Ski Videos

As the winter starts to come to an end in Washington I would like to share my collection of videos I made on the mountain this year. It was a good season with a lot of snow and even though I didn’t get up as much as I would have liked it was still great to carve some turns and catch a little bit of air.

This video was taken at the top of Ski Bowl at Mount Hood at the end of Febuary.

 

This video was taken at the top of Ski Bowl at Mount Hood at the end of Febuary.

 

This video is taken in the Stevens Pass terrain park at the beginning of November.

Mount Hood Part II cont.

Wow, I just got back from the big Mount Hood Ski trip a few hours ago and boy it was so much fun so here is the action through the weekend.

 

Thursday: 2/22/2007

 

I woke up in the early afternoon, took the day off work, and starting packing up all my gear and organizing the truck for the 4 hour journey to Mount Hood. After getting the truck all packed and situated I headed over to my buddy’s house, who was also my Co-Pilot and Navigator, to load his gear and get down the highway. It wasn’t that simple though to my dismay. First we had to load the truck with Jason and Kate’s gear then go to Pat and Sarah’s place just north of Quest Field in downtown Seattle. Kate jumped in with Pat and Sarah (my truck doesn’t have enough room for 3 people for a long journey) and after messing around with packing (they weren’t ready) and getting some munchies we were off.

 

Having a half of tank of gas in the truck I thought I would just get gas near Portland to save us sometime. After driving a bit of time I checked how far the truck could travel and to my surprise it was registering of 200+ miles. That was more than enough fuel to get past Portland and maybe to the cabin in Welches, Oregon. As we approached Kelso Washington, Jason and I started to smell burning rubber and not just a little burning, a lot of burning and all of a sudden there was massive smoke and semi trucks, 400 yards in front of us, swerving and and weaving. It was wild and kind of shocking and we expected to see some carnage but as we approached there was nothing, absolutely nothing.

 

Then I looked in the mirror and at the same time Jason’s cell rang. It was Kate…their vehicle done ran out of gas. How do you do that on a road trip I was thinking. Looking at the gas gage there was just under a half of a tank. The new Chevy didn’t burn hardly any fuel so how was there econo vehicle out? Don’t know but I had to double back after getting fuel and help them out on the side of I-5, see Pat refueling.

 

Back on our way things went smoothly and we all arrived in Welches around 6pm finding the monster cabin that we were all staying in. It was two floors, under covered parking, 5 bedrooms, hot tub, two bath, and a large living room and fire place for all the antics. The place was off the charts and completely huge and housed 12 of us comfortably. It wasn’t until the the ghost was mentioned that things started to get a tad un-nerving (only when sleeping) and the ghost was mentioned in all the Guest Book entries in the cabin, creepy huh?. After kicking it all night everyone passed out and went to bed to get ready for the early rising…(it snowed 22" the day before our arrival). I slept like garbage since I slept alone down stairs…that cabin made some weird ass noises all night.

 

Friday: 2/23/2007

 

Morning came way to soon and at seven in the morning I was awoken, not by the ghost, but by buddies saying "it is time". Rolling my beatin ass out the sack I found the snow gear and suited up. It was a morning full of snow, the cabin had snow all over the grounds, and being light little truck I was happy that Les Schwab had chains for my 20s. Jason and had to chain up long before reaching Meadows but that was cool because we were safe and made it to the resort with ease.

 

The whole day was filled with skiing waste deep powder, challenging runs, more challenging runs and some nice booters that were trying to hide from me. Being a really large crowd we all sort of did our own thing but mostly it was David, Ryan, Jon, Jason, Dennis, Glenn and I all riding together since we are the most aggressive riders of the group. The days flew by fast and it was really to early to be tired but being the first day on the mountain, in deep powder, are legs were burning and well decided to head on back to the cabin.

 

The evening was pretty quite and we ate hearty, hamburgers, hotdogs and to many snacks, and played a few games. It was a charades if you can imagine that and let me tell you it is harder than it looks. Have you ever tried to charade a person’s name? Impossible it seemed but after awhile we got the hang of it. After the game we pulled out the tablet PC and projector and watched the footage from the helmet camera. The camera wasn’t angled correctly so the footage was really poor. Now it was late and we hit the sack but this time I got a couch upstairs in a room with others so the ghost didn’t bother me much, still heard creepy noises though.

 

Saturday: 2/24/2007

 

Last night it was a consensus to go to Ski Bowl and start skiing later in the day so we had enough energy to do some night skiing. The powder at Ski Bowl was a quite a bit wetter than at Meadows because of the altitude but at the higher elevations it was pretty dry. David, Ryan, Jon, Jason and I made our way to the top of the mountain ASAP because we were getting soaked due to the really wet snow. After getting up to the top we decided to take a double black powder run as a warm up. My legs were on fire and I had enough of heavy wet powder to last me a weekend and so did Jon and Jason. Jason went to the lodge because he is a Sally and Jon and I hit the terrain park to work on the air skills.

 

The park footage came out pretty good and there were some crashes as well from me trying to ride some rails on my sticks and falling upon landing of the booters. With the snow being so wet it made it extremely difficult to get enough to speed to clear the gaps but with a lot of effort I started to get over them but wasn’t land far enough down the landing ramp in my opinion. I am in process of getting the videos on to YouTube for everyone to see.

 

After the park riding Jon and I met up with David and Ryan for more big mountain riding. We headed to the higher elevations and took some double blacks and it was steep and deep…it rocked because the snow was getting better and it was still coming down like crazy. Ski Bowl was supporting waste deep powder and on everyone it seemed like there were fresh tracks to be made. Our last run of the after consisted of riding the lifts to the top of the mountain and then hiking to the very top of Tom Dick Peak. It was a hard since it was our second of riding and we were tired from the days riding. It was a sweet run and David set his camera up and shot this group photo. We rode the heck out of the run and by the time we hit the trail at the bottom we were due for a monster break in the lodge.

 

During our break we downloaded all the helmet camera footage and watch the movies on my tablet. The other skiers and snowboarders were looking at us like we were weird but we didn’t care…we were on video. We chilled for about 2 hours and the rest of the group showed up for night skiing. We were tired but when we got out side it had quit snowing and the clouds had lifted to expose the terrain. It looks awesome and it gave us new life.

 

We started off by skiing the top of the mountain and never quit because the powder was good and I was taking a huge hit at the top. It was a side line off a cliff and my buddies thought I was crazy for thinking about taking the line, little did they know that I am crazy and Goingbigger!

 

Cliff Video 1 (a top view) – Cliff Video 2 (a bottom view)

 

It was crazy fun and all my friends were shouting and cheering. It feels good when that type of stuff happens and when taking a line like that the adrenaline goes shooting through the body giving it a boost of energy and vibrancy. It was by far the biggest air in two seasons so it made me extremely happy to have it caught on video, thanks Chris for letting me borrow it. We skied until 8pm which put our time on the mountain at 10 hours. All my major muscle groups hurt bad, really bad and still hurt, and my ring finger was slightly hurt due to me landing on it on the final jump of the evening.

 

The whole gang was tired and we did our annual group photo at the base of the mountain before heading back to the cabin for food and relaxation.

 

Sunday: 2/25/2007

 

We all slept in, somewhat, and then started cleaning the cabin so we could get out in a timely manner. With everyone chipping it doesn’t take long before the cabin was clean, trucks packed and we were down the road to a spot to get some mean breakfast. After filling up on food we all parted ways, like at the end of Ocean’s 11, and headed back home and I proud to say the 5.3 liter V8 only took a tank and a half of gas to go their and back  It was a great weekend and can’t wait till we do it again.

 

Related Post: Whistler/Blackcomb 2006

Mt Hood Part 2

This Thursday my friend and I are taking off to Mount Hood to go do some serious riding on one of the resorts on Mount Hood. My first time ever going to Mt Hood was back in December when Chris, Lindsey and I b-lined down there for a weekend get away.

 

Related Post: Mount Hood Oregon

 

Right before that last trip some hikers were lost on the mountain and a few of them died while one was rescued, don’t quote me on that one, and it seems before this trip it has happened to some more hikers, Mount Hood climbers reach safety. What is with people get stranded on that mountain? I can tell you what…You couldn’t pay me to climb it. After my first trip I understood how and why it is so dangerous. I finally realized that I never posted the images from that trip, shame on me, so thy are now viewable at the Mount Hood Part I photo album. I am charging my camera, doing laundry and blogging about the big day while the music is blasting right now, the neighbors can bear with it tonight.

 

Tonight homage must be paid to the Snow Gods in hopes for another epic day on the mountain and this trip with mark only the third time I have been up this year. The first time up was with Chris and we had a great day at Stevens Pass, Washington. I’ll have his helmet camera so footage will be happening and hopefully it turns out good enough to post on Goingbigger YouTube. So what is the homage I pay to the Snow Gods for a great day you maybe wondering.

 

Well it all starts out with putting on a Warren Miller film and cranking up the music so I feel it in the apartment and putting on the gear to get reaquainted with the feeling. Sometime I sacrifice some beer (by drinking beverages) and getting kinda of tanked but not this time, we’ll save that for another time. I review all past trips by looking at pictures and remembering what it was like when busting those moves and carving the powder.

 

Early in the season I started to get added to people friends list on MySpace that were ski related and then I got the great idea to add some of my heroes with hopes that I could make it on their friends list. It worked and I had a conversation with Chris Anthony through private message. It was totally sick because I have more movies than I can count with him on them!! Boo Yaoooo!!

 

Ok I gotta run and get some stuff done before it is time to leave Thursday morning!!

Mt Hood

Today my buddy Chris, his wife, Lindsey, are leaving for Mt Hood, Oregon to go tear it up and ride are brains out! It is going to be a fun few days and something that is highly needed because right now work is driving me crazy to all get out. I did another post on my ActiveRain blog that is a little better than this but I needed to get some points over there.

 

The snow is falling and Goingbigger is ready for the action and my friends need to show up so we can get the heck out of here pronto. This will be only the second time I have gotten to go up to the mountains for some good fun and the first time is when Chris and I went to Stevens Pass in November.

 

My gear is packed, including my brain buckett, can’t leave home with out that one. But one thing that bums me is that all the helmet cams sold out during Christmas so I didn’t get the only thing I asked for My buddy Chris bought his in earlier December so he will have his but it isnt the same though. I’ll bring my tablet so we can suck footage off the camera as we fill it up and then on Friday night we may relax and put the movie together before we head back.

 

I’ll post a video on my YouTube site after the trip and probably make a post here in case anyone else would like to see it. Well Chris just called so I am OUTTA HEREEEEEEEE!!

Skiing with Chris

Today, Chris and I got up hella early and went skiing. It is only Nov 18 and Stevens Pass is already open. Did I mention it was early? From the first picture in the Skiing with Chris photo album you can tell that I was a tad tired. The drive was spectacular and it was sweet seeing the sun rise over the Cascade Mountains.

 

The snow wasn’t perfect but the groomers were flat and fast which makes for some great warm up runs especially being the first day and all. After hitting run after run we decided to take a break and grab some water. We got the hair brain idea to head over to the terrain park and see what was happening. We say a guy on skis but a huge 720 and other people were poppin off 360s like the were nothing. Now Goingbigger can’t let everyone else have the fun on the big booter.

 

So Chris took a video of me bustin my move. Its no 360 but it still is some pretty good air, big air video, 12 sec. Ah the day kicked but and I have a very sore ankle and hip. I crashed and thought I broke a hip but thankfully it was all ok when the pain stopped

 

In other news. Goingbigger now has a YouTube site where my videos will all be uploaded in the future. It is pretty sick and its free

Friday morning our adventure…

Friday morning our adventure began but it took it a while to get going. We left Fremont around 11:30 am and put the hammer down all the way to the boarder. After getting some duty free booze, my selection was Captain Morgan’s Private Stock, and stogies we made it through the board crossing with ease. Crossing the boarder always helps when your not a criminal or planning to commit crimes.

 

We arrived in Whistler Blackcomb, picked up the keys to the cabin and unloaded and got settled in. The rest of our party showed up shortly thereafter which put the grand total of people to a whopping 19. What a way to spend a ski trip.

 

Friday night we started boozing in the hot tub before we hit the village. Our first stop the Irish Pub House! The beer was cold, the good was great and the waitress were smoking in their little plaid skirts, oo la laaa. We stumbled back to the cabin and commenced to get more faded and it went on late into the evening.

 

Getting up early Saturday was tough but we did it. Riding on a few hours of sleep we strapped on our gear and made our way to Blackcomb for some nice smooth warm up riding. The visibility was excellent and snow was decent so we made our way to the top of the bowl for our first run.

 

Now riding with a bunch of people I didn’t know had me a little tense and just was quite in my zone if you know what I mean. We headed down the bowl and I thought I was doing great, the ground showed signs of flattening out, when exiting the bowl, so I turned on the speed and started bombin. Well there was a sharp incline in which I couldn’t see until I was a dew feet from it and not be able to anything because of the speed in which I was moving I hit it as full force. I got blown up all over the run. Hitting the ground in the lazy boy position, I thought I fractured my tail bone, lucky I didn’t and just couldn’t sit the rest of the day, and smacked the back of my head on the hard pack ice. I had my helmet on so once again I lucked out from serious injury.

 

We road the rest of the day but I could not find my grove. Did someone steal my Mojo? It sure felt like it. Well our big group ended up splitting up and I took a solo run to the lodge for lunch and hydration.

 

Everyone was beat when they showed up at the lodge and ended up heading back the cabin. I stayed out and worked on my form and getting my mind into exactly what I was doing. It worked! I had my mojo at the end of the day and what do you know it started to snow.

 

It snowed long into the evening and was piling up rapidly for Sunday’s ride. I got home, got cleaned up and headed out for a massive steak dinner. Everyone else wanted to booze but I needed nutrients in the body to keep going. I came back after dinner and started drinking with everyone and then we all headed out to the town for what ever might happen.

 

Since we were with a lot of couple three of us single guys didn’t want to go to a quite place and drink but instead we headed to the Savage Beagle to dance, meet the ladies and tear it up!! I haven’t danced like that in while, you the know the kind where your sweaty form head to toe and the ladies are ridin all up in your business, yeaaaaaa, that is the ticket!!

 

Getting home around 2am we immediately passed out and by this time it is still snowing. So now it has been snowing for around 10 hours and sticking and when we woke up in the morning there was a fresh 10 inches and it was still snowing. This is what we dreamed of.

 

This time we jumped onto Whistler and road the gondola up to the top and dropped in the deepest, freshest snow I have ever road in my whole life. It was crazy business on how much snow was there. So did some cadillac style runs before we headed to the left side of the mountain for the steep & deep. My mojo was in full effect and I commenced to paint my best runs ever on the canvas of the mountain.

 

Double Black Diamonds? Not a problem, all the training and mental preparation had me dialed the F*** in. The snow would rush over your head when you carved a deep turn and my soul yearned for more and more!! There wasn’t to many jump out because the amount of snow which the mountains were receiving but the drop were nice and soft. We road the left side of Whistler to about the 2 o’clock and starting making our way back to the gondola but when we go there the chair that serviced the top of the mountain was running.

So for our last run of the day we headed to what one friend dubbed “Mordor” because of the cliffs, wind and the shear spookyness of riding a chair lift up the F***ing mountain to the top of its 7600 and some odd feet of elevation. We skied the face and in the Whistler bowl we were getting turn after turn of the freshness, oh yea, it was still snowing and by this time there was a roughly 20 inches of new. Needless to say we were skiing the best-of-the-best in the steep-of-the-steep.

 

Who knows how long the run from the top of Whistler to the bottom is but I heard it is 6.5 miles and it felt like it too. Our legs were on fire and the Green Circle runs (beginner runs) felt like Double-Black Diamonds in the ice. Every bump was punishing since we were dead tired and worn out.

 

Upon arrival at the base we immediately went into the Long Horn and grabbed some cold ones. Ah yes the rejuvenating power of a cold one J We put down a few beers and went back to the cabin for a massive hot tub and mixed drinks. OMG it felt so good and relaxed the muscles from the intense day of riding. We all went to dinner at the Keg then home for some good sleep so we could pack and clean to get out at a reasonable time.

 

Well that is the end of the adventure I want to give some props to the peeps that were there.

 

Jason – my buddy who invited me HELLA PROPS “DAWG” steep and deep riding patna

Pat -  Who fronted the cash up front to reserve the cabin CRAZY PROPS “DAWG”

Kate – Jason’s fiancé

Ryan – Steep & Deep riding patna

John – Ryan’s buddy and steep and deep riding patna

Glenn – Jason’s neighbors who transported my sticks PIMP STATUS

Mindy – Jason’s neighbors who transported my sticks PIMP STATUS

Jasmine

Stephanie

Andy

Brian

Dennis

Casey

And the others I am forgetting – my bad!!

 

<cheers>

 

Your friend in Time,

 

Toby

Organizing Categories is a P.I.T.A

I got home from whistler blackcomb and i have been organizing my blogs and placing them into categories. A stupid task but it needs to be done. The trip was good and i will post a blog tomorrow on it

 

tob

The scrafice has begun…

The scrafice has begun and I am loving every moment of it. So far the skis, boots, poles tec are packed and just waiting on the laundry to get done before I meet up with Jason, a college buddy. This time has been long in the waiting, well since December, and as each day has approaced I couldn’t help but smile. The last time I skied Whislter Blackcomb was in ’97. Being 19, all i wanted to do was booze and ski and i am glad to see that nothing has changed.

 

So I alluded to a scrafice in the title, well if you have visited here before then you may not know what I am talking about. Well for anytime I am thinking about skiing and being the snow I sacrifice a 6 pack. <cheers>. So at this very moment I am boozin on some budwiezer. Don’t tell the King though becuase he banned Bud on one of his rules. Go drop him a line at If I Were King. Needless to say the begins here!!

 

Tons of picts are going to be take of the goingbig-ness and should be up some after i get back. There will be NO Blogging during this trip becuase there will be no time. Between Skiing, Boozin, Looking for the Smokin Ski Bunny, oooo i just like the way that sounds, and eating, to hell with sleep we are going SKIING.

 

Work has been going real well. Business is picking up and our team is so fired up to see new marketing tatcis unfold and recent increase in PR for our sites has be pumped about internet presence. SEO is a fun topic if you like to operatea personal or biz blog, website for profit on non or like to post pics and share with friends. I have been studying it in depth for a year and half. The down side is that it that it takes a lot of time to build your different linking strategies and content base. But you can watch in increase over time fast than any other marketing strategy deployed by a company/organization.

 

If you are interested go check out the links at the top of my site under the Website Opitmization category. There are tools you can to ping your site, submits your site to data aggrigators (sites that run RSS & XML feeds), SEO webmast sites and blogs to learn marketing techniques and what the latest search engine trends are.

 

I have been wanting to finally catorgize my blog entries but I have been blogging since apr 05. Mostly to organize all my Seattle Seahawk Blogs. Our team had a exciting season and after going to all those game, see my photo album for past games pics, and I would like to build a tri-bute page to them. So no fear that is a WIP, work in progress, and will be listed at the top of the page.

 

Tons of things are happening and I can’t wait to read about all yours. Take care and have most excellent adventures.

 

Your friend in Time,

 

Toby

 

This weekend will be…

This weekend will be off the charts. Whistler Blackcomb is the premeir ski destination in the world or at least that is what most reports say. The last time I was there I was 19 and just wanted to booze it up. Now that I am older and wiser, can i call bs on myself?, I should be able to refrain from the 2 am drunkness and the stumble walk home but for some reason I doubt that will happen.

 

One of the things that is getting me stoked is the half pipe is kept open in the evenings. The time to go big never ends and must continue as long as I am able to be on the mountain.

 

Work has been getting busier, which is a bonus, and it is starting to get exciting the closer spring gets. Being self-employed has its ups and downs. The pros are you can show up when you want, work how late you want and have totaly freedom on how you conduct your business. But the down side is you don’t get paid if you don’t hustle it.

 

A buddy had the ingenious idea to create a msn space for our business website. With some work it could actually a great form of advertising for minimum dollars or no dollars for that matter. I wonder how it would work. If anyone wishes to check it out, remember it is brand new, visit TW Resource Group Space @ http://spaces.msn.com/twrg/. It will be fun working on a new site but finding the time is a totally another story.

 

Some of my Spaces Friends opperate multiple sites and i don’t know where they find the time. I love comments but lately I have been horrible on returning or venturing out and meeting new friends. Sorry to all the hotties and dudes in which I have had the pleasure of meeting…YOU f***IN RULE.

 

As the weekend approaches I get more excited but I have meetings tonight to get through first. Hope all is well in your world,

 

Your friend in time,

 

Toby

Last Wednesday…

Last Wednesday Chris and I went riding up at Stevens Pass. It was a hoot and a half. The mountain was closed but the stars and moon were out so we hiked the Brooks and up into the snow park. It gave us the much need time to practice rail riding. Were both novices on rails, he boards & I ski, and never had the opportunity to stay parked on a rail. By 11:30 Chris could ride up the turn sideways and ride the full rail, he was doing a flat box rail, and I could almost ride a kinked box rail sideways but I kept on biting it at the very end, my exists where shaky.

 

It was so much fun. Chris brought his video camera so we took some evening footage of our adventure. That is the third time this year we have had to hiked for turns. Two weeks ago we actually paid to go skiing and I’ll tell you what, the lifts were nice to ride J. Now I am looking forward to the end of the month, WHISTLER BLACKCOMB or Bust!!

 

Another college buddy and all his friends that are heading up there and I got bum in and sleep on the floor of the cabin.. The cabin is very nice, www.OurWhistlerRetreat.com, and should have enough room for me to crawl up by the fire place It also has a hot tub which looks out to Whistler so maybe I can meet some hottie!! I am stoked because Blackcomb keeps the halfpipe lit up so it can be road all night. It is in the Nintendo Terrain Park which is one of the best in the world. Can’t wait to test myself.

 

“Go Big or Go Home”

 

This training is going to pay off and my workout still remains closely to what I posted awhile back. The 5 day workout is intense but when worth it.

 

If you haven’t seen it yet go to www.JoinBode.com. That is Bode Miller’s website and boy-o-boy is it cool. I would like to have a website like that. I think it was done in flash and has tons of videos, Bode on training, Bode on motivation, Bode on Boozing and so many more. I have been through most of the videos but there is some other stuff I have yet to try out. He has my support for all his events, so does the rest of Team U.S.A., and I can’t wait to see his aggressive, on the F***ing edge style of skiing.

 

Complete Coverage the 2006 Winter Olympics

 

These Olympics is there is much to watch and look for. There is a new scoring system for ice skating due to the scandal that arose in Salt Lake. The Canadian team did a phenomenal performance but for how great it was they were awarded second place. That spurred a probe in the judging and the scandal was exposed. After that the Canadian team were awarded a gold and the Russian team, who the scandal favored, was allowed to keep theirs. The new scoring system was designed to give more weight to other parts of the routine instead of a few fundamentals allowing skaters that do have errors the opportunity to still be able to score in the medals. That Canadian Team will not be competing in Turino.

 

Apollo Ohno is an athlete to watch in the speed skating events along with many others. It is amazing how fast those guys and gals can go with such grace and power. The Winter Olympics is so much fun to watch and in 2010 it is Whistler!! It is only 4 hours from my house J I will so be going to watch you can count on it.

 

Sleeping in a car, scrounging money for tickets and eating out of gut trucks I will have the time of my life. So if you have heard already “Go Big or Go Home”. Hahah I love saying that. Anyhoo Take care and

 

U.S.A. – U.S.A. – U.S.A.

U.S.A. – U.S.A. – U.S.A.

U.S.A. – U.S.A. – U.S.A.