RIDER: Blair Habenicht SPOT: Alaska TRICK: Spinal tap PHOTOGRAPHER: Scott Sullivan
RIDER: Ethan Deiss SPOT: Â Minneapolis, MN TRICK: Kinky nosepress PHOTOGRAPHER: Blotto Photto
EDITORIAL Editor-IN-Chief: Thomaz Autran Garcia thomaz@method.tv SENIOR EDITOR: Alexis de Tarade alexis@method.tv Art Director: Carlos B. Aranda carlos@method.tv ILLUSTRATOR: Raul Velez Navarro French editor & translator: Gabriel Bessy German editor & translator: Oliver Kraus Italian editor & translator: Davide Compagnoni Senior photographers: Daniel Blom, Oli Gagnon, Carlos Blanchard Contributing Photographers: Vanessa Andrieux, Mike Basich, Chris Brunkhart, Christiano “Binky” DiPasquale, Peter Fettich, Ethan “E-Stone” Fortier, Liam Gallagher, Dean “Blotto” Gray, Mikko Kaililainen, Petrus Koskinen, Rob Mathis, Cyril Müller, Anders Neuman, Dasha Nossova, Bob Plumb, Niki Rutanen, Frode Sandbech, Christoph Schöch, Scott Sullivan, Jérôme Tanon, Daniel Tengs, Phil Tifo, Andy Wright, Dominic “Howzee” Zimmerman Contributing writers: Andi Aurhammer, Mike Basich, Florent De Maria, Java Fernandez, Liam Gallagher, Danny Larsen, Rob Mathis, Jonas Michilot, Daniel O’Neil, Jérôme Tanon, Phil Tifo, JP Walker
Get some! Photo: Scott Sullivan
Here it is, our last issue of the 10/11 season, expect even bigger and better things from METHOD next season. See you all in September, I’m going snowboarding! \m/ TAG
COVERSTORY
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I was shocked last winter when I realized it was my tenth year taking self-portraits. It made me feel the need to capture an image that stood apart from 10 years of expressions, since that was the reason I started taking self-portraits in the first place.
Camera: Nikon D200
I’ve learned that if you really want to express only yourself through photography you need to play both sides, otherwise you will end up with two different people’s perspectives, the person behind the lens and also the subject’s, in one image. Which is not an altogether bad thing, but I am a freak for the DIY ethos.
Speed: ISO 125
These photos were the only goal I set out to accomplish with my camera last winter. The fireworks seemed perfect for the celebratory occasion. I started shooting at Area-241 and didn’t stop till the snow started to melt in Alaska. My favorite shot is from my place in Area-241, but it was quite the experience sledding across glaciers in Alaska at 2 AM in pitch black darkness to capture some of these shots. I hope you enjoy these images as much as I did capturing them. They are a gift I wanted to give to you all. They will be the last self-portraits you will see from me with an SLR. I am putting mine down and picking up a GoPro camera for good, I’m excited to see where it may take me with my imagery. Thank you to all the magazines and friends who have given me a place to display my work. It has been an amazing ten years, truly. -Mike Basich PS - Keep a eye out for a book of 10 years of self-portraits by Mike, dropping real soon!
Lens: 80.0-200-0mm f/2.8 Aperture: f/7,1
Rider: Mike Basich Trick: Carving the lake of fire Spot: Area 241, Lake Tahoe, CA Date: March 3, 2010
PRODUCER: Marc Vaudroz marc@method.tv
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Web reporter: Edgar Lanting edgar@method.tv Web Programmer: Laurie Barker laurie@method.tv
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PUBLISHER: Gareth Rees FInance Director: Mark Fenwick Executive Director: Gareth Rees SALES, DISTRIBUTION & ACCOUNTING Ben Gallivan ben@method.tv ADVERTISING: sales@method.tv DISTRIBUTION: Transglobal Freight Management Ltd. www.tgfml.com Printer: Benhamgoodheadprint Limited www.bgprint.co.uk PAPER: Gould Publication Papers UK gouldpublicationpapers.co.uk METHOD MAGAZINE 218 Penarth Road Cardiff CF11 8NN United Kingdom Ph.: ++44 (0) 2920 550 550 Fax: We prefer emails info@method.tv Method and all other brands associated to it are procuced by Boom Extreme Publishing Ltd. 218 Penarth Road Cardiff CF11 8NN United Kingdom Copyright 2011 Boom Extreme Publishing Ltd. No liability is accepted for the accuracy of the information contained herein, nor are any guarantees given by the magazine. Copyright worldwide of original material is held by Boom Extreme Publishing Ltd and permission must be obtained for any use, transmission, storage or reproduction. Opinions expressed in this magazine are not necessarily shared by the publisher. Boom Extreme Publishing Ltd assumes no responsibility for the loss or damage of unsolicited material. Thanks for buying Method Mag. We sure hope you like it. •Wherever you see this icon, go to methodmag. com for the full story!
22. 5 THINGS
PHOTO: BLOTTOPHOTTO
5 things you wish you hadn’t swallowed: 1.Gum 2.Snus 3.Coffee beans 4.Beans 5.Death Sauce 5 things you do on pay day: 1.Buy food for the house 2.Drink a beer 3.Relax 4.Smile 5.Hangout 5 things you want to do on your snowboard before you’re done: 1.Toeside turn 2.Heelside turn 3.Backflip 4.Nose grab 5.Tailfish 5 things you tell yourself at the end of a season looking forward to the next: 1.Chill out 2.Go skate 3.Eat 4.Be happy 5.Be outside 5 things you learned to play on your guitar that you are pretty proud of: 1.Chords 2.Blues scale 3.Metal scale 4.Jokke & Valentinerne songs 5.Jimi Hendrix riff 5 things that are proof we are living a golden era: 1.Greens 2.Sunshine 3.Women 4.Water 5.Skateboards 5 things that are proof that we are entering a dark age: 1.First of all, 2012 2.Pollution 3.Egoism 4.Dog shit 5.Hate 5 things you put in your favorite salad: 1.Chicken 2.Dressing 3.Peanuts 4.Greens 5.Olive oil 5 things you should not say to your girl: 1.You are fat 2.I hate you 3.It’s over 4.Stupid bitch 5.Whore 5 things you do when don’t qualify: 1.Party 2.Move on 3.Smile 4.Hang out with Frends 5.Eat a good meal 5 things things that qualify someone as a pro: 1.Talent 2.Happy man 3.Polite 4.Showman 5.Nice to everybody, B-) 5 things that rule about being tall: 1.Closer to the sun 2.XL shirts 3.Big shoes 4.Big socks 5.Great view at live shows 5 reasons why analog is better than digital: 1.Anal-O.G. 2.I don’t know? 3.Stronger 4.Smaller 5.Lighter 5 excuses for not landing your trick: 1.No breakfast 2.No coffee 3.No sunshine 4.No water 5.Fog
Bang Bang bangin’ out a backcountry banger Photo: Blotto Photto
24 LITTLE LABELS
PHOTOS: BINKY
A lot of brands claim “core”, but very few of them actually deserve the accolade. Smokin’ Snowboards is one of those few, these guys love snowboarding more than life itself and they put the same passion into their work, creating some of the best decks in the biz individually by hand, with an extra scoop of TLC. Smokin’ Jay Quintin is the mastermind behind it all, here’s what he had to say about one of the raddest little labels in snowboarding. Tell us a bit about the history of Smokin’ Snowboards, how did it first come about? I am named after a ski resort in Vermont called Jay Peak, where my father was the first ski patrolman. I was the first snowboarder to grace its hills, after my dad bought me a Sims Lonnie Toft plastic snowboard with hooks for bindings attached to a skate deck. Soon after I met Dave Kemper and was their first team rider ever. I also did their first ad. I did the first East Coast snowboard contests with the likes of Andy and Jack Coghlan, Jeff Brushie, Jason Ford, Noah Brandon and Todd Richards, just to name a few. My name Smokin’ Jay came from an article shot and written by Trevor Graves in ISM (International Snowboard Magazine), the first snowboard magazine ever. It was entitled “A Smokin’ Jay”, and after that every one called me Smokin’ Jay cuz I used to smoke a lot of pot! I moved to Tahoe when I was 17 and just out of high school, straight to Shaun Palmer’s house. I was riding for G&S snowboards with Ranquet and my lifelong-friend Shawn Farmer. Then I moved on and helped start Joyride, then to Lib Tech, then got offered a pro model with Black Flys. I quit Lib for a nice paycheck and blew my knee the first hour I got the board in Japan. So I started shooting photos since I was injured, and began working as the photo editor of a So Cal snow/skate/surf mag called Electric Ink. That’s when I decided to grow pot and start a snowboard company aptly named Smokin’ 14 years ago. Did you really win the US Open back in the day? I won the US Open Junior Division
downhill event in 1987! What makes Smokin’ decks special? Smokin’ snowboards are professionally handmade by snowboarders who care about quality and performance. I honestly believe that the main reason our boards are so amazing is because of all the hard work and love that goes into them. That and the fact that we use the best materials out there: the hardest sintered p-tex for bases, the best and most flawless wood for our cores, p-tex side walls, urethane tips and tails and dampening. That’s why we have a 3-year warranty, because they are quality, handmade and hold up... No extruded bases and foam cores here. After over a decade in the game, what is the hardest lesson you guys have learned about the snowboard industry? The hardest lesson being in the snow game for 14 years is finding a way to get people to want to buy our boards when there are so many companies with so much money to market and manufacture their own stuff. But it all works itself out when those companies eventually get bought out by corporations and then market themselves as core. If a snowboarder really wants to ride a board from a “core” brand then look no further, there is no other brand more core than Smokin’... We have no investors and make every part of our boards from start to finish, creating the best boards out there, period! What is the criteria for being on the Smokin’ team? Mad shred skills? A bottomless appetite for buds, booze and brews? Right now our team is pretty stacked. We just acquired the Midget Mafia from Technine, and also added halfpipe rider and Olympic hopeful Mike Goldschmidt as well as last year’s Breckenridge Dew Tour rail jam winner CC Curry. At this point we are still trying to keep the team small, despite the huge amount of kids hitting us up to be sponsored. It’s hard to grow when you do so much to promote your brand, but that’s what needed. Our Team Manager Binky has been killing it for us since he got on a few years ago, and he continues to get the hottest up-and-comers in Lake Tahoe and around the world. We also do a contest called the Smokin’ Pool Party where we give back to the kids with tons of gear and loot for the winners. Binky always keeps his eyes peeled for new talent, and the Pool Party is a great place to impress him. This season he has a bunch of street rail rippers like Da-
Smokin’ Jay hisself
kota Whitaker and Andy Johnson on the team, so keep an eye out for a Smokin’ Snowboards film next season! What does the future hold in store for Smokin’? We are going to continue developing the most innovative designs and producing the best boards out there, and we will continue to turn down big companies who want to buy us out. We will always make small runs of our boards so everyone who “gets” us will truly be special. The guy next to a Smokin’ junkie in the lift line will not be riding the same board! We are going to continue to change snowboarding from what it has become to what it should be... You can’t fool the youth! Where can someone in Europe get their grubby mitts on a Smokin’ shred blade? The true shredders of Europe will finally be able to get their mitts on a Smokin’ board as we have found some distributors who will be introducing the brand to some of the best shops in the continent, please ask your favorite shop to contact these fine people: France/Italy - Studio Zeta, Spain - Happy Riding, UK - 720 Distribution, Sweden Permafrost, Austria/Germany/Poland/ Denmark/Romania - Gery Plenk www.smokinsnowboards.com
26. PRODUCTION VALUES and I think it was one of the best decisions we ever made. Of course there are some dudes in our crew who go to contests too, but everyone puts most of their effort into getting a good part every year.
What does KBR stand for? (Petrus Koskinen) KBR stands for good friends who love to shred and make movies together. It sounds so cliché, but that’s how it really is. KBR started around 7 years ago, but the people involved have changed a lot since then. Me and my good friend Toni Kerkelä are the only ones in it from the beginning. Haha, sounds epic, “from the beginning”… I think since we made Bugarest we’ve had a really good and motivated crew, which we’re really stoked on. Actually, back in the day we were the Kobra crew, but that sounded stupid so we changed the name to KBR Productions. So that’s the story behind the letters. Tell us a bit about the people behind KBR. There are about ten riders, a couple photographers and a few filmers too. We’re all between 19 to 22 years old. There are so many different life situations in the crew. Some dudes are working or going to school and a couple of lucky ones are living the dream and only shredding. What made you guys decide to start making your own snowboard movies? When we were really young all the kids in Finland went to contests but we wanted to push our snowboarding through our own films. This was the road we chose,
Janne Lipsanen, ta il
Why are there so many unknown rippers in Finland, most kids are doing pro level Petrus & Toni checking the evidence Photo: Niki Rutanen tricks and no one’s ever heard of them, what’s up with that? film crews out there. The diversity of the Yea, we have so many great riders in movies is definitely something to menFinland. Some of them are unknown tion too. Some crews are making all-urto me too, haha. Everybody says it’s ban movies and some crews really sick because of the small hills in Finland, freeride movies. It’s great how basically you can get so many laps in during one the same sport can be so absolutely difnormal day of snowboarding. I think that’s ferent. There’s no one thing that bums one reason, but we’ve always had really me out too much in the movie scene. good role models in the Finnish scene to look up to. And that’s one thing which defiHow hard is it to produce a movie with nitely pushes the youngsters (like us, haha) essentially no budget? to step it up. I think we’ve kind of gotten used to it. One This is KBR’s third movie (I think?) after of the reasons why we always make a new movie is our crew is really motivated. EveBugarest and Homework, what can we rybody’s aiming high in snowboarding expect from the new flick? and for us this is the way to get it done. The new flick is actually our seventh movMost of us also grew up with the KBR crew, ie, but Bugarest was the first one which got some real attention outside of Finland. from little groms to young men, so it’s not something you can easily leave behind. You can expect a 20-30 minute movie Battery Energy Drink is supporting us this made with a lot of heart, by snowboarders season. We really appreciate their help! I for snowboarders. It will have some really, hope there’s a chance to get some money really good riding from the streets to the from them, for the first time ever I’m tryslopes, decent filming and a “good-vibe” ing to pull together a real budget for next edit. It’s going to be a tight package! Defiseason’s (11/12) movie, wish me luck! nitely the best movie we’ve made so far! What do you think about DVDs, yay or nay? Is online streaming the way of the future? I think web streaming is the way to go nowadays, or whatever else is free and easy to find for the viewer. That’s how you get the biggest distribution today. Nobody wants to buy a 25€ DVD that you aren’t even sure is actually good. We make some DVDs, but they’re only for ourselves and our friends. The new movie will be streamed for free on our website. I bet you wouldn’t have seen our last movie if we had only made some DVDs, haha.
presser Photo: M
What stokes you out in snowboard movies? What bums you out? I’m stoked on the snowboard movie culture we have today round the globe. Everybody’s pushing it real hard these days and there are millions of ikko Kaililainen
Describe a typical day in the life of KBR. A typical filming day with the crew would be wake up around 9 o’clock and drive to the spot. Everything’s set up by around 11 AM and then it’s time to stack some ham. Sometimes it only takes a few tries to get the shot and sometimes you have to hit it like 50 times. It gets dark in Finland during the winter from 2 PM to 9 PM, depending which month it is. In January we only have like 3 hours of daylight and by the end of April it’s something crazy like 18 hours of daylight. Early in the season we normally hit one spot during the day and a second spot with generators blasting in the evening. In spring we hit 2-3 spots per day, of course in the daylight. When we have shots in the bag, we take a break and go shred a resort, hit the sauna or just chill and relax. Finland’s a really nice place to shred and film snowboarding. I love it! Final thoughts... Check out www.kbrproductions.net to watch our last movie Homework and if you like what you saw then spread the word about the three letters: KBR. Enjoy your shred! Peace and love! Booyakasha!!
28. FLASHBACK
“This was from a good day up at Flagstaff / Grizzly Gulch, in Little Cottonwood Canyon, UT. This is just one of the many QP options you can build up there. I sessioned this day with Mitch Nelson and Rob Mathis shot the photos. It was a sick day, and one that I wish I could relive again sometime.” - JP Walker
“ I can’t shot is 15 believe this Walker float JP ! ld years o e Hip th n o ir a FS ing a huge from ss the street best o cr a e v Lo f o e h T . h ta U rt in Alta ski reso t is not the kick sho part of this JP is kley shades after a O e it h w e ass at e w Q B t the B rocking, bu I’m one t. o sp e th p to lugging it u ith JP for have shot w to y u g y ck lu ple have a lot of peo longer than rding.” boa been snow is th - Rob Ma
30. GETTING THE MOST FROM... TOM ELLIOTT setups you get. In the early days I would shoot for one night and get 10 shots for my UK indoor snowboard film whereas now, we can travel for 2 days, spend 2 weeks filming, spend thousands of euros and there is no guarantee to even get one shot. As long as I’m working hard and taking every opportunity to film then it just comes down to luck, but it is always your biggest concern throughout the season.
e clips to DBK, Fips Strauss
Footy party! Tom leaking som and Colin Frei.
What is the best thing about being one of the principal filmers on one of the most progressive production companies in snowboarding? (Tom Elliott) It’s cool to have joined an already established company which is so well organized. It means I get to concentrate on going out and getting good shots with somebody always there to organize trips and eventually, take the footage and edit it in to a great movie. When “Don’t Panic” came out (my first film with Isen) I was amazed to see how well they used my shots. On top of that I get to travel around the wintery globe with a group of friends, meeting nice people, seeing amazing things and generally having a good time. It rarely feels like a job. Do you have any schedule or structure going into a season or do you just play it by ear as the winter develops? Sometimes we have a few pre-planned trips, or at least ideas of trips we want to do but it’s completely reactive to the snow conditions. It’s so hard to pre-plan anything that even my set crew I aimed to shoot with all season lasted just a few days before we split up to suit filming schedules. I’m actually pretty pleased with how the trips panned out so far this season, as instead of the predicted Zillertal/Alps shooting, bad snow has driven me to Sweden, Norway and now Montana, just outside of Yellowstone National Park for sled missions. Do you ever get frustrated not being able to ride all that creamy, powdery goodness and just have to post up and work all day?
How much input do you have into the final movie, does everyone have a say in isenseven? I felt really welcome to the crew last year and I felt like any input I had to give was received well. The main man now is Alex Schiller and with him I produced some of the intros, edited part of the travel movie and I was also stoked to have conceived the “Hitchhiker’s Guide” reference with the title “Don’t Panic”. I didn’t end up editing any of the main movie as I went back to the UK in the summer but hopefully this year I would like to get more involved with it.
Do you love nature documentaries more than snowboard movies? Yes. I like lots of different movies more than snowboard films but I still have huge appreciation when PHOTOS: HOWZEE snowboard films are done well. Actually nature documentaries are something I would love to get into but that’s no small task, for now I will just settle I get a litfilming the primitive beings they call snowtle taste of it when we scope boarders. around, turning in powder is actually the one cool thing you can still do on a board with all your gear, but for sure it really feels like those virgin fields are going to waste, especially when even the riders are just pointing one single track to ride for 10 seconds before hiking 20 minutes back to the top. The statement “Hey guys, the light is too bad to film right now, let’s dump the bags and do laps” is one of my favorite things to say ever. How much money do you spend Another day in the office… on camera gear per year? Is there an arms race amongst filmers to see who has the raddest set up? Advice for up-and-coming filmer/editors? There was a bit of a revolution recently If you’re a complete novice then I would with the DSLRs allowing you to make say to find a crew of good riders at your incredible quality shots for just a couple local slope and just film, make edits and of thousand euros, so last year of course you will learn your skill quickly. If you I spent a fair amount getting in to that have been doing that awhile already, game. Snow filmers just love making then you should consider buying some their own rigs like dollies and cranes decent kit and then finding some sponfrom scratch, so you can spend less than sored riders to shoot with who will more you think, but for sure my wish list is than likely need footage for a brand about 10 times more than my salary. movie or something bigger. That way, you get your name around and you are Hardest lesson you’ve learned while showing people the quality of your filmworking as a filmer/editor in the snowing, which is way more important than board industry? just mailing people telling them how The one thing I consider the hardest motivated you are or that you have studelement of making snowboard movied film. ies is trying to gather a high standard of snowboarding, irrelevant of how isenseven.de good looking the shot is or how many
32. BONER!
When springing boners, you should take them to mean spots, you should make sure you crank them hard, and you should make sure you fly over sweet obstacles. Well, if you have the control over your boner, that is. So next time when you think a plain old air will do, wave your boner around in the air and knock it on something!
Brendan Keenan smacks his stale boner on this poor, unsuspecting tree‌ Photo: Vanessa Andrieux
34. Desireee Melançon’s Beautiful Sexy World
By Florent De Maria
Things became suddenly clearer in my mind when Esthera Prada told me that the Peep Show ad has been drawn by Desiree Melancon, a playful rider who shreds on everything and anything that pops out in the city (rails, roofs, seesaws, dogs, old people...). She was the one brimming with imagination. “I think everything I’ve learned plays into the drawing game. It’s not just one thing, and it’s not necessarily what I have gained from school, but mostly from life in general. I’ve been in college for a while, but it’s all general ed stuff.” Desiree’s world is one of fantasy, where reality gets dazed and confused. “Imagine another world; that’s what I try to draw,” she confirms. “Unrealistically bright and dull shades of colors, creatures who are usually women. Feelings of love or hate, and sadness. And everything is usually on wood. I’m not good at describing them, haha, sorry!” We don’t mind, they speak loud enough for themselves. When it comes to how much of a role art plays in her life, Desiree merely answers that her entire life is filled with it: “It’s really cheesy, but I mean, my life is filled with creative snowboarders, photographers, drawers, painters, and musicians. Everyone makes art in one way or another, and because I’m surrounded by it, I can’t really help but be a part of it.” Amongst them, Mike Hakker is the artist she likes the most. Almost defensively, she says it’s because she has a lack of influences and ties to the artistic world. “I don’t know who makes what”, she admits. Well, doesn’t this make your work even more credible and personal? ”But the main influence for my art is music. When I sit down to start painting, what I’m listening to usually influences how my paintings turn out.” Nowadays, Desiree is hoping to double major in art and English. But she still considers art mostly as a hobby “that I will probably do until I die”. But when I asked her about opening doors in the future in the art world, this is what she said: “Oh, man! Who knows! I just like making stuff and I like it when people like what I make. I plan on having an art show when I get enough pieces, but who knows... If people want to do things with the stuff I make or give me job opportunities along the way, well then, that’s awesome.” Well, well… Indeed it would be awesome. And that’s all we can wish for Desiree.
Ever seen Back to the Future, where Marty cuts through time in a tricked out Delorean and almost changes the future by going into the past? The family photo he brought with him starts disappearing cause they won’t exist in the new groove in time Marty is creating, so he has to make sure that his mom and dad meet.
We are in a critical state, down to the last homie, we need to go back to the future and take snowboarding back to where it belongs! Doc Benedek built us a board, is anyone ready to ride it?Â
Well, this photo of Jed was once full of other homies flying overhead in fully flared methods and laid out slush slashes. Every time someone sells out and leaves a brand just for an extra zero, or some knob shapes the lip as high as the rail, or someone grabs their leg on an ugly ass, hucked double cork over an Army banner, it makes another homie disappear from the photo.
BY: ADT PHOTO: OLI GAGNON
38. (f) ART PAGE
There is no denying that a thread of creativity runs through our booze boarding buffalo herd. So many from the present and the past have blasted out some fArt when they weren’t snowboarding, which is a huge fArt in its own way already. We figured, “Fuck a duck, let’s just run totally free on one page (as if this mag wasn’t already a place for loopy people to get loose as a goose)”. So clog your schnoz cause we’re gonna be ripping some fine fArts on this page! This first installment is by a shred artist born in Buffalo, New York who migrated past the great plains to the foothills on Boulder, Colorado. Maxwell Carl Scott came up to be one of the most wasted, creative, raileating boarders to never go to art school, but who manages to blow huge fArts out of his rear regardless. This one is called “ Sloth Slide”.
40 LITTLE LABELS (AGAIN) lifestyle is art. We want to live free and wild. Art is a way to express our thoughts and realize our dreams. We have just lately started a new project: we publish artbooks from artists with a youth culture background, like street artists or snowboard photographers. The project is called hakuin-verlag. Take a look at the website: www. hakuin-verlag.com. We distinguish ourselves from other brands by the simple fact that we are a young, independent snowboard company based in Switzerland, with our own unique style. As we are an independent company we are able to develop progressive design and ideas.
Hi Alex, how are you doing? (Alex Schauwecker) Very well, thank you very much. Today I had my first day snowboarding and now I am very happy and relaxed… Can you tell us a bit about the history of Hakuin Airlines and what you’ve been up to in the past? The idea came up in spring 2008. My good friend Nico and I were talking about how much the industry has changed from when we began to snowboard and that we could no longer agree with certain ways some companies were doing business. Back in the day snowboarding was a part of youth culture, a little bit like the punk movement, and it no longer feels that way. So the only solution was to start our own company! Nico and I developed a freeride snowboard for the first collection, totally handmade in Switzerland, using only Swiss wood from Swiss forests. We produced three prototypes, which we tested last winter. For the next collection we are developing a park board. At the same time we also created the clothing collection, the homepage, stickers and the catalog. The theme of the first collection was the “Whale” – an animal that is almost extinct, a fact which we want to draw attention to! The “Whale” collection dropped this past October and is available in seven snowboard stores in Switzerland and one in Japan. How important is art to Hakuin Airlines and how do you think Hakuin can distinguish itself from other artsy brands like Dinosaurs Will Die and such? Art is definitely an important aspect of Hakuin. For us “art” is not only paintings or design. For us snowboarding for example is art, or the snowboard
What about the time when you started Hakuin, how did you come up with the name and idea behind it? What’s your message for the shred world? The idea of doing our own company had already been growing in our minds for a very long time… We started to think about names, logos, products and the philosophy of our brand years ago. After a long time of thinking and still being slightly indecisive as to whether all our ideas were good or realistic, the moment came to make a decision and a commitment! Since then we have been working hard for this project and we are proud of it! The name “Hakuin” is Japanese, there was a famous monk in the 17th century with this name. There is a myth about him: Hakuin was a Buddhist monk who was closer to the poorer population, a poet, writer, painter, calligrapher and candy lover. According to a tale he ate so many of them that he choked to death. That’s hilarious. For us the brand represents in what we believe:
-to live free and wild -to take care of nature, our friends and society, because we are responsible for it! -to have the courage to be progressive and believe in a positive future! Which riders are on the Hakuin team and why did you pick these brave souls? Firstly, all team members have one thing in common: they love snowboarding and totally stick to it, no matter what society thinks of them. They are dedicating all their free time or lives to it. More than that, they would stick their arms in the fire for Hakuin. Naturally, they all have their own personality, dope skills and a good sense of humor. Let`s start with the lady: Jennifer Maria Gonzales Sanchez, originally from Madrid, living in Flims, she just loves snowboarding so much and has supported Hakuin since the start, thanx Yeni! Then we’ve Lorenzo Corona, 15, from Flims, bad ass skateboarder with such a buttery style. Also Andrea Corona, 17, brother to Lorenzo. He’s our rapper! He actually won a battle in the cultural house in Chur and is about to produce his first CD. And finally there’s Chris Kent Mattsson, 28, from Fagersta, Sweden. He totally represents Hakuin, be it with his lifestyle or his sweet, boned out tricks, Chris is always fun to hang out with, go skate or snowboard or party. What’s your opinion on the snowboarding industry of today and how would you change it if you had the chance? I really appreciate the TTR tour. Snowboarding is presented and lived in a creative way! From real snowboarders for real snowboarders! We also like how the Ästhetiker in Austria make contests! There is passion, and money is not the sole motivation! What are some great examples of brands/ideas who inspire you? Inspiration for us are for example Ed Templeton or Mark Gonzales and how they are running their skateboard companies. Both of them are skateboarders and artists, their brands have their very own, unique style. You see the heart and the courage behind their brands! And maybe most important question… Where can we get the boards? Now you can order the Whalerider 158 and the Whalerider 164 by email info@ hakuin-airlines.com. All the information on how to order the products you can find on the website www.hakuinairlines.com hakuin-airlines.com
42. DANNY’S PAGE
Please introduce yourself. Moi! My name is Toni Kerkelä and I have been shreddin’ down the slopes for about 9 years. Where does your meat come from? My meat comes from Jyväskylä, Finland. It’s about 300 km north from Helsinki. It’s a great place for urban riding! 3 reasons why your meat is fresher than the rest? It has no hair on it. I have poked Ethan Deiss on Facebook (he didn’t poke me back though). I am more into creative stuff than triplin’ it up. What is your favorite kind of obstacle to throw your meat off? All rails which have wooden stairs. Saves your board and your meat. Who are your favorite meats to shred with? KBR homies and my home resort Laajavuori locals. Where would you like to take your snowboarding as your meat ages? Keeping the urban stuff as natural as possible! What is your favorite kind of meat? Good ol’ A-class Finnish sausage
Beasty frontside 5-0 to back one out, BOOM! Photo: Niki Rutanen
What’s the last kind of meat you ate? Chicken teriyaki at Subway, so chicken it was. What meat would you not eat? Raw, I hate all those sushi and fixie enthusiasts. Which sauce do like on your meat? Anything not too spicy (hot stuff burns the hell out of my tongue). How do you like your meat cooked? Barbecued on camp fire. What do you think about vegetarians? They are alright as long as they don’t hug trees too often. Anything you’d like to say about actual snowboarding instead of meat? Just fuckin’ send it. Who are your sponsors? Ashbury, Rome & Level. Photo: Niki Rutanen
PHOTOS: DASHA NOSSO VA
Please introduce yourself. Hey, my name’s Denis Leontyev. I live in Russia, Saint-Petersburg and I’m 19 years old. Where does your meat come from? Actually, it comes from Kaliningrad. Have your heard about this European part of Russia? 3 reasons why your meat is fresher than the rest? My meat is smoked. It’s date of expiration is far from over. And I am progressing. What is your favorite kind of obstacle to throw your meat off? Somewhere my meat’s gonna feel good. Who are your favorite meats to shred with? Block Monkeys Crew. They got some steezy meat. Where would you like to take your snowboarding as your meat ages? Bear Mountain in California. There’s some rap meat over there. What is your favorite kind of meat? The kind of meat you can find in junk food, like hamburgers. What’s the last kind of meat you ate? Double cheeseburger, haha. What meat would you not eat? Shaurma from the Caucasus mountains, for sure. Which sauce do like on your meat? Ketchup. How do you like your meat cooked? Mostly fried. What do you think about vegetarians? I don’t really care about them. Anything you’d like to say about actual snowboarding instead of meat? I love snowboarding as much as eating meat. So tasty! Who are your sponsors? Forum, Special Blend, Gravis, Nixon, Frends, Electric, LRG, Dakine Watch out, pro bros, Bonus is coming for your paycheck! Front blunt 270 out
Please introduce yourself. Urška Pribošič, 20 years young. Snowboarding for 10 years. Eating meat for 20 years. Where does your meat come from? From Slovenia. I live on the edge of the Alps in a small town called Bled. 3 reasons why your meat is fresher than the rest? For one it’s not so old yet, I don’t know about the other two. What is your favorite kind of obstacle to throw your meat off? Poles. On the street or in a bar... Who are your favorite meats to shred with? Boobish m(e)ates. (http://vimeo. com/16846237) Where would you like to take your snowboarding as your meat ages? No idea. Maybe I’ll even become a beef. What is your favorite kind of meat? Bloody.
Urska shreds harder than you,
What’s the last kind of meat you ate? Frozen. It was super cold and I wanted to warm myself up with some food. Didn’t really work and the frozen chicken tasted really bad. What meat would you not eat? Old and dry. Which sauce do like on your meat? Just not the sweet and sour sauce. How do you like your meat cooked? Well done.
Photo: Carlos Blanchard
HEAVY 50-5 0 on the clos eout Photo: Peter Fettich
What do you think about vegetarians? I feel sorry for them. And they should know that fish is meat too. Anything you’d like to say about actual snowboarding instead of meat? Not really. I just think they go together perfect. Spring riding on my home mountain with my friends and a barbecue party in the park. Good times. Who are your sponsors? Rip Curl, Elan snowboards, Blue Tomato, SkullCandy.
: TOS PHO
IL CYR
Please introduce yourself. Hey everyone, my name is Luka Jeromel, I’m 19 years old and I live in a little village in Slovenia. Where does your meat come from? My meat is actually pretty Yugo, I was born in Yugoslavia, but only lived there for about two months, then Slovenia became independent and all that. I’m still living in the same village and it’s sick, I’m as happy as I could be. 3 reasons why your meat is fresher than the rest? First, I’m from a small country which is not as dirty and polluted as most of the big ones, so my meat is still pretty fresh. Second, I spend a lot of time in nature and third, I don’t really eat a lot of junk food. What is your favorite kind of obstacle to throw your meat off? I like to cruse around the park, hit everything that comes in front of me, jump some kickers, jib some rails and do some
unusual, different stuff. I like urban stuff as well and I also don’t mind to hike a hill for some powder runs... you see where I’m going with this, right? Who are your favorite meats to shred with? My buddies Mario Käpelli, Simon Gruber, Peter König and the rest of the Forum crew. Coming home and shredding with my local buddies is pretty dope too. Where would you like to take your snowboarding as your meat ages? I just wanna enjoy it as much as I can, entertain others with my riding, be friendly to all people, film and shoot some stuff, stay healthy and just ride as much as possible.
What is your favorite kind of meat? Ćevapčići or Ćevapi, it’s an awesome Balkan dish made of grilled meat. You eat it in a flatbread (lepinja in Slovenian) and you always have chopped onions, sour cream, kajmak, cheese and stuff like that with it. Reeeeeally tasty! What’s the last kind of meat you ate? I think it was fish and beef together. Interesting... What meat would you not eat? I really don’t like bloody or undercooked meat. You can’t really swallow it, you just chew it for ages and then you have like a big snowball of meat in your mouth. I hate that, it sucks. Which sauce do you like on your meat? Kinda depends which meat I eat. With ćevapčići I eat sour cream or kajmak and with other meat I usually just eat ketchup or mustard. How do you like your meat cooked? Grilled, but just enough so it’s not burned or raw. What do you think about vegetarians? Not much... If they don’t like the taste and all then it’s all good, otherwise they are missing out on some good shit. Anything you’d like to say about actual snowboarding instead of meat? Not really, this interview made me really hungry anyways, so peace out, gonna go eat some meat now...
Put on your seatbelts, Luka is about to get nuclear! Huge backside tip grab crail type thing in L2A
Who are your sponsors? Forum, Special Blend, Dragon, Obsession and Transform Gloves.
all s, you can ride away and go tell Now, if you’re not unconsciou rs. ody likes claime your friends, but don’t brag, nob Surf s, Airblaster, Gnarly, Osiris, Cal Sponsors: Academy Snowboard
find a rail that you want to go Now that you have the goods, t to learn how to ride forward backwards at (you might wan first)... ’re going to want to lock your When approaching the rail, you end e (that way you can get to the knees, and go as fast as possibl faster and easier). 90 degrees. Jump up and twist those hips so you , think about something else As soon as you get on the rail good how or a girl with pretty eyes, don’t freak yourself out, like re’re you if , ugh tho g if for sure your breakfast tasted. One thin ’t can see ’t can you at wh e aus s, bec ally scared, just close your eye hurt you… , you’ll be at the end of the rail Anyways, before you know it, en wh e tim the ut ve. This is abo ready to finish off the dance mo en wh t’s tha d, lou lly rea ks it crac you will twist your back until final spin around. you know you will make the
Hello ladies and gentlemen, do my best to explain how to to g I’m goin gs first, you will need do this funny trick. First thin nd. frie a from to steal a snowboard
“Great personality, am azing rider, likes to party hard! That’s wh at pops in my head when I think about Ni ls. He’s been in the Ni tro family for years no w, it didn’t take us lon g to figure out Nils is on e talented bastard. He is an amazing technical park rider and also has im pressive moves on rails. That’s kind of the Swedish package… But what make s him stand out is that he also kills it in the backcountry. Over the last few ye ars he has always been pretty unlucky with injuries, but this season it seems that all his hard work is paying off! I am sure you will he ar a lot about Nils in the future, really glad to have him on the team! Go Nisse !!” - Andi Aurhammer
Nils was crushing it at the Munich A&S, sending it almost to the bottom of the landing! Flat spin front 12 lien with a late 180, we LIKE! Photo: Frode Sandbech
Seriously, handplanting frontside on this thing takes some serious technical skills. Seriously serious skills, I tell you! Check out Keegan and the rest of the Gnarly crew in the upcoming movie from Givin, out sometime this fall Photo: Blotto Photto
Why Lobster, are you a big fan of seafood? Or are you a loser, baby? Eiki and I were both just so stoked on the name Lobster because it’s so random. After we picked it we noticed we could use it as LO_S_ER as well, which is awesome! So yeah, I really like seafood and I’m a loser as well so it’s a perfect fit. What is the secret behind helgasons.com, how come kids are so hyped on what you guys do? I think kids just like to get to know the snowboarders better. Before all you could see from a snowboarder was a 3-minute video part every year. With helgasons.com we can just post random stuff, and do exactly what we want with it. How would you describe what you do to an alien? I would describe it with my fingers. I always use the peace sign fingers to jib around with when I have nothing to do. What’s scarier, double corks on a massive jump or frontside half cabs onto a round bar double kink? Double corks on a massive jump for sure Why are little brands cooler than big brands? That’s just how it’s always been. I guess it’s cooler when you don’t have all the same stuff some random people have. The biggest brands have cool people using their stuff, but you will definitely see a lot of not-so-cool people riding their stuff too. I guess it’s easier to do cooler, more random stuff with smaller brands. If you are a big company you don’t want to risk too much. Look at how many people got super angry at the big B for putting bikini girls on their boards. People wouldn’t even care if a small company did that. What does 7/9/13 stand for, and what does it have to do with shoelaces? 7/9/13 is the lucky number everyone uses in iceland. It’s like the number for knocking on wood 3 times and it has something to do with shoelaces because we started a belt brand thats called 7/9/13 and we started things off with some next level shoelace belts. Why should people jump the puddle? They should not jump the puddle, they should jump in the puddle. For everyone that’s reading this and has no idea what we’re talking about - jump in a puddle is what the word hoppipolla means in Icelandic. Hoppipolla headwear is a brand me, Petter Fosshaug and Eiki are making. So we got three projects going on at the moment: 7/9/13, Hoppipolla and Lobster. A lot of stuff has happened since last year but it’s a lot of fun to be a part of something new and try and make something happen. The best part about it is you can make it exactly the way you want. Do you ever feel like you are dating your brother? Haha, no I can’t say I do. Is Sexual Snowboarding going to revolutionize shred porn? You never know, you never know... Where do you see things going from here? Quad corks? Back sevens on? Is snowboarding turning into figure skating? I think it’s going to be on the level it is right now for a couple more years, at least I hope it’s not going to go too much further at the moment. I hope there are always going to be new tricks and stuff coming, just to keep it interesting. But if it’s going to be quad corks and more spins, the jumps are going to have to be way bigger and I don’t see that happening in contests, at least at the moment. What is the weirdest thing about you that no one knows? I’ve got 11 toes. Famous last words... Try your best all the time and you will be all good.
Snowboarding needs more Halldor! King-Kong sized back one in Kongsberg Photo: Frode Sandbech
Outside our van’s windows heavy traffic is clogging the way. Drivers honk their horns as if they were part of an orchestra, with only themselves as an audience. Time passes and we finally get through the source of congestion. City workers are fixing a street light, blocking the main artery during rush hour. All of a sudden we’re swerving dangerously from lane to lane, our driver speeding through a sea of taxis and honking his horn as he cuts people off. Others seem to drive the same way around us; we figure that it’s how they do it in this part of the world. The road follows a shoreline and dozens of freighters are sitting at anchor, waiting to unload their cargo. Knowing that we are surrounded by four seas, we try to guess which sea is this one. It seems like we drive for a long time through the heart of the city, as she expands herself as far as the eye can see. At high points, mosques and their towers dominate the megalopolis. The driver points to the largest in the distance: “That, Blue Mosque”. Passing through what seems to have once been the city’s ramparts, it appears to belong from an era well before our civilization. After our long journey over land and ocean, we realize that we are in one of the oldest places in the world. This is Istanbul, this is Turkey.
The legendary Blue Mosque, the crowning jewel of the Ottoman Empire
Yet unlike most who have visited this ancient land before us, we have board bags, an array of image capturing equipment and a thirst for strange snow. We heard there are good mountains in Turkey and we figured, why wouldn’t we fly 20 hours across two continents and an ocean to come slide on their snow. After conjuring up this random travel plan, I convinced legendary filmmaker and producer of Alterna Action films Carlo Wein to team up as a fellow documenter. We gathered a great crew of motivated and talented shreds composed of Dave Short, Chris Rasman, Wiley Tesseo and Norwegian Viking Marius Otterstad. We are also graced by the presence of Travis Williams, a legendary pro shred and now team manager of Bataleon, Wiley’s board sponsor. His role is to ride foreign mountains, ask Carlo and I questions about his new camera and make sure Wiley doesn’t get into too much trouble. But his real reason to hop on this trip is the quintessential factor that often leads one to impromptu departures for a great adventure. Faced with the dilemma be-
tween sitting in a North Van office or go riding with his friends in Turkey, Trav took the TM mask off, replaced it with his traveling shred face instead and hopped on the flying bus with the Alterna crew. Dave Short and I had spent a week in the Austrian Alps the week before and were scheduled to meet the rest of the guys in Istanbul. From there we’d all fly east to one of the oldest cities in history, now called Erzurum, on the outskirts of which stands Palandöken, the best resort in Turkey. One day passes since our arrival and we’re back in the air again. Away from smog and traffic, pointing towards fresh mountain breezes. Istanbul is a fascinating and vibrant city, but we are all anxious to strap in and slash some toz kar (powder snow in Turkish). Approaching the mountain under moonlight, we get a first impression of tomorrow’s playground. The scenery around us shows obvious lines drawn by the region’s notorious gales. The ghostly reflections off the snow demonstrate the dominant direction of the wind, appearing on only one side of the ridges. The opposite sides reveal dark shadowy tones, vaguely resembling rock fields. Finally we arrive at our final destination, exhausted and jet lagged.
Dave Short, drag long
Local #1
Wiley Tesseo with a filthy front 3 over a sewage pipe
Our hotel looks like a cement bunker but if it has a television, so it’ll do. Carlo is feeling positive that we can catch the last period of the hockey final of the Olympics, even with our ten-hour time difference. We are told that there is a TV room where we could watch it if we can find the channel and Carlo is just frothing. We find ourselves in front of a giant projection screen, with three guys watching who knows what. Politely we explain that being Canadians and that this final game is a matter of life and death, we’d kindly ask if we could possibly find the channel. They happily give us the remote, luckily we find the match with a Turkish announcer, and we all know what happens when Canadians play hockey… We win!!! We are ecstatic but quickly get told to shut up by the manager since it’s 4 am and they can hear us yelling all through the hotel. Üzgünüm (sorry)! Going to bed with images of hockey fans celebrating in the streets of Vancouver in my head, I look around my little room with its faded walls and flaky ceiling. Feeling slightly disconnected from home, I look forward to a day on a new mountain and reflect contentedly on the long journey that brought us here.
Wiley Tesseo sure is a wily fellow, fiddy fiddy transfer drop
There’s a collective sense of time travel in the air as we embark the four-seater tin gondola. “This thing is ancient!”, says someone. “Look, there’s a bolt missing!”, says another. It appears that Doppelmayr hasn’t made its arrival yet in Turkey. On the mountain we are greeted by the director of ski patrol, who wants to know who we are and why we chose to come all the way to Turkey. Over a cup of tea we explain that no, we’re not
Local #2
here to train for the Olympics. The patrollers say that they want to have “snowboard obstacles” like the ones found in Europe and America, as one points to the two long piles of exposed dirt, which one day could be a halfpipe. We inquire about the stack of park rails and c-boxes piled up next to a building. They say they don’t know how to install them or how they work. Carlo, always ready, pulls out a fresh copy of his last movie from his sleeve and offers it to the Palandöken patrol team. Maybe it will give them some direction if we show them what we do at home. The small patroller’s hut turns into a movie theater as they become absorbed by images of snowboarders flying down mountains, jumping and sliding handrails. All they’ve ever seen of snowboarding is beginners in rental gear flailing down the mountain. But what they see is blowing their minds; hands in the air and dancing to the music the patrollers keep shouting “you crazy people, you crazy people!” The
head patroller tells us that he wants to show our movie to the director of the resort and the governor of the province, who happens to be in town. We agree to meet later and bid him farewell for the afternoon. A good mindset to adopt when traveling to distant countries to snowboard is realizing that conditions are not always going to be ideal. In our case, the quality of the snowpack revealed by the moonlight at our arrival seems to be accurate. The wind did hammer this place, and the snow off piste is quite solid. Gullies, open terrain and steep sections create a great canvas, but we’ll have to wait to play in the right conditions. Nonetheless, it’s great to enjoy the feeling of riding around a new mountain, wondering what’s around the next corner. If you’re lucky you’ll find a random pole sticking out on the side of a run with a gap and a landing like us. Although the snowboarders that we’ve seen here would not be able to negotiate a pole jam like this. Maybe a relic from a possible passing crew, but it’s there and we’re here! A few speed checks and physics calculations and a session is on!
The Grand Bazaar, bring your best bargaining skills!
Threeway action on the voluptuous mounds of Palandoken
Insert corny caption here, Marius and Local #3
Local #4
At the end of the day we meet our hosts, who prepared Chai tea for us. The director of the mountain is very impressed by the movie. He tells us that to him we are important guests that will show Turkey to the world and he wants us to stay in a better hotel so we can have a better experience at Palandöken. Nice move with the DVD, Carlo! And just like that we’re upgraded to a 4 star hotel by the slopes with 3 buffets per day, bar, disco, the whole nine yards. Tesekur Ederim (thank you)!! After a couple days of less than ideal snow conditions, we’re eagerly looking at the clouds in the distance, hoping they can deliver what we really need here. Then, during the lunch buffet, it starts... A few Turkish flakes at first and by the time we’re done with dessert there’s a full blown blizzard outside. The tin gondolas stop running, left alone to do their dance with the storm.
Dave didn’t come up short on the dam(n) gap, tail snatcher!
Pole rammer jammer, Rasman stylin’ out the front 3
Our spirits get lifted as we take a new look outside after a few hours. A healthy blanket of goodness covers the ground and it’s still coming down hard. Some kids just can’t wait to go play in the snow and Shorty goes jumping off a wall into
Put a cork in it! Marius back 7 into the fluff Strangers in a strange land…
ther find out, she can be in a world of trouble for betraying her family and religion. Mungo said he had a girlfriend for 7 years and she never told her family about him. Needless to say our Viking steered clear and kept thing easy for himself, no Muslim girls.
the parking lot while we have a chat with our new friend Mungo, a British guy who’s been living in Istanbul for ten years. Marius had met a lovely lass whilst out ice skating the night before and he wanted to know what the deal is when meeting girls in Turkey. Mungo (yes, that’s his actual name) tells us that meeting girls when you’re not Muslim is very hush-hush. If the women in her family find out about you it’s okay, but if her brothers and fa-
Locals #4 and #5
“Make sure you stock up on breakfast, there’s no time for lunch today!” Walking towards the gondola in deep fluffiness, we’re pleased to see the mountain’s face lift. Finally we’ll let ‘er rip and shred this place to its full potential. With 90% of the people being beginners, that means a lot of snow stays untouched offpiste and we hungrily feast on the fresh pow. At the end of the day Short and I make it onto the last chair to the very top, wanting
Kick out the jams, rock ‘n roller method courtesy of Chris Rasman
to catch some sunset light. With still so much untracked terrain to ride, we pick the big snow field to rider’s left leading into a natural halfpipe that would make any soul shredder drool all over his beard. Feeling lucky about our find and with the lifts closed, it’s time to end a great day. Lonely Planet says this part of Turkey is the windiest in the country and they aren’t lying. After sundown gale-force winds start sweeping the mountains and shake our windows relentlessly throughout the night. Aboard the tin can the next morning, changes on the mountain are drastic. Last evening’s pow field has been replaced by a rock field and whatever snow is left looks like a moonscape. We still find a few good things to do like the “Damn Gap”, which is a gap over two fences protecting a small dam next to a piste. Marius manages to chip a tooth on a nasty slam but successful stunts are pulled by all between gusts of wind. On our final day, it’s still howling… The end of our stay in Palandöken comes at the right time. Back in Istanbul, the pace of life is full throttle. Once again the smell of kebabs and roasted walnuts fill our nostrils. Everyone wants to go to the Grand Bazaar and bargain for gifts to bring back home. Vendors invite us into their shops and restaurants and are genuinely honored when we choose their establishments. At sundown, prayers coming from the different mosques echo through the city, reminding us of the Muslim world that we have been immersed into for the last ten days. By this time tomorrow we’ll be aboard the big bird with only memories from a glimpse of time spent in a beautiful and ancient culture. That’s the beauty of traveling: being in the moment somewhere far from home until it’s time to think of where to go next...
I
n the French Alps, lost amongst the steep and woody mountains surrounding Grenoble, lies an uncommon resort: Saint-Honoré 1500. A lonely road climbs through the hills up to a dead-end. Dead, like the resort itself. The panorama is desolate, with massive concrete buildings that still look under construction dotting the horizon. As you come closer, you realize these buildings will never be finished. The walls are
Our abandoned future?
full of old graffiti, the freezing wind and old plastic-coated wiring the only inhabitants. A steel cable between ridges is all that’s left of the ancient ski lift. Saint-Honoré 1500 is a ghost resort. A freerider we met told us we might find some stuff to jib out here. The road wasn’t plowed. Alone amongst the buildings, the only thing we hear is the sound of our boots on the crusty concrete. Victor de le Rue and Ben Thomas-Javid slingshot
each other out of windows and doors. At least here no one’s going to call the cops to kick us out. It’s raining a little bit now. Victor stomps a poppy switch ollie. A bit of sun peeks through and we decide to shred the only remaining handrail. Ben is getting pretty crazy flex on the BS nose and tailpresses. The warm-up being done, we start to think about the big wallride which has been staring at us since we arrived in this desolate place. There’s no way we are leaving without having at it. Damn, it’s huge! And there are small steel rods sticking out of the wall on the upper part. Fuck it, we shape a mini kicker and Victor sends it. The actual wallride work out well but the compression two floors below is harsh. A dozen tries later they finally pull it, but by now both dudes are pretty tired and physically broken. So we decide to call it a day and stop to take a look at our weird surroundings. How could a resort end up like this? In the 70’s the road up was put in and a couple of pre-fab buildings thrown up. The spot was promising, with plenty of sun and abundant snow. A couple of lifts started running and families came from all around the area. By the 00’s investors decided to expand this mom & pop spot into a major resort. But after two consecutive dry
Victor Daviet switch snap, crackle and stomp
"Put more snow over there‌"
The future bodes as harsh as the compression in this landing, Benoit Thomas-Javid navigating a backside wallride through the rebar
Foreshadowings of a bleak future? Proper press by Benoit
winters, their bet didn’t pay re’s less off. In mid-altitude resorts, the ts to show its star nge cha ate and less snow. Clim per tem ature oscileffects on winters, with more ediately after heavy imm lations, hot temps coming snowfalls.
Surviving the coming dystopia will take a lot of effort and struggle, Victor puts his back into it
leave the resort halfThe investors pull out and vandalized, no one finished. The buildings are re. Total bankruptmo wants to live up there any ced to dismantle for is ort res cy in inevitable: the k loans. One by ban back everything in order to pay s are taken lift the n the one, the apartments and standing out the pay p hel to el ste apart to sell the debt. This is it…
t resort to die, but all Saint-Honoré 1500 is the firs er small, family resorts around one sees many oth alive. Did we just see, for y sta to struggling hard l bring? one day, what the future wil
T
he thing about snowboarding stories is that they’re generally full of a bunch of bullshit. I’m going to spend the next hour digging through my thoughts and pulling up all of the standout Rememories from a trip to the Czech ide prov I’ll ue. Prag : city tal capi public’s anyect exp ’t don but , first ils deta few a this thing shy of bullshit. I don’t think y stor us inuo cont a be thing needs to at ty shit I’m e. sens ect perf es that mak w. this. This is what you need to kno
NON I GAG DEZ L O : NAN TOS PHO AVA FER J : TEXT
Jed, per
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P lip on the
The crew: Jed, Louif, Harrison, Tyler, Keegan, Hayden (TWS filmer), Oli, and me. Date: Some time last February, right after ISPO. Location: Prague, Czech Republic Here’s a look into some of the notable events from the trip.
If you ever make it to the Czech Republic, you’ll inevitably end up downtown, which is super fun. There are bars where you can buy weed, absinthe and people are trying to sell you coke and hookers every twenty feet as you walk around. We went out one night with Lance, Mike and Nima (homies that run Ashbury) who randomly were vacationing there after the ISPO tradeshow in Munich. Nima fell in love with a stripper, Tyler scored a bag of weed from a sketchy hip hop bar, Jed disappeared with his paint pen and Louif helped me, Mike, Lance, Hayden, and Oli tax that Salomon tab a little bit on a few rounds of absinthe at a Prague night club. If I had to guess, I’d say we were propositioned more than fifty times throughout the night to buy drugs or hookers.
Jed & Harrison
Big Lou
Louif is the boss of all bosses, front lip gap out over the stairs into the bank!
Keegan locked and loaded, nosepress nolle out
When we pulled into Prague, the first area we drove through ended up being a zone where we spendt most of our time. I don’t know what it was called, but it was a real shithole. The first spot we went to was a gap out to an old, rusty down rail. About a million tricks went down on this thing in not a lot of time. We weren’t really sure what dealing with cops would be like in the Czech Republic. We found out pretty quick when a few cops pulled up to see what we were up to. They mumbled something in Czech so I said to him, “Sorry, but do you speak English?” He was apparently not happy about this and with a raised voice, said back, “WE ARE IN CZECH REPUBLIC, DO YOU SPEAK CZECH?” No one had a comeback for this so we all just kept quiet. It turns out they were just bummed about the fact that we had put some snow across the street, so we explained we’d clean up and they told us it was mellow. After that it was back to work for a little while until the cops drove by again about an hour later and saw Tyler Verigin (whose board bag hadn’t shown up yet) drinking a bunch of beers at the spot. It turned out that the staircase of the rail led up to a grade school that we didn’t know about. They weren’t happy about this and gave us the boot. However, we walked out of the first day in Prague with a handful of shots and a few good stories/jokes. Not a bad day one.
One day I was driving like an asshole and bouncing the car by popping the clutch and hitting the brakes over and over. I don’t know why, but this van could bounce so good. I think the front wheels were almost lifting off the ground. It also had a really loud horn and the combination of the horn and the hydraulics effect may have called some attention to our car. Anyway, it turns out that there were some cops behind us that followed us for about 10 minutes after that. Conveniently, they pulled us over next to an ATM machine. They had a sketchy little handycam and they showed me footage of the car from their angle. “It would be so sick to have that footage,” I kept thinking, struggling to keep the laughs in. The cop tells me, “Bouncing car illegal in Czech Republic. Ticket is 5,000. You pay now, 2,000!!!” What the fuck? That’s a couple hundred bucks in US dollars. Louif and I agreed that it probably wasn’t worth getting arrested or getting the shit kicked out of me on the curb over it so we paid up and were left broke with nothing but a sketchy little receipt – which I later expensed. I hope no one from work reads this.
You can't fuck with this, Keegan hops over the bar into the back lip
Ready to roll: Keeg an, Tyler & Harrison
talking about. Give Jed a twenty-something stair down rail with a good hill into it and you will see some crazy shit go down. He did around thirty different tricks on it before it got too dark. I’d guess that more than half of them were first try. The other half were second or third try. In fact, I remember everyone doing a bunch of crazy shit at this spot (pretty sure everyone has shots from there in their video parts this season) but Jed blew everyone’s mind that day. Particularly, the local Czech dudes that made it out to hang out for the day: Milan and his homies. Good dudes.
Sicktionary
Won’t go into much detail here, but some idiot put the wrong type of gas in the rental van. To make things worse, it happened in the heart of the Prague ghetto where no one speaks a lick of English. About six hours and $600 later we had the van in working order and were back in action. The fucked up thing is that someone just put about $150 worth of regular gas into the van which they had to empty and then fill back up with another $150 worth of diesel. It was an expensive fuck up. Goddamnit, I made so much fun of a bunch of girls that did this same thing a few years back. Lesson learned.
I still can’t believe how many tricks that fucker landed on it. If you’ve seen his video part in Bon Voyage, you know what I’m
So this trip happened about a week after we had all read the JP and Jeremy Guest Editor issue of Snowboarder Magazine last year. They had their own “Sicktionary” in it and we thought we’d take some of their words for a test drive on this trip. Words that stuck: Swoop, Chunt, Beasty, Sadats. It’s crazy how corny that shit sounds when
er #2
Disast
Harrison, gravy ass nosepress pop out into the bank
To put it bluntly, Big Lou fucking RIPS! Bossy back blunt thru the elbow kink
you read it, but when you start throwing the words around with your friends, it’s pretty funny. We drank mad sadats and swooped daily.
One day after shopping around in Tesco for a shovel or something, Keegan and Hayden (In Color filmer) got into a fight in the parking lot. Not a real fight, but Hayden was talking some shit and sort of egged on a slap-boxing match. It escalated. I’ll be honest, Hayden was fucking him up for a minute, but Keegan–knowing he didn’t want to lose–pulled out a Hail Mary and spit in Hayden’s face and then fish-hooked his eyeball until he submitted. It ended with Hayden’s mouth full of blood. Keegan is a boss like that. One night after dinner (the food is amazing in Prague) we were walking back to the hotel, which was about a block from the restaurant. Our van was parked next to our hotel. As I walked past the van, I thought, “God damn, I can’t believe someone left the window open.” Louif or Hayden always ride shotgun (they are the most reliable navigators… boss), and I remember thinking that there’s no way Louif wouldn’t have rolled up the window before he got out of the car. HAYDEN, that motherfucker. Well, a few steps closer, I realized that no one left the window down. Some asshole broke our window out to steal the shitty GPS unit off our dashboard. After looking at our rental agreement, I realized that our car, which we rented in Germany, wasn’t even allowed to be in Prague. It was one of 3 forbidden countries in all of Europe for our car to be in. Apparently, auto theft is a bit of an issue in Prague. We drove around the rest of the trip with a taped up window and no GPS. It’s a miracle any of us were able to find the way back to Munich at the end of the trip. It was fucking freezing without that window.
Jed, Louif, Tyler & Keegan
DO YOU SPEA K CZECH? Jed switch front 270 front boar d back to regs
PHOTOS & TEXT by LIAM GALLAGHER
W
e all need a happy place. You know, that spot you retreat to when you’re bored out of your brain, you’re bumming about a girl, work or whatever. Happy Gilmore had that happy place laced. There he was, by the lake with those smoke machines and chicks in designer lingerie with pitchers of beer. His grandma was there too, cleaning up at the slots. And then there was that midget cowboy tricycling off into the sunset. That’s a nice scene. My happy place is a lot like that, only it’s at Mt. Baker. And that’s where I’m going now. You see, I am actually in New York, on a rail trip with VG and so far tonight has been a bust. We’ve been shut down twice, it’s late and cold as fuck. Right now we’re holed up in the van, waiting out security. I’m over it, at my wits end, sleep deprived, strung out, without weed and really wishing I was somewhere else... So it goes and so I go.
le ride, it's al rth, the who bi re h, at de Life, Mt. Baker right here at
l
Now... It’s dumping, snowing harder than I’ve ever seen. The snowflakes are the size of dime bags, seriously. I’m high on life, man. I’ve been dreaming about this day, can’t believe I finally made it to Mt. Baker. It’s my first time here and it’s all-time. It snowed 40 cm last night, 30 the night before, 25 the day before that. Everyone’s frothing; even the locals and they’re a jaded bunch. But, they’re saying it’s about as good as it gets. Usually it’s a lot wetter here. Usually it’s almost raining. You see, the storms come ripping off the Pacific, slam into Baker and the snow falls thick. It’s always soggy. I swear sometimes you can smell salt water in the face shots. But this week it’s more
The Legendary Banked Slalom
MBHC, respect!
Local knowledge pays off, Pat McCarthy floaty front 3
blower than soaker. It’s cold, colder than usual. Well below freezing. So, every turn flies easily overhead. Every run is a swirl of white; some time in the air, more white, a couple mouthfuls of snow and sore legs by the time you’re at the bottom. It’s unreal. And I’m surrounded by friends.
Gwyn Howat, thank you!
Friends from college, friends from snowboarding, friends I just met and friends I’ll have for life, this place attracts those types. They’re here everyday. They are carpenters, electricians, fisherman, waiters or living on the dole. Broke, but stoked just about sums it up. They’re always here on all the powder days. They’ve got their priorities straight. Some of them are pro, but some of the best aren’t. Here, there’s little pride taken in having to take photos, shoot video or stop for any reason for some media wanks. The core could care less. They’re getting gnarly just for the sake of it. Damn the documenters. The doing of the thing is all there is and that’s all they’re after. There’ll be a track. That’s enough. Everything’s ephemeral after all… In the van again, it stinks, the windows are fogged and everyone is asleep. I’m close, but that last cup of coffee is keeping me up. I close my eyes, try to nap,
LBS bonfire
Classic trick, classic spot: Derek Dennison back 5 at the Mt Baker Road Gap
Things can ge t hectic quick at Baker, Curtis Ci zsek with the situation wel l in hand
but can’t... but I can daydream. I see her face and that dark brown hair falling out of her hood, down around her shoulders, all stuck together on the ends with snow. She’s wringing it out in the lodge, smiling. She’s always here, everyday I am, it seems. She’s an artist. And she rips. I think I’m in love with her. She certainly haunts me and my memories of Baker. She’s there on a bluebird day headed out to the arm, hiking past me, never looking the least bit out of breath. She’s the first to
Don't you wish th is was you? Aaron Robinson floats a method into the dream cream
the top and already got that pre-roll lit. She drops before I’m ready and always beats me to the bottom. She’ll be waiting at the lift and knows that sometimes sitting in silence for most of the ride up chair 8 is the perfect thing to do. She’s a wild child. Sometimes she takes acid and when she does she’s sure to have glow sticks on hand, handfuls of ‘em. She runs
around in the street, gathering them all up, throwing them at you, laughing like a maniac. It’s something else. She falls down laughing and lays for a while in the middle of the road, staring up at the stars, just barely able to make out the silhouette of Mount Baker framed by hundred foot tall trees. “It’s hard to tell what’s real,” she says. “I think this place is paradise…” Somewhere in traffic, again, exhausted, and now counting the days till I head back West… It’s been a good trip, but it’ time to go, time to get home. I’ll be at Baker tomorrow. It’s gonna be some kinda home coming, it’s the Legendary Banked Slalom and it’s supposed to dump. I can’t wait. It’s the coolest contest out there, which probably has everything to do with why it’s the longest running contest out there. But it’s really an anti-contest. It’s more about the ritual than the winning. Like Muslims have Mecca, Americans have the Superbowl and party people have Burning Man, our tribe has the Legendary Banked Slalom. Go and you’ll know. It’s sacred. And if you’ve committed your life to snowboarding you should see for yourself. Sorry to say, but some things can only learned through personal experience. It’ll be bigger, better, burlier than you imagined. You’ll be surprised. I’ve no doubt. I was and am every time I’m at Baker. It keeps me wondering…
from far and People come ic, e of the mag st ta wide for a a off s te bi egawa Atsushi Has se di ra pa little piece of
Pat McCarthy, stompy chan tail boner!
It’s an incredible place to escape. That’s all. Everyone wants to get away. Get out of our minds, right? That’s why we drink, get high, fight, fuck. The mind wants some wild. Mine always goes looking in the Northwest, near Mt. Baker. Those mountains scream at my subconscious. It’s that kind of place. It seems too big to ever fully grasp. Almost infinite. And there are all kinds of unknowns, so much sketch, adventure on every run. You can kill yourself if you’re not careful. You can kill yourself if you are careful. It’s got it all. Life, death, rebirth, the whole ride, right there. And you can have a go every time you turn it downhill and drop in. That does a mind right.
Bryan Fox feeding his mind some wild
Text by Daniel O'Neil Photos by Chris Brunkhart
Think of winter days, when the mountains appear as no more than a snowy expanse of rocks and trees under a cloudy or blinding sky, and the powder is a meter deep: in dark and light. Stare at the blur of blizzard-y afternoons, and at the crisp, pristine detail on the blue morning after a storm. Drop into sugary bowls or backside glide off kickers into deep oblivion. Soon you will be seeing what Chris Brunkhart saw and shot: the black and white essence of snowboarding. His latest book—How Many Dreams in the Dark?— is an aesthetic study of snowboarding, a portrayal of not just the act of riding but also of the artfulness behind powder turns and method airs, and of the riding life itself. Never mind that Chris snapped these photos, Leica onto film, fifteen years ago while he was one of the industry’s most respected eyes, because fine art is timeless and so are the likes of Craig, Jamie, and Terje.
to expose the beauty and roots of snowboarding should be appreciated by all calling themselves “snowboarders”.
Of equal importance to place is the time captured in this book. Snowboarding in the 1990s lived its coming This is not an exposition of the latest tricks by the latest of age as a sport and as a lifestyle, propros. No, it is a journal of explosive photographic poetry viding the base for radical growth in the that demands frequent reviewing. It is an exploration of the things we love about snowboarding, like friends, 2000s. Now we’re in a new decade: time travels, mountains, and, yes, seas of powder. It is also a for a glance back. Today’s groms know only neon, the old school is graying, and fantasy window to far-off locations like Alaska, shot the industry has gone mainstream. Here is a from helicopter or arête, where legends ride hard style book for snowboarding, medicine on through rugged, resort-free perfection. Ever the sweltering summer days, and a piercing artist, Chris also gives us images to ponder in dose of stoke to inspire riders in their own architecture, landscapes, and good ol’ skateblack and white dreams. boarding. Yes, Brunkhart’s efforts in the Dark?, by Chris (How Many Dreams nted in pages, hardback, pri Brunkhart, 2010. 208 ilable interava nts pri tom cus d USA, $65 USD. Book an ams) amafunction.com/dre nationally at www.g
After a hard day’s snowmobiling and riding, Craig Kelly relaxes in a warm up hut. Revelstoke, BC, Canada, 1998
Atop Mt. Villarrica, an active volcano in central Chile. Craig Kelly,Hiroyuki Yamada and I descended into the backcountry. Villarrica, Chile, 1998
Flying high, as always, Terje Haakonsen grabbing a backside 540 in the Utah backcountry, 1997
Mike Ranquet about to point it down Gunsight, a chute at Mt. Baker, 1997
After shooting one afternoon, on our way back, Tony asked me for a shot of him. Turned out epic. Tony Welch, Mt. Baker, WA, 1996
Remnants of posters and handbills on a wall in Berlin, circa 1997
Legendary surf photographer Doc Ball outside his home in Arcadia, CA, 1998
Craig Kelly unpacking and getting ready to go on a evening hike. We traveled in this van for more than 6 weeks. Termas de Chillan, Chile, 1998
On assignment to one of the first inner city big air contests, I couldn’t help but stare at the faces in the crowd. Unknown rider, London, UK, 1996
Jeff Anderson in the backcountry of his home mountain. Mammoth, CA, 1997
Grimy as fuck, Jonny Aaseth, tailblock Photo: Daniel Tengs
Alex Fischer dive bomber indy nosepoke, Ă–tztal Photo: Carlos Blanchard
Kass still kills it Photo: Andy Wright
Possibly the only dude tube shot we ran all year? Dank Ass bustin' out Photo: Andy Wright
Another angle from the Lake of Fire, Basich toeside burner Photo: Mike Basich
The definition of effortless style, Chris Bradshaw frontside shifty to fakie Photo: Oli Gagnon
Just gotta keep pressing on‌ Seth Huot perseveres Photo: Blotto Photto
Victor and The Rail, Daviet getting kinky Photo: Carlos Blanchard
Cool as a cucumber, Jon Kooley front lip Photo: Bob Plumb
MFM straight bargin' the spot, front one river gap Photo: Andy Wright
When Eero talks, people listen Photo: Daniel Blom
The camera loves Grilo! Photo: Blotto Photto
Grendys doesn't know what this thing is for but that didn't stop him tailpressing the shit out of it Photo: Bob Plumb
Manuel Bernert on the backcountry Stairmaster‌ BS 5 in Stuben Photos: Carlos Blanchard
STHLM is the place to be! JP Walker quad kink ham Photo: Anders Neuman
Oh, that sweet, sweet cherry pow‌ Dani Sastre throws up a rooster in Stubai Photo: Carlos Blanchard
Under a blood red sky‌ OG STHLM boss Kareem El Rafie locks into the back lip Photo: Daniel Blom
Chuckin' and tuckin', Gus Engle is a freak Photo: Alex Mertz
Gus Mah has good taste in music Photo: Bob Plumb
Cold smoke comet tail, Steve Gruber is the Killer from the Ziller Photo: Carlos Blanchard
Mike The White has a method to his madness, monsieur Leblanc street stomp Photo: Bob Plumb
Buck as fuck! Cale Zima going for broke Photo: E-Stone
You can't always believe what you see with your own eyes‌ L'Arrogs and JJ Roux double exposure in Davos Photo: Daniel Blom
Go big or go home! Thomas Feurstein is not a pussy Photo: Christoph SchĹ?ch
This should tide you over till September‌ Jake Blauvelt dreamy front 7 Japan into the sunset Photos: Scott Sullivan