So it’s been a while since I’ve been on the snow and online. Tomorrow will be August first and it feels like the summer is just flying by! I was supposed to arrive in New Zealand a few days ago for the World Heli Challenge. Unfortunately that didn’t happen but I suppose spending time in Tahoe during the summer isn’t all that bad.

Since I got back from Europe I’ve been running around California. Immediately on my return I was invited to go to The North Face actions sports summit in San Leandro, CA. It was my first of hopefully many team summits for The North Face. It was really cool to get involved and see just how important athlete feedback was to them. That and the team trip to a shooting range was pretty sweet as well. Seeing Ingrid Backstrom and the rest of the ladies firing away was quite a site!

I returned to Tahoe to enjoy the second summer I’ve ever spent up by the lake during the 6 years I’ve been living in Tahoe. Tahoe received and amazing amount of snow towards the end of the season. Unseasonably low temps kept the snow around much longer than usual. My good friend Iris Lazz and I decided to take advantage of all this snow and hike Mt. Tallac over on the west shore of Lake Tahoe. It’s one of those peaks that you just have to do if you venture out into the Tahoe backcountry. We decided to turn the trip into an overnighter. We drove out to the trail head and packed all of our gear and threw it on our backs.

Iris with a full load...

With all our camping gear and riding gear on our backs we hiked 1.5 miles in to our camp spot. That was probably the heaviest load I’ve ever carried. I really could of used a light touring setup on that trip.

morning at the camp site

There was no snow at the site and we were not sure how much longer we would have to hike til we could start skinning and snow shoeing. We decided to drop most of our gear and grab it on our way down. It was probably about two miles til we hit enough snow to skin on. We were so excited to finally hit snow. Our day packs were maxed out with weight.

This was not the last time I saw this look on her face!

So as we soon discovered this was really only a giant patch of snow amongst many other giant patches of snow. We soon hit dirt, and then snow and then some more dirt. After a brief moment of relief with my skins on and boots off my back I soon discovered that would be short lived. It was much easier to just leave the gear on my back and hike in my shoes. Had I known that I probably would of brought much lighter skis and left my skins at home. Oh well…

I really wish I had snowboard boots at this moment.

After about six hours we had finally reached the top of the peak! We had decided it would be best to ski down the front side and make a loop out of our trip. That meant dropping our skis and board off at the car and hiking back in to retrieve the tent. It sounded like a great idea at the time.

View of Lake Tahoe from the top of Mt. Tallac

We met some critters on the way down…

Finally it was time to go skiing! This was by far the best moment of the day. It seemed as if all our hard work was worth it.

The ride down...

Iris and I both thought we were on our way home til we ended up here.

Oh FUN!!!

So this part just sucked! From here on out it was a miracle we both made it out alive. I think our patience was beginning to run thin and our bodies were starting to hate us. We made it out of the boulder field probably a half hour later only to find ourselves bush whacking through manzanita and sliding down through lose rocks. I think it took another three hours after I took off my skis to make it back to my car. That would of been great if we didn’t have to hike an additional 3 miles in order to grab the rest of our gear at the camp site. It was definitely one of those adventures you are happy you accomplished even though you spent a large portion of the time wondering why!

So I should be on a plane to Norway at the moment but that is not the case. Instead I’m still in Germany awaiting my new flight back home to the east coast next week. It’s been a bit since I’ve really gone skiing. I think although the rest is finally boring me to death it was good. My body, including my shoulder seems to be all healed up. Ok, maybe not 100% but it’s getting there.

I was supposed to be on my way to Rodal, Norway for the first Freeride World Qualifier of the 2010-11 season. I hope those guys have a great time up there! I’ll make it to Norway another time.

My friend Sebastian Hanneman, whom Janina and I have been staying with in Germany had to head into Munich the other day. We decided to tag along for the ride and check out the city. That place is pretty sweet! There’s all sorts of amazing architecture, like most European cities and a year round outdoor market.

Exiting the train station to the city center of Munich

The first thing Janina and I did was check out the market of course. Great food was to be had everywhere!

I don’t remember what this fruit is called but it was amazing. I guess Janina used to eat it all the time growing up in Indonesia. I believe it’s from Thailand. It looked bizarre but tasted great! Munich was the last place I thought I would run into an exotic fruit like this.

Mmm Thailand has yummy fruits!

Later on we met up with the boys and headed to The Hofbrier House. I’ve heard Janina speak about this place for months now. Even though the boys are German they had never been and we found that Janina the Kiwi was our tour guide through Munich.

Look at the excitement on her face!

I swear beer drinking it’s Germany’s national sport. Everywhere we go there are beer gardens and massive drinking halls with massive beers!

Weight lifting in Germany...

This morning Seb and I dropped Janina off at the train station. She’s headed back to New Zealand! If all goes as planned I’ll be meeting up with her again in a few month’s. Safe travels Janina!

I went out skiing for the first day in a while yesterday. It had just snowed the night before and conditions were pretty good for spring. It was my first day on my new Dal Bello’s so I wasn’t really getting after it. However I was pretty happy with them for my first day! No pain, maybe just a few adjustments to make. I love my Dal Bello’s !

That area is so pretty this time of the year. It reminds me of New Zealand with the snow capped mountains and green grass down low.

After the Verbier Finals I headed to Diedamskopf with Janina Kuzma and Sebastian Hanneman to do some ski testing for Skiing mag for the German speaking area. The resort was pretty sweet, just a little warm for any backcountry skiing to be had at the time. That meant it was time for the park! Ha, my park skills are a little rusty but I worked on them. Yeah I broke out my first 720 of the season, ha!

My shoulder was still a bit sore the first day so I took some time off to rest. Janina came and joined me for a bit.

After Diedamskopf we all headed to Zillertal Austria to rest up for a few days. Janina and I then quickly headed to Asolo Italy to check out the Dal Bello factory. It was pretty interesting to see the whole process of how the boots are made. What I love about Dal Bellos is the fact that the boots are so interchangeable!

They took some photos of us as well. The green Krypton boots are the new ones we received!

Dal Bello was kind enough to set us up at the Hotel Asolo! The next morning we awoke and decided to check out Venice for a bit. That place was pretty cool. Definitely filled with tourists, but still a great spot to check out. All the architecture was so amazing and how the whole city was designed along the water with canals and water ways throughout the city. It was so cool to see a piece of history right before our eyes!

I arrived in Verbier on the 17th of March. St. Patty’s day and also the day before my birthday. Way too jet lagged to think about celebrating either of those events I headed straight for my hotel room. All of the competitors of the tour received accommodations at the Hotel Garbo. It was located right in downtown Verbier and across the street from most of the off mountain happenings for the contest. Here’s a view from our room!

The next day we headed up the mountain to check out the venue. It took me a while to decide on a line to take. In the end I ended up taking the first line I saw. It was a great line choice. I had a great run going but hit my cliff a little too much to the left and landed on a rock I had intended on avoiding. Somehow I skied away and almost recovered, but about 30 ft down I ran into some bad snow before I had fully recovered which resulted in a fall. Oh well, better luck next time I guess! Here’s a look at the venue:

The night before the contest there was an opening celebration. All the athletes where called up on stage for the bib draw and prior there was an autograph signing.

seems to work for me

I’ve been trying to rest up for Verbier. My shoulder is doing a lot better and I’m feeling more confident about my upcoming contest. It’s been nice to have some free time to rest but I’ve been missing the slopes. The other day my friends headed out to ASI to do some filming and I decided to hike up and join them. I took some pictures along the way. It’s nice to take it slow from time to time.

This morning Willie Schneider and I skinned up to ASI to check out some areas. We woke up at 5am with an attempt to make it up to the summit before sunrise. It took us a little longer than expected, by 7:30 we started heading on our way up. We noticed that the snow was pretty wind buffed and not quite as soft as Willie was hoping.

We discovered on the way down that there were some good pockets of snow. It was a pretty nice early morning trip. After we headed over to Sugarbowl for the Silverbelt Bonzai skier cross.

It’s been way too long since I ‘ve been on here last. It’s been a crazy winter. Some of you may have been following me on www.unofficialsquaw.com . I’ve had some technical issues that have kept me from making updates here, but I’m back.

Well it’s March 9th and I’m hanging out in the Unofficial house resting up for one of my final comps of the season. I started off in Chamonix with Tim Dutton, JT Holmes and some of the official unofficial guys. It was a good time but my comp did not go as well as I had hoped. I guess my head wasn’t really in it when I was over in Europe. I was skiing ok, but not good enough. So the results were the same, ok but not good enough.

After a fun but somewhat disappointing trip in Europe I was back to Squaw for the third stop of the tour. Well kind of, I was first on the wait list hoping to get in. They made me sweat for it. After a few no’s they finally decided to give me a chance! Well it was pretty much all or nothing from that point on. I knew I really had to prove myself if I was ever going to be able to compete on this tour again.

It was the morning of the comp and it had been once again moved to Silverado instead of the Tram Face due to poor avalanche conditions. I wasn’t in much of a rush to get up to the course. I had a pretty good idea of where I wanted to go I just wanted to see some of the guys runs first. Most of them where going into the area I wanted to. I was concerned about landing in their bomb holes so I decided to go over them, well, atleast try. My plan was to go from the top. I spoke to Jimbo my Electric TM and he said as long as I went straight from some of the pepper at the top I should be fine. Well after landing an ok size cliff I headed straight for that pepper and like Jimbo said let it run from there!

I landed and bounced again another 20 feet or so. When I landed on my feet again I was a bit surprised to still be on my feet. I guess I was just so determined to prove myself and land it that I did. It was in the same area that a lot of men had bounced and not been as successful as me. After run 1 I was in the lead for both the women and men!

Go here to check out my run!