What Dreams are made of.  “A deep area of low pressure remains entrenched off the California coast and will continue to spin waves of energy into the Sierra for the rest of this week.” -NOAA

“The best pillow line of my life,”Ryland Bell after he cleared his mouth of snow at the bottom of this stack.

The pillows were so soft and deep that getting off the ground was really hard.  Forrest Shearer doing his best.

I started Jones Snowboards because I wanted to build innovative snowboards for riding mountains.  One of these is the Hovercraft. It has the float of a 178cm classic powder board stuffed into 156cm rocket ship.  After 8 days of rigorous testing I can confidently say “mission accomplished.”

Voice mail is full, emails are unchecked, my house is a wreck, everything is soaked, and I am totally content.  Most of the year we have to walk for days to score descent snow.  During these storm cycles perfect snow is sitting right under the lift or on the side of the road.

This was the first mountain we saw after 62 hours of open ocean.  I was trying to get the boat to stop so we could ride these spines.

This is as close as I got to this bowl of spines.  My best guess on size has this thing weighing in close to 3000 feet in vertical drop.

Chamonix breeds with Alaska and has a kid in Antarctica.  I took this pic from the top of a line that was about 1800 vertical feet and mid 50 degrees.  This mutant of a face was towering in the back of us making what we rode look like a pimple.

Xavier and I rode the chute in the middle of the face.  The snow was great allowing us for a rare opportunity to ride a line with out axes.  This was the only slope we tested the the pitch of.  It was measured 52 degrees.

This was taken from the bottom of the above face waiting for a pick up to go back to the boat that was 4 miles away.  The next day we rode a chute that ended right at the pointy rock.

I took this photo at 11 at night.

My dinner came to an abrupt end when we hit this channel and started passing the most radical faces I have ever seen.

The coulior in the middle of the face may be the steepest coulior in the world? It is just across the channel from the spine wall above and probably has close to a 3000 vertical foot drop.

The captain of this sail boat has over 700 descents in Antarctica.

This may be the most impressive mountain scapes I have ever seen.  Mt Francois clocks in at 9600ft and may be one of the most sustained descents in the world.  Our expedition leader Doug Stoup and one of the guides on the trip, Andrew Mclean spent 3 weeks in the rain trying to ski and climb it and never saw the peak.

This sits right across from Francois.  I am guessing it is bigger then Jackson(4139ft) in Vertical drop and 50 to 60 degrees.  I think it is the cleanest, tallest and steepest line I have ever seen.

Token Penguin Shot.
Big thanks to Ice Axe Expeditions for the trip of a lifetime

I am not sure if it is the low snow or the economy but the Tetons have been empty.  Up high the riding has been good while down low it has been fast, firm and rocky.  Being able to walk on the tram with out a line and access 4139 ft of vertical drop in 8.5 minutes made for a great early season tune up and the perfect testing grounds for my new boards.

Grand Targee 2PM on a Saturday.  This is about as tracked out as this place gets.  The locals claim Targee is the place freeriders go to retire because it never gets bumped out, it snows over 450 inches a year and it is rare to see more then 50 people riding the mountain.

Air Bags Save Lives.  TGR lead guide Jim Conway wakes up the class room by pulling the rip cord at the annual TGR avi/first aid workshop.

Opening day of the Tram

All this terrain can be accessed with a series of short hikes from the tram.

Low tide, sharky and barreling.  This is the Jackson Hole classic, “Once is Enough.”

This is the view from the classic entrance.  The top was too rocky to ride but the chute was powder.

I opted for the alternate entrance.

We hit the center coulior.  It was surreal being the only people out here and having the only tracks around.

This is the reason why.  The way out was an hour of traversing threw thick bushes and rock fields.  I do not think I went over 5mph but was dripping in sweet by the end.

“Mountains Speak, Wise Men Listen” John Muir

This is one of my favorite quotes that perfectly sums up approaching the mountains. You can take all the avalanche courses in the world but if you do not read the signs it does not matter. Often times there is no room for error in the backcountry and one bad call reading the conditions can erase a lifetime of good calls. Because of this I like to keep on the top of my brain sayings like, “just say no” and “live to ride another day.” When approaching a line I always go in with the mind set of, “I am going to look at the line,” not “I am going to ride the line.” The mountains are one big feel out. Having a preset agenda is dangerous. I never know if I am going to hit a line until the moment I drop in because my mind and gut are observing the constantly changing conditions and I am always open to turning back at any point.

This can be tricky when you are filming or leading a group because so many people have worked so hard to get into position and you may feel like you are letting them down by backing down. The further up a line you get, or the closer you get to dropping in the harder it is to say no to a line. Saying no takes practice. If I have not backed off a line for a long time then I start to question myself and will make an effort to back off a line in the near future just to practice saying no. This is the one area of my ridng that I have gotten much better at over the years.   My past record means nothing though. No one is above the law in the mountains.

I waited for two weeks on this face.  This is a shot I took from the top of a smaller face with the same aspect and similar elevation that we spent the day riding in hopes to step up to this face the next day.  The snow and stability was perfect  when I took this photo and we went to bed fired up to finally hit this face. That night the wind picked up and loaded these faces. We ended up having to turn back and never got to ride the face.

This was another face I waited on for awhile but was turned back from for fear of a small wind slab popping out and sending me for a ride down the face.

I turned back from this 3 days in a row.  Each day I figured out how to get past each hazard that kept turning me back.  On the forth day I solved the puzzles and rode the wall.  I called it Touch and Go Wall because so many times on the way up I thought I might have to turn around.

This was a face in Europe I made three attempts on.  On the final attempt we woke up at 3, got to with in an hour of the top but decided to turn around because one of the people I was with was not feeling it.  Two of us felt good about it but there was no way we were leaving the third behind and we were not going to ride a line that one of the members in the group was not feeling.  You need to get as educated as possible about reading snow conditions but at the end of the day one of the most important tools is listening to your gut.  As much as I would have liked to ride all of these lines, not for a second did I ever second guess myself or the people I was with for backing down. If by chance the stars align again I may get to ride one of the faces and if I do the feeling will be that much sweeter.

I think of December as Avalanche safety month and I will try and drop some backcountry basics here on the site and explain some of the tools I use daily in assessing snow safety. Learning how to read the mountains is a never-ending quest. You will never know it all but you owe it to yourself and your riding partners to keep learning and listening. I will not get into the fine details of avalanche protocol. You first need to get yourself in some avalanche safety class. Click here to find your closest coarse.

5 red Flags.

The more time I spend in the mountains the more I find myself using the 5 red flags. Keep these on the top your brain every time you go out. They are not rocket science and are very easy to read.

New Snow

90% of Human triggered Avalanches happen during or with in 24 hours after a storm. I give this the utmost respect. So many times the first day out after a storm will be super sensitive. I generally do not start a full evaluation of a snow pack until 24 hours after a storm. I treat all snow pack with in 24 hours after a storm as high to extreme danger. Follow this rule and eliminate your risk of getting caught in an Avalanche by 90%

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Patience is hard when you have not made a turn for a week and it is finally clear.  It is a good time to ride a resort.

Signs of Recent Avalanches

If you go out and see signs of natural avalanches this is a sign that slopes are sliding with out people getting on them. They should be taken very serious, especially if the avalanche activity has happened on a similar elevation and aspect of a slope you want to ride.

Collapsing or Cracking  in the Snowpack

With collapsing you will feel or hear a whomping sound. This means a layer has broken but the slope you are on is to flat to slide. If it occurred on a steeper slope it would have resulted in a slide. With cracking you will see small shooting cracks as you approach a slope or even as you are skinning up a face. Often times collapsing or cracking will send me riding back down the boot pack or skin track.

Rapid Temperature Rise

This is not based on a certain degree of temperature. This is especially dangerous if it the first warm day in awhile or is the warmest it has been in a while.

Strong winds, Blowing and Drifting Snow

If the wind is strong enough to transport snow then the avalanche conditions can change from stable to dangerous with out any new snow.

Snow making…Mother Nature style.  Also referred to as “flagging”

Click here to see the Five Red Flags video by TGR.

The internet is an awesome tool to get information before heading out.  The night before heading out I will check the local Avalanche site for any reports of Avalanches and always check the daily Avalanche forecast in the morning before heading out.

Go to sites for me.  The TGR Snowlab, Avalanche.org

Mt Francois. I think it has only been climbed once.  Doug Stoup sat in a storm for 3 weeks trying to get it.

We set our site on the smallest thing I could find that we could get to, had limited ice danger and a clean out run.  You can see our objective in the far edge of the photo.  It is really hard to make a call like this with very little info.  It is a roll of the dice that sets a crew of 8 in motion and will use up the better part of the day.

We learned on our first day that we want to be on faces that get at least 5 hours of light and that we want to be dropping in just before the face goes into the shade.  Too early and the face is hard.  Too late and it will refreeze with in ten minutes of the sun leaving the face.  You can see the triangle we want to ride.  We had know idea if the bergschrund was clean or if the glacier was navigable.

“Pic a spot, any spot” I kept telling myself.  It was all epic.

3 hours into our mission we have confirmation that it goes clean.  It looks super steep, which means it is even steeper.  We are really freaked out if this is going to be ride-able or not.  Conditions will have to be perfect, not to soft, not to hard to hit something like this.  To get to the face we start on the far left side and traverse just under the bergschrund so we do not have any seracs above us.

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One of the scariest parts is strapping in on a steep face like this.  The bottom 1/3 is the steepest part but the snow is perfect and I am able to drop into this face with total confidence and fire a line that two hours ago had me shaking in my boots. That is the benefit of climbing what you ride. pic Xavier.

Xavier and were finally rewarded for all the time we put in last spring in Chamonix.  With out that session we would not be so locked in here.  In my wildest dreams I could not have imagined riding a face this sick in Antarctica.  It is one for the top of the trophy case.

Sixty two hours of rolling and rocking threw the Drake Passage are behind us and off the bow of the ship I see the first sign of land. It is amazing to think that one of earths seven continents did not feel the footsteps of humans until the 1820’s. Imagine something the size of North America hidden at the bottom of the earth, the last great unknown in our world.

Up on the bridge there is an air of intensity and focus that has not been on the face of the captian all crossing. It is clear we are dealing with an ocean that is constantly on the move. Ice is the king down here and it leaves everyone on there toes. No, radar, computer or GPS can help us navigate the ice and one wrong move will lead to being closed in by the ice and trapped in ice.  (The only other ship down has been stuck in ice for 8 days and there is no end in site) The radars are firing but the spotters spend very little time on the computer screen. It is the binoculars that lead the way.

My first impression of Antarctica greatly surpasses my wildest imagination. It is a winter fantasy land. The bleached white peaks and the deep blew ocean waters make for a sharp contrast. With in minutes ripable lines appear in every direction. The place is stacked with every type of terrain imaginable; spines, chutes, towers, rolling glaciers, and huge seracs. Everything goes.

Six days after leaving Truckee I finally arrive.  Before I even touch land, as we scope for a place to land, (this is very hard because most of the land ends in seracs) and I realize this is one of the most unique mountain experiences I have ever had. We set out for a “small” and “Mellow” warm up run that upon closer look was big and not mellow. I was so mesmerized by my surroundings that I did not totally comprehend the seriousness of the terrain until I was gliding over my first blind roll of the year. It brought back to memories of my trip to Chamonix last June.  Quickly I grabbed my axe, and it never left my hands for the rest of the day.

Steep, firm and smooth. Everything is steeper and bigger then it looks and many of the cruxes are a few hundred feet above water. Safety never fully came until your were back in the boat. Tonight was topped off with a cruise down a channel that was lined with pink and purple peaks. Some whales led the way and an occasional Penguin saluted us from the passing icebergs. It took all of a one day for Antarctica to cast a magic spell on me.

Antarctica is serious riding.  Thankfully I was with Xavier De le Rue, one of the most dialed riders in the world for charging critical terrain.

Our “warm up run” was a 1500 ft steep face with a 50+ degree rollover.  I was warmed up at the bottom.

We rode the open face in front. It looks small because the peaks behind it are huge. We rode this all the way to the water to the right.  The bottom roll was super steep and a fall would me a swim in the coldest ocean in the world.

One picture…four “Trophy Lines.” The face behind the line we rode.  The knob to the right, the 200 ft bowl of spines right of that and the 2500 ft. thumb at the far right of the picture.

“Pick a spot…any spot,” I kept saying to myself.  I have never seen so much ripable terrain stacked together so tightly.

Sunsets lasts for 5 hours.  It never went totally dark on us.

Notes: The weather movie in fast down here in our 4 hour hike  we saw the sun, got dumped on and had 40mph winds blown from the east and the west. It was nice to be back in the mountains with Xavier Del a Rue.

All photos: Hans Solmssen www.swissguides.com

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Father snowboarding goes by the name Celime. I met him two years ago in Turkey. (Read Post) Celime has been riding longer then anyone else in the world. He is a goofy footer. He has a certain sparkle in his eyes and content demeanor that can only be achieved from a life well spent in the mountains. He is a happy and peaceful man who has found his fountain of youth, riding everyday. He does not move like a seventy year old man, he is agile, and graceful.  I did a sit down interview with him and although we had a interpreter much was lost in translation.  Now I have a precise translation of the interview and his words pack even more meaning then I realized at the time.

“It started 400 years ago. When I say 400 years ago, its according to the statements of our grandfathers. The grandfather tells his grandson who tells his own son. Nothing else was left from our grandfathers, except riding.

I am approximately 70 years old. And now it’s my son Halim who keeps it going.

I have been riding with this board since 1946. And before this it was our ancestors.

I learnt it from my father, it’s him who showed me.

We find wooden boards and nail them together and attach a cord to the front. You rest your foot here and the other foot here, you take the cord, you place the stick at the back And of course you will fall a few times before you master it. If you get the right position, you cannot fall. Once you learn, you’re like a pilot, you fly.

There was no café at the time when our grandfathers lived. It was a game, leisure. They were so closely bound with each other, that if one yelled, all of them gathered to go riding. We had no other toy, and that’s how it remained a tradition, and because with the friends we could stay connected and that’s why the story is repeated generation after generation.

That’s what our fathers taught us. It’s bee passed down from fathers to sons for 400 years. And it will go on like this. Life goes on.

If I am not riding, I get sick and even lose my appetite. I’ll go up and down, up and down

Without it, my body is sick. I haven’t “Lazboarding,” I feel bad. It’s a necessity, I can’t live with out it. But I will continue “Lazboaridng” until my last day. It was the same for our grandfathers.”

-Celime

Photo Ritzer.  He is 70 years old and has been riding almost daily for 62 years and it shows. Dropping in on our first run his years of experience shows as he stands tall and proud and effortlessly makes his way down the rolling fields of powder while I try and hang on.

Photo Ritzer.  He has been riding almost daily for 62. Dropping in on our first run his years of experience shows as he stands tall and proud and effortlessly makes his way down the rolling fields of powder while I try and hang on.

Las Boarding lives on. Travis Rice gets set to go back in time.  Tom Burt opts for the next best thing..the Noboard.  We were blown away at how well it worked in AK and it quickly became the tool of choice for the mellower lines.

This was the third and final bench of the scree field from hell that we had to scramble threw both on the way up and the way down.  Every step required full attention.  I must of spent a good four hour in the never ending maze of rocks.

We were some happy to finally make it to the upper bowl and find it caked with snow.

Seth Lightcap picking up where he left off last season.

How do I do this again? The moment of truth after a summer off from riding.

After yesterdays slog, riding smooth, soft, lift service corn snow never felt so good.  This is moments before Chair 23 opens for the day and turns a good opening day into one for the books.

Sierra Morning Glory.  Pick your passion. It was a perfect day for climbing, biking, and snowboarding.