Colorado Video!

As promised here's the video from our Colorado/Copper Camp!

Copper Camp Part 2

Hey there,

The second half of the camp went by in a flash. My days riding the pipe were limited with the start of the Grand Prix training so I made the most of every day I went up. On my last day training, I had a really good session hiking the pipe getting some tricks back. I love sessions like that, it's all about me pushing my limits and progressing. I get in the zone and visualize my trick as I'm hiking up. I've been working on my body awareness. On this day, I started off with a trick that has been a struggle for me in the past: the back 5. After I was landing them consistently I decided to move onto the switch frontside (AKA cab) 5. I was getting them around pretty well and this was a good start for the season.

The pipe got super busy as the trip went on. This crowd is all waiting to drop in.

 In addition to pipe riding, I also practiced jumps one day at Breckenridge and jibbing one day at Keystone. I met up with my buddy Robby at Breck and we jumped for about 4 hours straight. It was sick to get some tricks back on the jumps, I was pretty rusty! The next day I felt like I had been running a marathon and then been hit by a bus at the finish line. If anyone thinks snowboarding is an easy sport, they are seriously misguided. Once I had recovered, Kyle and I bused over to Keystone (1.5 hours) to check out their park. For that early in the season, heck even for mid winter, their park is amazing! They had 4 different jump lines, from beginner to 'oh my god!' big as well as tons of fun rails and boxes to jib. Solid day.

Kyle and I at Keystone

And Again

 I also took advantage of the Grand Prix competition to see what the big guns in snowboarding are throwing down in the halfpipe. Unfortunately, no Canadian men made it to the top 16 finals but Sarah Conrad squeaked in on the female side and ended up in 8th place. The finals were unreal! Everyone in it was amazing, the guy that qualified in 16th dropped in and did a perfect 1260 about 10 feet out - and it only got better from there. Yah I know, ridiculous right! Double corks were the hot trick that the top guys were doing. Louie Vito took the title with back to back double corks and solid riding. It was super good for us to watch the contest to see where we need to be in order to compete at this level.

Some of the world's best snowboarders getting ready to drop at the Grand Prix

I'm still waiting on some footage from Joe to complete my video edit from the trip - stay tuned for that.

I had to put this in... Joe about to chow down on his birthday desert! Look at those hearts.

 Overall that was one awesome trip. We were able to rip the halfpipe before anyone riding in Canada or most world for that matter. It was a great way to kickstart our season and set the tone for the year. I learned a lot and I'm stoked for what the season has in store. Now I'm glad to be back in Canada and Whistler for a bit before I head home for a quick trip over the holidays to Yellowknife.

Sunset from the plane window

Peace,

A M

Copper Camp Part 1

 Greetings!

After talking to some of our friends who were in Colorado last year, Kyle and I made the call change and extend our planned dates. I was originally going to come down after the Grand Prix for about 10 days to ride the amazing halfpipe but we found out that there is another contest after the Grand Prix with only 2 spots for Canadians. Instead we decided to come down on November 24th, hoping that they would have a halfpipe up at that time of year. They usually have the first one in North America but early season is always a bit of a gamble with snow conditions. Its really cool that our club WVSC was cool with the trip, Joe for coming for so long and Rob for allowing the head coach to be out of Whistler for so long. I like to thank Northern Canada Ventures Corporation for their sponsorship which has made this camp possible for me!

Copper Mountain Sign - Kyle's photo

 When we arrived at Copper Mountain, we saw that they were cutting the halfpipe, a great sign that it would be done soon. Little did we know that our timing could not have been better and the pipe was ready for our first day on snow! Its been great to get the feeling of riding halfpipe again. I have some awesome new equipment this year thanks to a very kind contribution from Overlander Sports. My new board (the Burton Vapor) feels amazing in the halfpipe. I've been feeling pretty confident riding for this early in the season, despite some aches & pains from the body as it isn't used to riding this much anymore. I've been learning a lot more on this trip about tuning my board. I might do a 'How To: tune your board' video on the blog pretty soon.

Laser precision shaped halfpipe! - KT photo

Fixing the edge

Our place has a sweet waxing station underground

Sunny day, nice halfipe, you know we're pumped!

We arrived in the States just in time for American Thanksgiving. It's always tough to organize international trip when you aren't allowed to bring food along. To make things a little more confusing, we decided to go green and save money by not renting a car for this trip. After our first day on hill, we were supposed to go grocery shopping but we were already starving when we saw this 'Thanksgiving Special' sign. Full turkey dinner for under $20, SOLD! When in Rome right? Turkey dinner is too good to pass up, just listen to KABA!

I'm loving it, Joe wishing he didn't eat so much

Who knew? My boot strap doubles as a mustache!

The following day was Black Friday. Once again, we had to experience this American event so we bused it to the Outlet Stores in Silverthorn. It was definitely not as crazy as I thought it might be but there were some mad deals! How mad? Well I better not say... I may have bought some Christmas presents of some people that may read this.

Loungin in Copper Village!

This year was my first year that could have competed in the Grand Prix - a huge contest circuit in the States that's used to pick to American Olympic Freestyle Team. After talking it over with my coach, we decided that it would actually be better for me to just focus on training right now so that I can make some serious progress this year without needing to worry about competing this early in the season. It was a tough call because I've wanted to compete in a Grand Prix for a while but I'm sure the decision with pay off later this year and next year when I will have a run that will be able to compete at that level. I decided to stay to watch the Grand Prix next week. So I will be here for just over another week. I'm planning on riding Breckenridge or Keystone next week which have amazing snowboard parks!

Joe's been taking a bunch of video and I've also been taking some with my new GoPro. I'll try to get some up here soon! Until then take it easy,

A