We’ve gone 6 days without a post on here, so to avoid back to back Wednesdays with Bill, here goes Rock and Roll Tuesday..

We’ve all been lied to by roadside signs before. Maybe the billboard with the “worlds largest gopher”, 3 miles off the exit turned out to be a stuffed beaver, spray painted tan with its tail cut off. Maybe the sign SLOW CHILDREN misled you to believe that they would be slow moving and easy to avoid, when in reality, the children were quite nimble and quickly followed that ball into the street in front of your car.

Anyhow, point being, one sign that’s pretty trustworthy is the sign on route 26 in Sandy Oregon that says “Windells the “Funnest” Place on Earth”.

If you don’t know, Windell’s is a summer camp where you can, snowboard at Mt. Hood in the summer, demo next years Rome gear before it even hits the shops, shred with your favorite pros, skate until you can’t feel your legs, paintball, BMX dirt jump, foam pit, white water raft and pretty much do anything else that’s awesome to do.

I’ve been out here for the past few days hooking up the Rome house, (known as the Roadhouse), stickering up the Rome van with a new design and putting up some pretty sick banners around camp.

If you’ve already been to Windell’s and think it’s going to be the same thing when show up this year…it’s probably time to think again. BOB the giant indoor skate park has gotten a full face lift, Windell’s has a whole slew of new handrails for the park, and the king of concrete Jamie Weller has transformed the campus into a giant outdoor skate paradise.

I just talked to Reed, one of the main camp guys here, and although there aren’t a ton of spots left, if you call now and get in touch you should still be able to get your week of awesome in this summer.

Not feeling too creative on the writing front so I figured I’d share some pics from the last few months with you…

Had to visit our warehouse in Holland>>

Got some riding in on the way to one of our factories>>

Got some good days in at Stowe>>

So nothing special…just figured that I’d throw something new up here to keep you entertained on a quiet weekend…

PS-Have to admit that I was surprised by Mine the Bird…not quite sure what that name means??

(aka Hammer Whacking)

So when we go to the board factory in Austria, one of our favorite pastimes is a game called Hammerschlagen.   Many places that you go at night will have a stump and a hammer and basically the objective is to pound your nail in first with the hammer…but there’s a catch.

In the North of Austria you play with the wedge end of a machinist hammer, where our factory is in the south the “hammer” is tougher to describe. First, it has a curved handle and instead of a traditional hammer head, the end is a cylinder and you try to whack the nail with the edge of the cylinder.

As Peter demonstrates above, you can also add spin tricks to your repertoire of how you whack the nail. Peter owns the shop “La Resistance” in Zell am See Austria.  It’s a sweet shop that you should check out if you are ever in the area.

So Rome has been known to celebrate the anniversary of 050601.   I decided that we needed to bring the fun of Hammerschlagen to the party.

I tasked Nate (”Number Two”) with finding a stump; which he did on one of his fishing expeditions.  Nate  found a section of a tree that was already laying about.

So I decided that we could do the Operations Department weekly meeting in Nate’s crew cab as we went to pick up the stump.

So we need to just acquire a hammer and game on.  That means you Colvin…

For more on Hammerschlagen, you can check out Wikipedia though there’s some seemingly revisionist history on there… (don’t watch the stuff on Youtube, most of the videos are of people who don’t understand the game)

Stump Acquisition Photo Cred: Warranty Ben

So he’s not around to post this gem from the Mirror in the UK…

When they bring in the front loader to truck the snow banks on your street away.

Alright, I’m on a plane today to Europe for two weeks; I will try to give you an update from the ISPO show in Munich.

Red Bull threw a pretty fun little contest the other night here in Stowe.

The Butter Cup had a unique layout. Basically it was a big half-pipe on the flats with box features in the middle. It was easily lit and super convenient right in front of the lodge. All in all a simple but neat idea.

Rome and Oakley helped out with prizes. Unfortunately, the Rome crew was in light attendance due to setting up for the Vegas show.

Fortunately I got myself out of that so I decided I was due for a night out in Stowe. The event was at the new Spruce Peak village so it was good to get inside some of the buildings I had not been in yet over there.

The event was pretty cool. Pun intended; I think it was like 10 below with gusts out of the South. More power to the kids that came out and brought the heat; they were also probably Tivo’ing the X-Games. Why sit at home in the warmth when you can get out there and give’r?

Some pics of the event…

Awards inside the warm Day Lodge…

After-party at Piecasso. Sorry no Saturday night Karaoke (I don’t think I even saw Danger!) …

You have to love it when the after-party is at your regular Sat. hangout.

Butter Cup events are happening up and down the East Coast. Check out the Red Bull site here for upcoming dates and locations.

Props to all the people who worked the event that I will forget to name. Again it was super cold so they get those props heavy.

If you care who won Mary will probably have a story on Snowboardermag.com or something….

Sometimes just to try is to succeed.

I decided to use my split-board to head off the property on Sunday and find some turns. It worked out…I didn’t cross another track all day (whether riding or skinning)…including the first line off the hill…

Now instead of taking the trail all the way to the bar, I decided to pick up a side trail and get another descent under my belt.

As I ascended i saw all sorts of possibilities but I decided to stick to the marked trails (most of which I had been on before in one shape or form).

My original goal was to make my way around the Ranch Valley (just under the ridgeline) and then grab a descent on the far side, but I’ll be the first to admit I misjudged the time to get there. The tube of my Camelbak had also frozen a second time when I hit the Dishpan; I got it to defrost in my coat early in the trek but when it froze the second time it didn’t want to come back, no matter what tricks I had up my sleeve. So that set me up to call it earlier (distance-wise) than I wanted.

So I hit another junction and headed down. Now I’ll also admit that what I headed down was flatter than I expected, but I was riding untouched snow so it was still fun. Unfortunately due to the lack of pitch I eventually had to switch back to “travel” mode and get back to the Nordic center. In no time, I was back at the Tollhouse and back on the resort.

So didn’t quite make it around to the the line I wanted, but still had a fun day.

(Stowe is littered with trails cut by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the Great Depression. Some have become an integral part of the resort; others are outside the boundary and frequented by tele skiers. Please research your trip when heading out. There’s lot’s of resources so make sure you use them. Also, please make responsible decisions regarding what you ride and when to call it a day.)

PS- sorry for the lousy pics, apparently the batteries I was putting into the camera should’ve been thrown out, so you got some more phone pics

Oh wait, nobody did ask, anyways here’s some video I recorded after my other video fail …Basically I’m just holding the camera in my front hand…I slash a few times and whiteout the camera…Video is four parts of the run. Three coming down to the road and one riding the road back to Stowe. The lens is fogged up at the start of the second part as I was trying to clean the lense of snow. A little Jethro Tull as a soundtrack.

Shredding the Backside… from Waldert on Vimeo.

So much so that George & Cavan decided to fire up the snowmobiles in the parking lot Friday Night…