Grouphome - 4:21 Edit

Check out Shayne Metos' latest edit from the boys at Brighton Resort

Superior and the Scythe

A few weeks ago, my friends and I made an early mission to ski Mt. Superior. It's kind of a pain to wake up at 3:30 in the morning, but there's nothing else like being on an 11,000 foot ridge line at sunrise. After a skiing 2800 feet of glorious powder, we got some good runs in at Alta, then rallied to Wolverine cirque to ski the Scythe Chute. When it's spring and the sun is out all day, it seems like you can just ski till you drop.

 

 

Go Pros actually take some decent photos!

Tony Pavlantos photo

Greeting the sun

Check the video!

Romping Through the Beartooths

Until recently, I thought the main attractions of Montana were guns, alcohol, and bears. Well it turns out you can ski there too! Last month I went on a short mission into the Beartooth mountains with Jay Beyer, Carston Oliver, and Ben Nobel to snow camp and ski some big lines. We had a secondary objective of riding bears while drinking alcohol and shooting guns.

From Cooke City, we snowmobiled our selves and gear into a nearby drainage and set up camp. From our tents, we stared up at massive, steep, 3000 faces with Alaska-like spines and brooding cornices. I still consider myself a novice at "big mountain" skiing, so going on this trip with some experienced friends was a huge learning opportunity for me. It takes a lot of know-how to even find where you want to drop amidst a ridge full of cornices. It takes a whole other set of skills to navigate your line down while avoiding the rivers of sluff rushing by you. Most of the time, you can't even see your line from up top; the slope just rolls out of vision.

Our friend Ben was washed away by his sluff on a big line and barely regained control before going over some mean cliffs. It gave us all a bit of a scare and reminded us how humbling mountains can be.

Here's a shot of my first line of the trip: a small ridge/spine with a clean cliff at the bottom. On my first turn, I triggered a decent-sized shallow wind slab.

I was able to keep it together and send the biggest back flip I've ever done. I ended up landing around Jay's water mark.

Each day we were out, we got shut down by clouds and weren't able to ski everything we wanted. Now that we know what's out there, it's only a matter of time before we go get redemption. Big thanks to Ben Nobel for acting as our guide and to Jay Beyer for the photos.

Mount Baker!

After living the good life in Canada for 3 weeks on the Surface Demo Tour, I decided to hop on a greyhound and head to Mount Baker, Washington, to meet up with Paul Kimbrough, Carston Oliver, and Jay Beyer. I've wanted to experience the Pacific Northwest for a long time, and was grateful to finally get the chance. I was also extremely fortunate to be there with such an awesome crew and good conditions.

Paul is a Baker local and Carston has been making trips there for years, so with them as our guides Jay and I got to see some awesome things. Our first day there we were greeted with a rare blue sky and got to work on some shooting. I've been shooting a lot with Jay Beyer this season, and was stoked to go work with him in new terrain. Check out some of the pics we got.

When the conditions are good in Baker, the skiing is amazing.When the conditions are bad, it's almost unskiable. Being in such close proximity to the ocean, the snow can turn from fluffy powder into rainy mash potatoes pretty fast. Heavy PNW snow is difficult to ski when you grow up skiing light density Utah powder. I got to experience both extremes and was grateful for the good days.

Big thanks to Paul for all the hospitality and to Jay Beyer for the photos! Check out his website www.jaybeyer.com

Canada Part 2: Poutine and Norquay

After playing in Revlstoke, we migrated to Banff to run a demo at a little resort called Norquay. The mountain was really small but the view was really big. The Canadian Rockies kind of seem like a beefed-up version of the Tetons.

 

A major highlight of my trip to Canada was the discovery of poutine. Poutine is a Canadian delicacy consisting of french fries, cheese curds, and gravy. Here's a couple variations of poutine in all its glory:

 Bottom shelf poutine

Fancy bar poutine with havarti cheese

 

Homemade poutine, we had to

Check this little edit from the Norquay terrain park. I don't really ski a lot of park these days, but sometimes you have to say to yourself, "when in Rome".



 Photos and video by Shayne Metos

Surface Canada Tour Part 1: Revelstoke and Rogers Pass

This February I was lucky enough to tag along with Surface Ski's Canadian Demo Tour. The day after the Salt Lake Shootout ended, I hopped in the car with Eliel Hindert and drove all night to the town of Revelstoke. We met up with our buddy Shayne and proceeded to ski awesome powder and eat copious amounts of food.

                                     A view in Rogers Pass. Canadian Mountains are huge!                                                

                                           Eliel Hindert skinning under mountains of glory


                                                                                                          Canadian Meats


                                                                                                                         Dinner


                                            We were housed by many good people along our journey

Here's some video of the fun we had:


Photos and video by Shayne Metos