We just got this note sent over with a few photos from our friend Ben Woody in Washington state after going on a pretty cool looking split trip. Check it out.
Ben Varner and I went out to a zone called Eightmile Lake….. it’s a spot in the Stuart Range in the Central Cascades, WA. There was a huge approach starting at 10pm on Friday night with mountain bikes 3.5 miles up a closed dirt road to the trailhead to camp for the first night.
Next morning started with hiking on dirt then skinning several more miles to our next campsite. The morning after that we were skinning some more ’till we had to switch over to crampons/ice axes and just creep up the final 1,000 feet or so. The main objective was climbing a 2,400 ft avy chute/couloir and riding the spring time corn snow back down it.
Definitely a big payoff with the weather and the view, and the turns were sweet. Pretty sick trip and definitely kind of a new level for me personally.
Here are another 5 photos we were stoked on from this past week or so. Don’t forget to tag your shred photos with #RomeSDS so we can check them out. Over 400 shots have been tagged so far, pretty sick!
@saryles with a banger French sunset
@rome_europe crew still finding some snow at Arlberg.
@blackmarket
@alpinebunch tipping us off to an Agent on the front page of the Washington Post!
Bjorn has traveled all over the place this season looking for some good snow but has spent a bunch of time in Canada and Jackson, WY. He sent us over some photos of what he’s been up to, and is headed North to Canada again, so stay tuned for some new updates.
Bjorn on his war wagon
Sunset in Jackson, WY
Imagine riding the quad with these guys…
Riding dirty
Thumbs up Canada!
For more photos keep an eye on Bjorn’s Instagram account @Bjornleines and @Romesnowboards.
There is, or at least was, a pretty good amount of snow due to a storm we got after the lifts stopped turning. There was around 2-3 feet up there, maybe more, according to some. One of my good buddies, friend of Rome, and head honcho at the UVM Shred Club Jarrett B. decided to drop in on a new 2013 Whiteroom split at what couldn’t have been a better time. Him and some friends skinned up, set up camp in a super secret spot, and even did some night shredding. Check out some of the photos from the trip Mt. Mansfield.
Hopefully the snow holds up a bit through this week of rain so a few of us from the office can do a trip this weekend.
So where we last left off we were headed over to Tiekel… which looms over the Alaska Rendezvous Lodge. While you stare out the front door at Billy, you kind of always know Tiekel is right behind you.
Monday, the lodge sent a bunch of guides up to do work on the summits of Tiekel. In the meeting it came up that no one had ever descended the East South East face (think I have the direction right).
So Matt, our guide, took that as a challenge, and with our group in tow we made the first descent, say, a ‘test’ run, down what would soon be dubbed ‘Test Tiekel.’
Test Tiekel was three parts: an upper pyramid face with a rollover to a mild pitch, ending with a final descent down to the tree line (the final descent is shown above; seems to be the theme of this day, not a lot of shots of lines).
Eventually we move to the inner valley of Tiekel which was again just long AK lines.
This was taken on our first run in the inner valley looking over at what would be our second run. Both runs were similar, you start out on a steep face then work your way through depressions and rolls to the valley below. In above shot we started on the left ridge; that is the second run in below video…
Instagram has been a pretty fun way of keeping up to date with what’s going on in the world of shred. We’ve been using it for all sorts of stuff like posting up photos from The Shred Remains tour last Fall, the Amageddon trip, and shots that the team have been taking while filming this season.
We also like checking out what our supporters are up to. The best way to show us what you’ve been doing is to tag any photos with #RomeSDS, so we can find it and take a look. Here are five that we were stoked on from this past week or so. If you want us to take a look at your photos, just tag em up, and we’ll check them out!
@ronn_190 spotted some nice sticker placement in NY
@ch_001
@boardbrad has been making us all pretty jealous with tons of pow photos like this one
@romaingimet getting waxy with his Artifact
@igorsemenov88
So check us out on Instagram @Romesnowboards, tag up your photos with #RomeSDS, and keep the shots coming!
So picking up on the flashbacks to AK, my second banger day was last Tuesday.
It was different than Sunday, which was dominated by big steep lines. Tuesday was just run after run of perfect fun pow runs.
We started the day in the Cauli’s. Pictures of the Cauli’s just don’t do them justice until you have something to realize the scale…
For example, find the helicopter in the above pic (Click on the pic twice for larger view). That will give you an idea of the size of the run. (it’s the dot off of the rock band on the valley floor) The funnest runs for me are those with a little rollover; being able to look at a run before you ride it is for the video stars, us plebeians don’t always get that benefit.
The below valley is just one big glacier that goes on for miles…
As I said, pics don’t really do it justice.
This was fun terrain and I was looking forward to riding it, but J-Rad was having a little trouble landing the helicopter with the winds, so we moved back to Cry Babies.
Cry Babies was a perfect example of the day, surrounded by bigger movie level stuff is this ridge line with short cornices and then a big apron. Not as challenging, but if you had to do this for the rest of your life you’d be a happy camper…
I described that video to friends as an homage to riding pow; we did a couple runs there that were just plain GREAT/FUN snowboarding, nothing less.
After that we ended up heading over to Tiekel to join up with the other crews out in the field.
Great 10 days in AK… There’s probably still snow to be had and with a little refresh here or there: Super Fun Times…
I hit the ground a week ago Saturday and the weather really popped on Easter Sunday. We went out to check out Clueland for our first of three awesome days in the bird…
We did the left side of the middle, right down the middle, and then looker’s right. {Clueland was the POV video I posted in last week’s blog. The video was our first and third run. }
Later we hit up Get a Clue and Victoria’s Secret…
Get a Clue is the big obvious line on the left; Victoria’s Secret is off the highest point on the right down to the ridge and then off the looker’s left side of the ridge.
After that, we hit ‘Yellow Hat’ (I have to concede, I’m doing my best to get names correct. I’ll let ARG correct me.. )
This was a super fun zone as you can see… tons of rolls and ledges to surf or drop… There were tons of fun runs to be had here, we only got one as we were heading back towards civilization.
And no other way to have a happy ending to the day then to ride one of the ARG banner lines called Happiness. Happiness is 5000′ vertical feet of this somewhat consistent pitch. If something could be defined as the perfect run, I would argue this is it.
{This pic has been well recycled, but you have to agree it’s a good one}
It’s safe to say after a day like that you’re pretty amp’d on snowboarding… you just need to watch what Johan was doing 17 years ago in some of the same zones and then feel put back into your place…
