Blog by: Ross R "Wet, hot Washington"

Wet, hot Washington

Posted on April 10, 2009

by: Ross R

So, just over a week ago I went up to Baker to meet up with Jeff Thomas and a few Canadians for some early April pow shooting - Wah hoo! The snow fell wet and heavy (Washington style), giving Matt Margetts and Anthony B a run for their money as it proved to be very difficult to land in. After several long days of road-laps, Jeff and I had a fairly decent crash reel while Anthony got an even better gift - hurt ribs! Total bummer.

So as Tony drove north back to Vancouver to see a Doctor, Riley Leboe drove south to take his place. Upon his arrival, it stopped snowing and the sun popped out to say 'Hello'! We said 'Hi' back by building a big 'ol booter where numerous tricks were tried, several ending in a STOMP. The next day, we had high hopes of a road-gap revival, but the sun was so eager to see us that it gave us nothing but a slushfest and no speed at all. Oh, and we didn't have any salt.

But it was alright, because Mr. Durtschi had decided to join us that day with fellow photog friend, Ben Zucker. After spreading all kinds of greasy pretzel butter on the soft loaves of snow, Tim, Ben and I made the long drive south to my home mountain of White Pass.

We spent the next couple of days utilizing the abandoned old jumping hill across the street and exploring Hogsback. Each day was filled with numerous wet slabs, extended photoshoots, strobes in my shot, and “fully”. While the rock wallride we spied from the lift turned out to be a total bust, we succeeding in finding a lovely natural log ride. After a long session composed of scissor flips, stalls, ‘Hi Mom!’s’, and ‘one-frame-too-late’ shifties, we finally got the shot Zucker wanted. Fun was had by all.

We also built a jump 3 times bigger than any I had ever seen on the old jumping hill before - it was awesome! Double flips? Yes. Some local snowboarders decided to get hyphy on it with some newly learned tricks as well! But then it started to rain, so we called it a day. I had also developed a severe eye infection at this point, which had left me quite cycloptic, so I ended up calling it a trip. As a one-eyed monster (ha!), I drove back to Seattle to see a doctor and to re-backup my hard drives because the Lacie I got a week ago had crashed already. Awesome.

Next week, we go to Hood for a truly epic park shoot – Stoked!

I didn’t have my point and shoot camera with me, but luckily my Go-Pro cam takes pics too! Here are a few: