Day 3, Be resourceful

Hola. Bread and coffee always seem to be the way to start the day in life, no matter what country you’re in. Big in Argentina, same in Europe and breakfast in the States are all pretty similar. It’s just a matter of what you put on it. I dig the Nutella action, but dulce de leche is about all they serve…caramel, essentially. Enough sugar for the morning buzz to kick in. Enough to at least get me to the mountain.

A half day at Cerro Catedral is really all we wanted to do. None of us have much desire to ride much here anymore. Conditions are crap and the snow is heavy even by NW standards. Sure, I’m a spoiled Utah kid, but it’s just not fun to ride in that kind of snow. Mud boarding is a reasonably popular sport out here. It’s pretty simple: when you’re on your skis or snowboard, find a patch of mud and ride through it, but try to avoid the big rocks. Fortunately, you don’t need an extra ticket for mud boarding because it’s guaranteed here at Catedral when you hit the base area. Booyah.

It’s been a while since I’ve been to a ski resort that’s enforced a leash law, but the liftie demanded I put it on before getting on a lift. I’m all, yeah, ok, it’s in my backpack. Ok, so I really can’t remember the last time I owned a leash. Just kidding, I can. It was at Crystal Mtn about 4 years ago and I had to fork over 8 bucks for a leash I used only for one chairlift ride to make the liftie happy. Similar tricks were pulled today. Except, hey, we’re in a foreign country, so American leashes are different, right? And with a little knot tying, my beacon strap became my new leash for the lift ride up. Nice. Liftie was satisfied and I went on my merry way.

As Barry and co. opened up their small-business snowboard shop at the base of the hill selling off their gear, I got enough time on the hill to realize I’m over it. Over Bariloche. It’s been decent here, I guess (again…spoiled Utah kid), but even Barry agreed that this place is about as fun as playing with poop on a stick.

After hitchhiking a ride back to town, we decided to rethink the Argentina plan. Barry has been talking about the storm coming to Chile next week. Sounds like our travels might take us up that way. Not very stoked on hopping back on the public bus with my gear and another 17 hour bus ride, but it might just be worth it..and what’s a trip without a little spontaneity? If we do the Chile thing, we’ll leave tomorrow evening, but plans are in the works now.

So, with the end of Bariloche upon us, I went to the downtown area and bought way too much chocolate tonight. But a touch of vino and chocolate makes everything ok in the end.

Day 2, La montana

Woke up to some extreme yelling competition going on somewhere in the hostel last night. I was waiting for someone to pull a gun. Well, I’m sleeping on a flat bed and not a reclining chair, so who can complain? A quick move of the luggage up the hill and I’ve found my home for the next night at least. Rolly luggage is great, but it doesn’t perform at its best on broken cobblestone.

A little bit of adjusting to the new abode and I’m ready to roll up to the hill. Decked in snow gear and walking to the bus stop, I’m impressed that no one seems to think twice about walking through the city with your snowboard gear. It’s the town closest to the mountain, sure, but it has little feeling of a ski town. Forking over a little more than $1 USD gets you to the mountain in about 45 minutes. My riding buddy for the day was Derek, a 22 year old from Ohio I met on the bus. He just got into town for a 3 or 4-month jaunt in Argentina.

As the boots are getting laced, a smelly giant comes running up an nearly tackles me. Barry got into town just a few hours before and had been sessioning a mini-pipe, waiting for me to show up. Nice to see a familiar face. The round of introductions were made..Jon, Marco, Ralph, Pablo..an international Chilean crew for sure. Swiss, French/Canadian, French/German, American, Chilean..I think that covered it.

Ready to ride, those who were uninjured or willing to buy a ticket went riding. New snow meant smiling faces, which soon turned to sweating faces when we started our descent down the wet, heavy snow. Nice welcome to the hill when you haven’t ridden in more than 3 months. Ouch.

It’s an interesting sight for sure on the hill. Lots of beginners on the bunny hill and beyond. Only know how to do the snowplow on skis? Hey, no biggie. Let’s jump off this cattrack! Oh..there goes my skis and poles. Feel like taking out a skier on your snowboard? Sure, the hill seems to sway towards the one-plank anyways. Who needs anymore of those annoying skier types anyways? I’m convinced Argentines think the best way to get down the hill is by anything other than skis or snowboards.

Rode until 5, caught the bus back to the city after a ½ liter of beer. Eat, drink, sleep. That’s what happened. Yep, bye.

Day 0, Argentina begins

Really more like 2 days altogether. Day 0 is travel time. With about 20 hours each devoted to flying and bussing, not including layovers or wait times. Left the States with no problems, but found the plane flying one big circle as we were waiting to land in Buenos Aires. Fog covered the entire city, with no indication that there was life on the ground below us, save for a few tree patterns that looked man-made. A snowboard filmer from LA sat in the seat in front of me and shared stories of plans for our trips. Me – the aspiring snowboard writer looking to pick up some travel stories and enjoy my first international trip on my own. Him – a last minute jaunt to snowboard country to meet up with a crew of riders and get some footage.

Wishing my new airplane friend a farewell after customs, we separated ways with our snowboard gear, perhaps keeping an eye out for each other on the mountain. I purchased a ticket for a short ride to the bus station, only hoping I understood the woman correctly, who helped me with information. No, she said, the bus I need to take is not at the airport, but rather, in the city center. Unsure of every direction I was heading, my bus was, indeed, at the station – one of the 200+ busses that pass through this station. A short wait, and the 20 hour bus ride began. A double-decker bus with almost fully-reclinable chairs transported the 40 or so passengers to Bariloche, complete with meal service and entertainment, the latter being a sad choice of American movies or Spanish live-recorded concerts.

The meals, though entertaining itself, were nothing more than replenishing. Seran-wrapped snacks of sugary croissants and dulce de leche were packaged in the same styrafoam ‘plates’ we use in the States for slabs of meat. Dinner resembled a cross between a TV dinner and airplane food – sectionalized compartments for each ‘course,’ and the camera unfortunately left deep in a luggage pocket in the bus storage.

Lots of semi-conscious sleep, but the bus attendant, with his wonderful company, was generous with the wine, which always makes for a nice sleeping aid. Fly and drive. That’s all that happened. The end.

sometimes the best things come in ones

you know those dreams you have that you know will be a reality one day? it may not be a burning desire, where your thoughts reflect to that dream every day, but deep down, you know that one day, it's going to come true.

my dream finally came true today.



hands down, the best 160 bucks i've ever spent.

closing weekend, here i come...

canis lupis comp

sunday was the canis lupis at the canyons, an annual natural halpipe banked slalom contest. it's pretty burly this time of the year - big, icy rollers nestled between a 3 foot-wide gully. 10-15 foot banked walls. absolutely gnar course. i couldn't have been more stoked to try my hand at this speed race.

a few practice runs on saturday and things felt alright. by the second run through, the course started to feel a little familiar and a little less intimidating. met a few people who would be running the course...definitely felt like a backyard BBQ - just a casual grand ol' time at your home.

i saw whitney at registration the next morning. her nerves were pretty far shot. too bad she skipped out on breakfast at powder daze - the first chair crepe with peanut butter, nutella and bananas was a good start to the day. after a few freeride runs, i headed over to the canis lupis to get a few practice runs in before the comp.

it wasn't until my last warm up run that i realized i probably did too many. legs a little tired, adrenaline kind of gone...pretty much nothing left for the race. time soon found me standing at the top of the course waiting to drop in. the first turn pretty much indicated my run was fucked. almost missed the first gate, somehow missed the last gate, and in between the start and finish, i bailed twice - once landing on my head; the other a nasty landing on my hip.

it was the last fall that took me out of the race. gripping my left hip in pain, i finished out the race with tears swelling in my eyes. with a grand time of 177 seconds, my name graced the list of worst times out of all 75 competitors. turning away help from ski patrol, i stuck around to watch a few more people finish the race, coming in with times like 89, 93, or 100 seconds. even whitney pulled off 105 seconds. maybe that crepe didn't hit the spot like i thought.

once i finally rallied back to the base, ski patrol tried to help me out at the clinic, but out of state insurance wasn't accepted, so i hitched a ride back to my car from the nice patroller who obviously felt a little bad for my situation.

in so much pain, it took about 10 minutes to get from my car to my room, and it wasn't until 8 hours later that i could make my way to the clinic to get my leg x-rayed and checked out. fortunately, no broken bones, and the bruise is only now starting to show up 3 days after the crash. photos to come as the bruise comes to surface...

it done broken itself

if you didn't know, landing on your face while snowboarding can be a recipe for a minor broken nose. note to self: sticky, spring riding in the park is best left for a waxed snowboard. time to go to the clinic and get me a Rx for loratab. because..you know..i'm in so much pain.

glitz and glamor

paris hilton's movie 'hottie and the nottie' may have tanked at sundance this year, but that doesn't mean that the general public is any less hyped on celebrity status. take, for instance, the world superpipe championships at park city mountain resort just last week. this comp - with its 22 foot pipe walls and all - brings out the big guns of skiing and snowboarding. shaun white, tanner hall, simon dumont, torah bright, kier dillon, mason aguirre, kelly clark. whether these guys and gals have won olympic medals, x-games titles or earned a stint on MTV's "scarred", the rise of these snowsport superheros is opening a new portal of glitz and glamor to little boys and girls all over the world.

"i wanna be like mike" is a phrase of the past. "i wanna fly like shaun" is probably more apt to apply. while fans lined up to get high-fives and hugs from shaun white as he made his way out of the pipe, about 8 paparizzi were tagging along as if they just caught a glimpse of britney spears coming out of rehab.

it was like hollywood came to park city (fo real, though. 10 days of PIBs during sundance is plenty.), to catch the latest trends in a fashion show down the catwalk. i suppose a 22 foot tall superpipe is like a modeling podium... showing off cab 12's and next year's hottest outerwear... but even this woman could attest to the high-profile of this snowboard comp.

well, for all you cheeky bastards (don't be jealous, hart!), not only do i have red hair and snowboard, but my hand gracefully cupped mr. white's hand in a solid high-five while i was lined up with the rest of the fans to get an up-close view of the flying tomato, himself. i also prefer target over walmart. so you might as well start calling me shauna white, because i wanna be like mike fly like shaun eat a red tomato. after all...like snowboarding, lycopene does a body good.

recap

well, it turns out i'm a horrible blogger.. aside from the inconsistent posts, there's the whole lack of visual appeal here. embedded links and photos of snowboard porn and such wouldn't be so bad. living in park city has helped me realized that i love to start projects and never carry them out. guess this isn't an exception.

it finally stopped snowing long enough for people to shovel their entire driveway. 2 weeks ago, it snowed around 100 inches in 10 days - a couple of 12" dumps here and there, but mostly it was slow and steady enough to where the snowplows just couldn't keep up. lucky for me, i caught a pretty bad cold and left work early a few times because i was too sick to work. but actually, conditions were so sick outside that the only kind of bed-rest i was doing was droppin pillow lines. ok, not really - park city doesn't have any pillow lines to speak of, but some of the best days of the season were seen.

half of the gato negro crew rolled into park city on tuesday just in time for my alarm to go off. turns out their drive from seattle was 5 hours longer than they expected, so as they arrived at my place at 5:45am, i was starting to dream about the smell of my breakfast coffee and toast.

craig and mario definitely chose a good first day in park city. perfect bluebird, local's night at o'shucks and plenty of free-flowing beer to understand that utah liquor isn't all that bad after all. the hangover on wednesday proved it.

brighton was conquered on wednesday - though i was convinced mario and craig brought the NW weather to utah: flat light, snowy and windy. but this was enough for the guys to fall in love with the dry, 'best snow on earth' stuff (gore tex in the NW is about as important as a condom in a ski town - keeps you dry and protected).

it's been nothing but bluebird skies all weekend. president's day holiday means lift lines are packed tighter than pam anderson, and it's prime time to play a rousing game of Your Team. anyone up for a round?

gone fishin slashin

if there is any best day to play hookie, it's today. 10-15 inches of new pow on top of the 10-15 that fell yesterday. and dontcha know, i'm stuck in my office all day.

my solution would be to stay in my windowless office and waste time on snowboard.com, but meetings out of the office today will conjure up tearful and remorseful emotions that question my initial thoughts on coming to work when i step outside and see the snow covered mountains in front of me. who has two thumbs and doesn't care about the speech/luncheon on park city's economical forecast? yeah, you know the rest.

it's days like today that make me rethink my ambitions to have a 'real job' so i can prepare for a 'successful future.' boo to that. befriending mother nature and breathing in fresh air is where true success lies. and anyone who says differently should go to the girl's department at jc penny, buy a pair of skinny jeans and call themselves emo.

let's go shred.

www.skiutah.com

Monster Dump! Resorts with 12" or more are in green.

Resort	new	base
Alta	17"	132"
Beaver Mtn	5"	78"
Brian Head	0"	50"
Brighton	17"	112"
The Canyons	16"	107"
Deer Valley	10"	99"
Park City Mtn	10"	88"
Powder Mtn	11"	104"
Snowbasin	17"	119"
Snowbird	16"	126"
Solitude	17"	110"
Sundance	17"	80"
Wolf Mtn	14"	88"

MOUNTAIN WEATHER
1° F	9:15 am

apres work

it's a tit cold outside - temps coming in at about 6 degrees right now, but it sure is gorgeous. i'm pretty sure it's been about 3 weeks since we had a full day of sun. finally, time to strap on the sunny lenses. ride break extended lunch break product testing here i come!

jib this

nice little surprise at the canyons today. a park! ok, to be fair, they had 4 features last time i rolled through. it flows really nicely right now. a few boxes, a 4-jump line, a few more jibs, a wall ride and a kinked rail.

hey, not bad for a bankrupt resort!