Lately: Transitions

I am proud to say that I filmed this weekend. My buddy Pat hooked it up and Saturday morning I found myself in a parking lot with sleds unloading left and right. Avy danger was high but I still had a good feeling on the way up. We had a mish-mash crew of skiers and snowboarder which set a cool social tone for the day. Until about 3 PM we just lapped some trees and repeatedly got stuck.

Towards the end of the day Jeremy Acland and I tried to film some hits. Retrospectively I should have reeled back a bit and gone for some more simple shots. Instead I lined up the biggest hit in the zone and bailed hard twice in heavy deep snow. Live and learn I guess. Jeremy laced a 360 and some cool 180's despite the chest deep fudge. Few times have I felt as exhausted as I did at the end of that day. We ended up at Mile One restaurant in Pemberton and I had the best BLT of my life.

The start to Sunday was crazy! We showed up at a zone at 8:30 AM only to learn that their parking lot had been full for over an hour. It was a major holiday in BC and we briefly considered not sledding at all. We rendezvoused at a zone called Brandywine. Brandywine is the most popular sled zone in Whistler and we headed in expecting a totally thrashed slope. As we turned the corner to the main zone we saw that the main wall hadn't been touched at all. It was like someone had picked out all the peanuts and raisins from the trail mix and left the M & M's. I got my first shot of the season first run then tried some other hits but ultimately lost focus and played around the rest of the day.

 Just the M & M's left

The plan for now is to rehab my ankle this week until the conditions improve and I get my truck back from the shop (turns out not having a rear bumper is illegal), then it's non-stop go time (knock of wood) until the end of April.