doing a trick I could stick, as the guys watching had maneuvered a few cars into position below the gap on the road. It was the end of the day so people were poring off the mountain to their cars and had taken notice to our antics. With a crowd watching, I was taunted by my friends to hit the jump this one last time so I threw a large Lincoln Loop, which is a sideways flip. It was a great way to end a very fun day.

Anyway, I tell you this not to gloat, but to give you an inside perspective as to what a Freeskier thrives on. After digging in the snow for hours and playing out all the risks and consequences in our heads over and over again, it’s a great feeling to walk away from a session like this happy and fulfilled. For many, reward does not out-weigh the risk, but for me the experience and the time shared outside with my friends is all the reward I need. Personal vindication and goal-oriented battles are what thrill seekers live for, and this day was a perfect example of such an experience.

The next day my friend Ryan and I took off into the backcountry to ski a line, but after skinning for a few hours the sun had cooked the snow on the face we were going to ski to the point of dangerous avalanche conditions. What we call roller balls were starting to build as they built down the hill into the size of basketballs before they broke apart, and caused wet slide avalanches. Given the conditions we decided not to ski the lines we had been looking at from the bottom, as the snow would be too dense and would cause serious bodily harm if landed incorrectly. Therefore we started across a slope that from our perspective looked like it went to another area of the mountain that would have better snow given its aspect or exposure to the intense sun. When we started our traverse we thought nothing of the eminent danger below and found ourselves perched precariously on a hanging snowfield that sat above a 200-foot cliff. Many would say we should not have been there, and I’ll have to agree, but given our entrance angel it was easier to continue across rather then hike back. To make a long and imprudent story short, we made it across but only after frolicking above the eminence of death while our cinematographer Corey tried to direct us to a safe exit from the valley below. Needless to say it was a situation all of us would have rather done without, but looking back up at the area where we were it is hard to even ponder the consequences had the snow had ripped out and taken us down in an avalanche over the rocks.

The next day we took a more mellow approach and went to an area called Brighton. Corey and I had never skied here before, but we had local Heath Ordway to show us around. We found some great lines out one of the backcountry gates and then rebuilt a huge jump that had been left over and played around on that for the afternoon. It was a lot less stressful then the previous afternoon, but needless to day my confidence was a little shaken after the previous experience.

Live and learn.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 18th, 2008 at 3:42 pm and is filed under tysonbolduc. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.