Tag Archive for: sweatshop

Summer sweatshop

Production has been in high gear since the season finally came to an end. I’ve revamped and updated the website, processed hours and hours of footage and photos, and pressed as many boards as possible. I have a grip of new experimental shapes and sizes and I can’t wait to take them for a test drive.

We are involved in a bunch of new media about to hit the magazine stands, the television, and the interwebs this fall. It will be interesting to see how “the masses” react to this stuff. Maybe they love it, maybe they hate on it.. Either way, It won’t affect the amount of fun I have surfing the pow.

Grassroots Powdersurfing Sweatshop – Manville, USA
The “Red Rocket”… aka “The Bomb”
Given the MANY hours I spend building these boards, I get pretty attached to them. I have a hard time letting them go really. Hopefully they find find happy homes and live up to their full potential.

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Shape Shack


I’ve been cranking em out as fast as I can. Somehow I find enjoyment working in a tiny garage in sub zero temperatures.

So many conditions…. so many boards

You can come close but when it comes down to it, there is no perfect all around shape and size that will dominate every condition out there. You must have a quiver if you want to slay it all.

Full Steam

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The latest round of boards, hot off the press. – The “powder skate”, “slasher”, “slasher 140” and “Powder Shark 140”


The recent lack of posts on the blog is certainly not a reflection of a lack of riding this season. Footage and photos are stacking up so fast I can hardly keep up. R&D on some longer boards and new shapes has been super fun and the progression of riding is moving ahead faster than ever. Bigger cliffs, steeper lines, and technical tricks are an everyday occurrence. More and more riders are catching wind of powsurfing and realizing the potential. People all over the world are testing the boards and I have had nothing but positive feedback and intense stoke on riding the boards. Once they step on one of these they are instantly sold.

Warming up with a little drop which sends you straight for a little hip jump (pic below)

Kickflip in the pow pow

360 shov on the mini hip

If all your interested in doing is making turns, you may be missing half of the point of bindingless riding. – 360 Kickflip in the Utah Backcountry.


One glory slash is worth a hundred turns!


Here I am talking shit about turning… Seriously though, here’s my philosophy, “Turns are what you do to control your speed and guide you to the next feature that you plan on dropping, launching or powerslashing”… you can quote me on that.



Powder-Day Saints – “The Second Coming”

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A huge chunk of the last year of my life has been put into the filming, editing and production of my latest snowboard/powsurfing film.

“Powder-Day Saints – The Second Coming” will premier next week in Logan Utah with a couple more Utah screenings hopefully in the near future. I made this film on a $0 budget… it took countless hours of time in the edit room aside from the time and effort taken to shoot it all. My resources are limited, so unfortunately it may not get seen much anywhere else outside of our small scene… we’ll see what happens I guess.

All expenses came directly out of my pocket… I would hate to even add it up… especially counting the hours of work I have poured into it. I would be in the hole tens of thousands of $. (I hope my wife doesn’t read this) Funny what you find yourself doing when you follow your passion. I set a personal goal to get this completed this year so I can move on to the next project. Maybe it will pay off some day.. if not, I have priceless experiences and good times along the way to show for it.. along with a nice video journal of the past couple of seasons of riding snowboards and powsurfers. If you haven’t checked out the film, peep the teaser here…….


The video basically consists of my friends from Northern Utah and I hucking booters, dropping cliffs, punching lines and just loving it in the powder… Riding snowboards, skis, sleds, and powdersurf boards.

The majority of the film is snowboarding as I am holding onto a lot of material for the release of a full length powsurfing film.. something I have been working on for a few years now but have lacked the time to complete. Next fall will bring to light some really cool stuff.
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Christmas Eve Test Runs on the 140cm Powsurfs

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Utah is having a stellar winter so far. 150% of Normal snowpack and it doesn’t seem to be letting up. Grings and I got out for a beautiful day on Christmas Eve to test out the new shape and size I’ve been working on.

Here’s a look at a run on the new big mountain Grassroots Powsurfer..

New Shape Test in the Mashed Potatoes

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We snowmobiled for a few miles before we finally hit the snow line. It was sopping wet and it was raining/snowing. We were lucky enough to find a tree filled zone with rideable snow. A wicked rime crust had formed above 8700 feet and the rain line was at around 8000 ft. Our zone was right in the sweet spot in between.

A mix of wind crust and coastal mashed potato powder was on the menu for the day. We managed to have a great time and the new shape I just designed cut thru that shit like a hot knife thru butter.

Winter is upon us. Surf’s up!

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Crackin an ollie in the forest.

Winter came quick and with a vengeance in Utah this year. Before I knew it there was nearly two feet of pow in my yard and 40-50 inches up in our nearby mountains. I should stay home and keep working on this snowboard/powdersurf film that’s been in the works for a couple of years now, but it is just too difficult when I know there is pow to be slashed.
The usual early season zones were in full effect so I made some time to get some powdersurfing in. A couple of quick sessions with my dog was all I needed to get me in the right mood. I came home inspired to finish up this film… so I can move on to the next project. Which will likely be a longer powsurfing documentary of sorts.
I learned to snowboard in this zone 21 years ago… I have visited this place for early season riding every year for the past 21 years. Damn, that makes me feel like an old timer.

Happy Anniversary… 21 years!

Kickflip


FS air


360 Shovit

Storm-dog looking for critters to harass.



When the sun and warm weather comes out and kills the snow quality there is still some fun to be had. We packed out a little kicker and proceeded to get our skate on.

We used to joke about one day being able to do a 360 kickflip on a powsurfer… well, today was the day I guess.
Rider: Jeremy Jensen Photo: Josh Serna
Ever year a small rail garden grows down in the campground. Kids bring up new rails and logs every year and when the road is no longer passable the rails become buried for the winter and are confiscated after the snow melts in the spring. Some how the garden re-grows every year near the same spot. This years garden was quite nice and I was able to jib and bonk a few things on the powsurfer before it got buried.
Tubular.

Fresh Beaver!

The solid early snowpack caught our local ski resort by surprise so we were able to get quite a few preseason days at the resort in. Bindinless boards are forbidden within the resort boundaries here during the season so this was our window to get some powsurfing in. Sorry to all the people who showed up opening day to an already tracked out mountain… :)
I assure you we had a great time cutting it up.
Dec 4, 2010
The ‘Beav is now opened up to the public so now I am forced into the side-country runs- which is fine with me. That is where the goods are at anyways. Dave and I made it up there for some backside runs… super fun as usual, especially in the low snowpack. Baby pillows galore!
Dave blasting down the backside..

First Day of the New Season! – October 27, 2010

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Oh Magog.
 

Nearly two feet of snow had fallen over the past few days and I was itching to get out. I had crushed my foot while moving a big boulder out of the landing of one of our jumps the day before the storm hit and my foot was swollen and in a lot of pain, but I really had to get out and slash some pow.

All the homies in town were stuck at work so Storm-dog and I had our own session. The snowpack was pretty damn good for this early in the season. We are pretty limited to the grassy slopes this time of year, so we made the most of it- Jumping the little bumps and mini rollers and slashing as much pow as possible on a couple of different powdersurf boards.
The powsurf quiver for today..
 
Storm is getting older and slowing down a bit, but he’s still loving fresh pow
 
I was quickly reminded of how damn fun it is to ride these silly boards. Gotta love the simple pleasures in life.
 

Self portrait slasher
 
My mind gets board with no one to talk to up in the hills so I decided to take some photos and video of the day. Since my dog cannot operate a camera, I had to do it all myself. The action still shots didn’t work out so great but I managed to get a couple of shots that were ok. The video turned out pretty good though…
 
 
 
Check it:
 

A Foot of Fresh Pow on May 25th!!!!

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Any powder day after the end of april is gravy. I love gravy. We have had some pretty good helpings this season. Today we knew it was gonna be good and it wasn’t going to last long so we pulled out of town at 5:45 am and headed for the goods.

The powder test I performed this morning resulted in a rating of “BLOWER!!!”

We parked to unload the sleds and we were standing in 10 inches of light and dry pow under bluebird skies. We rallied up to the top and knocked out a couple of runs each in Rock Bowl as quick as we could. There was a foot + of fresh pow. The conditions were blower so I was alternating runs between my snowboard and my powsurfer. Things were heating up quick on the east facing slope so we headed for a higher more north facing zone.

We got to the Lgn Ln sector and it was holding some epic snow. So we frantically lapped it as many times as possible – racing against the warming weather. I had one of the funnest lines in a long time on the powsurfer. I entered the chute entrance, hit a little ice patch and ass checked the top of the chute, causing a wet slide that would take me down about 50ft and land me in a pile of wet debris… it was more funny than scary. I got my board back under my feet and had the sickest run… high speed face shots and rollers lined themselves up perfectly for me to ollie off of. Funny how the funnest run of the day would come on a powdersurf board.


The powsurfing in this sector was soooo sick. Roller after slash after roller…

The pow on the north facing slopes was all up in your face

Aaron and I about to drop in
This could be my last ollie of the season on the powsurf.. stoked it was a good one.
We called it a day at about 1:30. The weather was scorching, the pow was cooked and we were both running super low on oil.

It is Moustache May and this is my “powder stash”

We drew some lines here. Our shred tracks on the left and the powder 8 slednecker tracks in the middle… and we’re outa there.
What a killer day!!! The snowmobiling was super fun, the snowboarding was sick, the powsurfing was epic and it was a beautiful way to end another winter season. I got home and parked the sled in the backyard for the first time all season – just to taunt mother nature. I hope she makes me drag it out again for another pow day this year. But if not, we ended on a perfect note.Spirits were high today until I got home to the news that an old friend had passed away after a battle with breast cancer. Krista Moroge was an amazing skateboarder, snowboarder, and human being. She was extremely talented and motivated far beyond the average person. Her inspiration lives on inside all of us. We will miss you Krista.

Check the video!

May 22nd 2010 Powsurf Solo Session

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Slashing bindingless in May!

We got a nice shot of 6-8 inches of light n dry pow on friday night. Most of my homies have given up for the season it seems because I couldn’t find a single bro to join me on a late season powsurfing mission. So I went solo.. I couldn’t resist.

I showed up to really good conditions and new snow that bonded nicely to the slush beneath. Most of the jumps had melted away and the cliffs had melted back leaving no good takeoffs. I was limited on what I could shred but I managed to find some pretty fun stuff.
I did a few warm up laps in an open bowl that I could ghost ride the sled down for my pickup. It was pretty fun on the powsurfer although the light was a little flat. When that was played I walked over the the “toilet bowl” and packed out a nice little kicker to try a few tricks off of. I had mixed results.. I mostly just slammed alot. The toughest part was the run-in to the jump. I would either be going too slow or way too fast.

I think I slammed on 4 or 5 attempts at a 360 shovit and cracked my board landing in bomb holes :-(

Flying thru the air out of control… I went at least 15 feet past my landing slamming into the backside of a windlip… ouch.
I got tired of getting worked by this jump so I moved to a new zone. The light came out and things got really fun. I hiked the pinball sector for a few fun lines and took a couple pow shots using my remote control shutter release.

I was about to leave when I saw the perfect place to safely ghost ride my sled and get myself a solid 700 vertical run in an open field of pow.

If you look close you can see a little speck in the middle of the shot- that’s me slashing down on the sardine (and that is my ghost ride track to the left).