59 seconds of Johnny Jump-up Bliss.

So a pretty eventful weekend went down. It snowed all last week down here in Bozeman so it seems the snowpack is now almost back to normal down here again. Thursday night I went up to the Flathead Valley to meet up with the fam, who was already on spring break. We went up to Big Mountain for the 6th Annual Nate Chute Hawaiian Classic on Saturday. It had been dumping all the previous day and continued snowing on Saturday so it was pretty amazing up there. There was still a thin snowpack because they haven't seen snow for about 2 months. The Banked Slalom ran Saturday with an exhausting course that averaged about 2 minutes long. The gully wasn't completely filled in so the course ran all the way through the Boardercross course over one jump in the snowboard park to super sketchy man made bank, which if you messed up on you basically had to hop all the way to the gully, then down through the first half of the gully with the finish line in the bottom. You were pretty much burning by the time you entered the gully. I managed to stand up through both runs but still placed about 11th place in Pro men out of a field of about 25.

The second day of the NCHC saw another 6 inches dump and we managed to get a lot of runs in before the boardercross started. We bombed down North bowl face and into the North bowl run with first tracks the who way. It was pretty amazing. The boardercross ended early and we all just rallied the backside for the rest of the day.

Back in Bozeman it started dumping again here and there is now more snow on the ground than there has been all year.





Julia helping me mount up some binders on my snowboard
Julia catching snow on her toungue while out for a walk with Grandma Sally
Aaron Robinson pulling ahead in the semifinals of the Boardercross
The car covered in snow this morning

la carolina

The Skatepark at Parque Carolina in Quito, Ecuador. Just down the street from my old house. Cover of Thrasher, circa 1998. This handplant is 10x crazier than it looks due the crazy transition (or lack of) and all the crap (literally) that usually lies in the bottom of this bowl.

It's dumping.

SPECIAL WEATHER STATEMENT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE GREAT FALLS MT
224 PM MST WED MAR 9 2005

MTZ008>015-044>055-101200-
BEAVERHEAD-BLAINE-BROADWATER-CASCADE-CENTRAL AND SOUTHERN LEWIS AND CLARK-CHOUTEAU-EASTERN GLACIER-EASTERN PONDERA-EASTERN TETON-FERGUS-GALLATIN-HILL-JEFFERSON-JUDITH BASIN-LIBERTY-MADISON-MEAGHER-NORTHERN ROCKY MOUNTAIN FRONT-SOUTHERN ROCKY MOUNTAIN FRONT-TOOLE-
224 PM MST WED MAR 9 2005

THE UNSEASONABLY WARM AND DRY PATTERN TO COME TO AN END!!!

A CANADIAN COLD FRONT WILL MOVE SOUTH OVER THE AREA FRIDAY NIGHT ANDUSHER IN AN EXTENDED PERIOD OF NEAR OR BELOW NORMAL TEMPERATURESALONG WITH OCCASIONAL PERIODS OF SNOW LATER THIS WEEKEND INTO NEXT WEEK. LOW TEMPERATURES COULD FALL INTO THE SINGLE DIGITS BY EARLY NEXT WEEK.

RAIN WILL DEVELOP BEHIND THE COLD FRONT OVER THE PLAINS AND VALLEYS WITH SNOW LIKELY IN THE MOUNTAINS ABOVE ABOUT 6000 FEET. RAIN COULD TURN TO SNOW FOR THE LOWER ELEVATIONS BY SATURDAY MORNING. THE COMBINATION OF GUSTY NORTH TO NORTHWEST WINDS AND COLD RAIN BEHIND THE COLD FRONT COULD PUT STRESS ON YOUNG LIVESTOCK. AT THIS TIME...THESE CONDITIONS SHOULD LAST NO MORE THAN A FEW HOURS. AS TEMPERATURES FALL BEHIND THE COLD FRONT...WET PAVMENT FROM THE RAIN COULD BECOME ICY.

PERIODS OF SNOW ARE LIKELY...ESPECIALLY FOR THE MOUNTAINS... LATER IN THE WEEKEND INTO NEXT WEEK. AT THIS TIME NO PERIODS OF HEAVY SNOW ARE FORESEEN.

STAY TUNED TO NOAA WEATHER RADIO AND OTHER LOCAL MEDIA FOR FURTHER DETAILS OR UPDATES.

I went and rode in the Wild West Shred 'O' Fest this weekend at Bridger Bowl. Good time. It was about 50 degrees and slushy spring like conditions. The Race only consisted of a Banked Slalom, again, with very limited banking. No pictures to show from it because I am too lazy to take my camera out, but Guy Zoellner took home the best time of the day. I also saw this beast of a truck parked in the parking lot.