Gabe Taylor in Canada

 

Day #1

 

First of all it’s no small feet to drive from Mammoth to Canada, 24 hours depending on how long you get stuck at the border. Luckily I rolled through unscathed but Greg Wheelz, our filmer got hassled for awhile. This was at midnight after driving for 20 hours so we were fried at this point. Upon arrival at our hotel we were informed that our room was given to someone else and that we’d be spending the night in a “somewhat less desirable room”. This was the understatement of the century as our “somewhat undesirable room” was “somewhat” better than spending the night in a Tijuana prison cell. The walls were so thin I could hear our neighbors’ pores sweating, the cigarette smoking was on a direct path to my face. They passed out around 4am, which started our restless sleep, it then ended abruptly at 5:45 when the alarm went off. I’ve had some shitty nights but this was one for the record books. Things looked bleak as we were unloading our sleds in the fog with about five other crews. The snowmobile ride commenced and after 40 minutes we were above the clouds sledding around some of the sickest terrain in the world. Benji Ritchie is filming for Grenade and has been our tour guide. The man is an animal, he’s the Chuck Norris of snowboarding. When Benji is getting ready to stomp you can hear the snow screaming for help. When Benji lands the earth shakes. Anyways, he’s been super fun to shred with and will have a sick segment, so keep your eyes peeled. We hit a ton of stuff the first day, most of it pretty good. This came to an abrupt end when I thought it’d be a good idea to cab five a weird spine face and landed at the bottom, 2 ft. from DEAD flat. My neck was sore and back tweaked, kind of rang my bell a bit too, horrid slam. I got my shit back together, slightly, and we hit a jump at sunset. Probably one of the cooler jumps I’ve seen, but I was all over the place. Broke my binding and was messed up from the slam which occurred earlier. Probably some amazing photos though. All in all day one was pretty sweet. We moved hotel rooms and are now living in comfort. I ended up getting horribly sick that night and stayed in bed shivering, sweating, puking and aching the next day. Rumor has it that Benji did some sick lines but I wouldn’t know as I was contemplating how close to death I was. Not to bore anyone more of these tales I’ll resume my story with Day Three tomorrow.

 

Day #2

 

Two words: Advil and Red Bull. Actually that’s like three words, four counting and, but without those two things I’d be done, unable to move. With these products I was able to make a productive day out of a possible no show. We went through the hour snowmobiling + 1hour drive and were able to do some boarding. A pretty sweet face awaited us today and Benji and I rode some fun lines. Shredding lines is one of the coolest aspects of snowboarding. When your down in the flats scoping everything you can see yourself hitting this, hitting that, jumping off this, jumping off that. Then you get to the top. I’ve never done a line where I could see a thing. All you see is your crew 1,000 ft. below you on the valley floor. The digi camera comes in handy but life or death turns and airs come up quick on those faces. Just trusting everything you saw from below becomes really important. Once you yell “dropping” shit goes pretty fast and instinct kind of takes over. The snow has been getting fairly hot powish, which can make landings a real bitch. Fortunately Benji the guide, has been showing us the goods. By the way, I need to address yesterday’s post. In regards to Benji being the Chuck Norris of snowboarding, he corrected me and said he is referred to as the Bruce Willis of snowboarding. Apparently he was given this name by a stripper in Montreal. At first I gave him some shit thinking of some of Bruce’s chick flicks and romantic comedies. Then I remembered Die Hard and how much ass he kicked, I guess it fits. Benji hit a cliff and landed on a tree. The tree got crushed like an aluminum can. At the end of our day we rolled up on a snowcat building a jump. We were confused a bit until we saw the slednecks stalking the kicker awaiting to send themselves into the stratosphere. They did. It was nuts, they were going so huge. I kind of got a photo, a little hard with my little point and shoot. The boss, DK, is on his way so we’re looking forward to shredding with him the next few days. Good luck with the border Danny.

 

Click HERE to see all the pics and stay in tuned with Gabe's Blog

Sunday, February 24th 2008 @ 08:54 AM.
© Snowboard-Revolution.com

Vote this story:

Click to Back