We arrived in the Snowbird parking with a sense of accomplishment and relief. We left Vermont at 9 pm on Friday evening and showed up in Utah a mere 41 hours later. We were sort of rested from our car based slumber in Cheyenne and mostly clean from the fine water of Little America. Excitement quickly wiped away all other feelings, we were not just here to visit, we were here to snowboard in May. Epic

Packing a car with snowboard gear, camping gear and Becks can get a bit, um, messy. Somewhere Vaughn is shaking his head.

I take pictures of cars at ski areas regardless of my vehicle, but that Fiesta does look extra spiff.

The view as you exit the tram.

The scene as you exit the tram.

Looking in a different direction

Jen enjoying her first day riding in the West. She was a bit intimidated at first but was slashing and ripping by the end of the day.

Obligatory lift photo.

The backside of the Bird, Mineral Basin. The snow was in decent condition considering the time of the year. It was a bit sticky at times, fast at others.

Salt Lake City in the distance

Insert what has two thumbs joke here.

Day over, maxing apres with a tall 3.2.

Jen was all done, kaput.

Day over.

They tell us we are crazy and well we are. This is not normal and it is very likely that it is not even possible. But it is a challenge and an adventure, both high on our list of love. Starting tomorrow, this will be our travel itinerary. If you happen to be near any of the resorts, stop by to chat, check out the ride, and maybe catch a few chairs on the mountain.

Catch you on the road - Seth

May 15 - Boston then Vermont
May 16 - Driving West
May 17 - Snowbird
May 18 - Snowbird or Hiking
May 19 - Mammoth
May 20 - Mammoth
May 21 - A-Basin
May 22 - A-Basin
May 23 - Driving East
May 24 - Orwell Memorial Day Parade

View Endless Winter in a larger map

An 8 day road trip
to cover over 5,700 miles
driving for nearly 90 hours
to snowboard 6 days
in 3 separate states
ending in the Orwell Memorial Day parade
this is 1 married couple's perfectly normal vacation
watch it all unfold on www.fiestavus.com starting May 15th.

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Long before the bright lights of the mainstream media focused on snowboarding's exploits, riders were quietly seeking out snow by any means necessary. The road trip has deep roots in snowboarding and still plays an important role in the experience of every rider.

Bad Colonies is proud to announce our first mission of the Fiesta Movement, an Endless Winter. We pay homage to the many pioneers of our sport by participating in the spring road trip ritual of driving insane hours to ride gorgeous mountains. This is the description from our friends at Ford Mission Control:

Visit three ski resorts on three different mountain ranges in the United States. Grab the last chair ride of the season, or earn your turns by hiking. Finish the season with a bang and let your Fiesta take you there.

As you have come to expect from Bad Colonies, this will be no ordinary trip. We have packed in an itinerary so crazy, Rob Zombie decided to keep tabs on it. See you on the road.

As posted on www.FIESTAVUS.com

At some point in your life, you are bound to find yourself in a situation that makes you think, "If I make one wrong move, it is game over, done, gone, period."

On Saturday, well above New England, strapped into my snowboard on the edge of a 50 degree slope, with rocks and hecklers below, it was this thought that dominated my tired brain. I am not ashamed to say, I was scared.

This is Tuckerman Ravine.

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The Drive
I stepped out my front door at 4:30 am, which is just plain too early for a Saturday. The air was heavy and hot, slamming me in the face as I fumbled around loading Fiestavus II with a bunch of random backcountry gear. Most of this junk was purchased on a whim during my "hiking" days and has spent some quality time hidden in the depths of my closet. I smiled knowing that for this day, at a minimum, it was cash well spent.

The heavy air from Bristol transformed into a complete downpour somewhere on my way to pick up my sister. This seemed all too typical of Mt Washington, dangle an epic day in front of your nose and then yank it away once you are underway. I cursed my rotten luck but kept rolling.

Like clockwork, it cleared up just long enough for my sister, Carrie, to stow her board away in the back of Fiestavus II. As she hopped into the rig, the skies opened up, another sucker stuck in the game. We waited a wee bit for Flynner before taking off with just two in tow and oodles of room for roadside souvenirs and some of those lawn ornaments only sold in northern New Hampshire.

By the time we met up with Price at a gas station in Glen, NH, the weather had shifted from yuck to YEEEAH (obviously said in a Lil' Jon voice), fully rewarding our perseverance. While Carrie and Price stumbled aimlessly, I was on a mission for a gas station breakfast sandwich. I told Carrie I was taking one for the team but truth be told I was aching for that taste you can only get from the heat lamps of our fueling refuges. In the parking lot, an older couple was admiring the Fiestavus, the lady exclaimed, "Oh such a nice color, ooohh and look at those lights, I just luv'em."

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The Hike
As we crested the final climb on rt 16 before Pinkham, we were greeted by spill-over highway parking.

The circus wasn't just in town, it was up awfully damn early. We quickly readied ourselves about 64 miles from the area I typically park the car. Carrie quickly guaranteed a fine day by declaring that she had forgotten her hiking poles. It is a time honored tradition of Tuckerman's that you will always forget something essential. Should you break this rule, you will be guaranteed to slip on dog poo on the way up or worse.

Three steps into the hike I came to the realization that I am dreadfully out of shape. The kind of out of shape that really hurts when you have a board on your back and snowboard pants on in 80F heat. The kind of out of shape that makes you curse every step and find the faults in every piece of gear. You push on.

I have been hitting Tuck's regularly for 15 years now and I have never witnessed crowds of this scale and diversity. From the old school regulars that hike it every weekend to some random girl tramping up in moon boots, the full compliment of the circus was there. We were just a few more clowns piling in.

We made good enough time. When you hike with Price, it is more like running while listening to Animal from the Muppets. It is exhausting and hilarious all at once but made the 3.1 miles to the base of the bowl go by much quicker.

The hiking trails are shown in brown while ski trails are in yellow. Hojo's (Hermit Lake Shelter) is the little "H" near the top.

I don't care how many times you hike Tuckerman's or how many amazing sights you have witnessed the world over, it is still incredibly breathtaking when you round the final corner and get your first vision of the bowl. We powered straight through the chaos at Hojo's and rolled straight to the base of the bowl. Well, Carrie and Price powered through, I stopped to smell the...oh hell I stopped to hack up a lung, wheeze, and bs with every person I could trick into a conversation.

We knew that the circus was hot on our heels and we were dedicated to scoring a run before the big top was prime time. On the hike up to the lunch rocks, I asked a couple of ski patrolers how conditions were and where to ride. It was pretty clear that avalanche danger was moderate across all central zones and that the heat may lead to worsening conditions. We chose to hike up poseur's right and were looking to ride the "chute". When you participate in any outdoor activity, you need to draw the line on your appetite for risk. This line is defined by many factors and varies from person to person. We knew there was some risk but accepted it. The key is that we did not ignore it.

---

The Run
The hike up the headwall is intense, you are scaling a near shear face with gear on your back with a line of others pushing from behind and a crowd of hecklers below. Dangers abound, everything from falling ice and tumbling skiers to suddenly appearing crevasses opening up from the rush of water below. Right about the time that you reach the sketchiest part of the climb, your body starts revolting against the upward efforts. And inevitably this is where you lean a little too far back and get that unenviable feeling that you are going to fall. After that, you are glued to the wall.

I was about two thirds up the wall when a roar rose up from the crowd below. I looked to my left and watched as a large avalanche flew over the top of the icefall and rumbled to the base of the bowl. To my amazement, some idiotic sledder sat in the path of the avalanche despite the screams of many concerned others. The combination of feeling an avalanche rush by and then subsequently witnessing such moronic ignorance really put me on edge. I sprinted the rest of the climb.

We maneuvered our way across the top of the bowl searching for the best run down. One of the biggest issues with dropping into Tuckerman's is the steepness. The thing you can't appreciate until you are up there, is how difficult it is to spot anything below you. It is so steep that you look down and just see the base and nothing in between. Consequently, I typically end up traversing to the chute and firing that off. We were well on our way to the same result when I looked back and saw the lead into the center gully, one of the steepest sections of the bowl.
Note that the little specs of black are people at the bottom of the bowl, yes THAT steep
I was still shaken from the earlier avalanche and made the decision to run the gully in one shot. I turned the webbie camera on, told Carrie and Price I was dropping, and popped into my first turn. When you stand up on the steep incline, it is very intimidating to link in the first turn, you feel like you are dropping off the world. Once the momentum takes over and your edge is locked in, it is all instincts. The frightening thing is that once you are going, there is no dumping speed, you are just cascading down a face. After a few turns, I was through the rough portion of the slope and was able to really lay some carves down and before I knew it I was on the bottom. A moment on the snow but a feeling that won't go away for months.

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The Aftermath
I had just sat down to film Carrie and Price when a new round of cheers arose from the near 1000 spectators. I looked up just in time to see a skier rag dolling down the headwall. He finally came to rest in the debris of the previous avalanche with a leg that was not positioned the way a leg should be positioned. He reached up instinctively and yanked the broken appendage back into place. I have done that before.

Carrie and Price finally got a clear stretch of snow and started their descent. They both nailed some nice smooth lines and most importantly rode out safe. As they came to a rest beside me, a snowboarder went sailing off of a cliff, clipped a rock and tumbled down the wall. At this point, I was convinced that we were going to see someone die, something I really had no interest in witnessing. We shot to the bottom of the bowl and set up for some spectating.

Within minutes of sitting down, the entire section that we had just rode let loose in another avalanche. A rider had set it off and was caught in the middle, trying to stay afloat and not get buried. Thankfully, he was safe and walked away, but I was further convinced that it was time to get out of there.


Our motley crew made our way down until the snow ran out and hiked the rest of the way. I have seen some insane days on Tuckerman's but this was like nothing else. The combination of a near perfect run, gorgeous weather, a massive crowd and a frightening vibe made for an unforgettable experience and memory.

Video coming soon...

Originally posted at Fiestavus.com

The view from the base lodge of Bolton. This is one of Vermont's remaining "family" mountain experiences. If you look closely, you can see the hip that I over shot to flat. There was such an impact upon landing that the lift shut down for the rest of the day. Sorry skiers and riders. For those wondering, the replaced ACL held strong on the flattest highest landing to date. Yeah for surgery.

Sister of Fiestavus showing the uber amp of the day. I love spring riding in VT because every single person is pumped to get out. When you have endured the dark of winter, you truly appreciate a 60F slide down the mountain.

And to top it off, they had the world's greatest beer on tap, Long Trail Coffee Stout.

It's 8 a.m. at a highway pullout near one of Mount Rose's numerous trailheads. The Nevada air is crisp and you can almost see to the top: 10,776 feet. Fresh snow gathered in old tracks suggests hard backcountry use, both by nature-loving Tahoe free-heelers and Sacramento sled-necks whose fuel of choice is PBR not GORP.

Different mountain groups, after all, love mountains differently.

Big-mountain master Jeremy Jones is no stranger to this scene. The 33-year-old snowboarder pockets a Clif Bar, clips a pair of snowshoes to his pack and walks over to the sled trailer where Ryland Bell is doing the grunt work. The snowmobile being unloaded is one of the first on the scene, yet seven more soon show up on bouncy trailers, old F-250s and salt-licked double-loaders. It hasn't snowed in Tahoe for nearly a month, so the excitement of a late January powder day crackles in the air like static. The joke, of late, has been "June-uary" and it's one the locals are keen to ditch. Stat.

Sleds fire up all around and Jones becomes visibly annoyed by the braaps and blue smoke. The noisemakers idle for 10 minutes at a time, stuck into snow banks like mechanical cigarettes. "Let's go wait in those trees over there," he says in his trademark monotone, a no-B.S. hybrid smacking of a sea captain from his native Cape Cod crossed with the uninflected easiness of a Cali ski town bro. "Sled exhaust makes me kind of sick to my stomach."

ESPN

Nice chowdah turns blanco ninos, too bad your asses got saaaaaaaacked.

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Ahhhh.. Alaska. Where the oil flows like water and everywhere you look you see Russia....

Recently I have been lucky enough to spend some time in the great white north. I have been making the trek to Anchorage about once a month since November. Since I've started, every day has been about the same. The sun rises somewhere between 9 and 10 AM to a cloudy gray day and then sets between 4 and 5 leaving you wondering why you even got up in the first place. However, this last trip was different. Finally, the sun came out. The Chugach mountains, covered in snow, were set in beautiful contrast against a clear blue sky. Anchorage was balmy 30 degrees. A virtual tropical paradise. So I took the opportunity to embrace the Alaska winter and go play in the snow.

Saturday I woke up late, took my sweet time putting my bindings on right, and at 11:45 started the 30 mile drive down to Girdwood. If you ever have driven down Turnagain Arm, you know that the drive is absolutely stunning.

Mountains all around you. Ocean to the right... full of glacial silty chunks of ice that form mini ice canyons on the surface of the water. It's unlike anything I have ever seen. My day could have ended there. But it didn't. It got better.

Afternoon lift tickets start at 1:00 PM. I met up with my friend Dave and his step-son Devon and we got on the lift as soon as they would let us on. Made it to the top and rode all afternoon. No new snow, but what was there was softened by the sun. Alaska has a NO VEGAN policy so my forward lean was juiced. Dave was tricking out - you know... 720's and the like - and Devon was just ripping. It was a great day made better by the great company.

A few beers at the lodge and I was back in Anchorage getting rested up for day 2. I slept like a baby.

Sunday morning my friend Jim called me at 8:00 AM. I have been working with Jim for the past few months and in that time I have really gained a great appreciation for his communication style. Here is how the conversation went:

CFM: Hello
JSG: Carrie. This is Jim. Sandy and I are leaving at 9:00. Do you still want to go?
CFM: Yes
JSG: Ok. See you at our place at 9:00.
(click)

Perfect.

Dressed. Packed. On the road again by 8:45. At the mountain for first chair (which is at 10:00 AM because the sun rises so late). The morning was cold, but the sun came up over the mountains quickly and by 11:00 we were practically sunbathing.

Jim and his wife Sandy are skiers. And they are good. They pushed me way out of my comfort zone. We skied/rode hard for 5 hours. Steep bumpy trails all day.

By the end of my last run my legs were jelly. I went home content knowing that I had given the mountain everything I had.

The weekend ended with a coffee porter at the Moose's Tooth in Anchorage. I couldn't have asked for more.

I got my winter fix. Thank you Alaska.

Journal filed at MTNOPS.com

Many moons ago, the seven years winter was born in North Conway as an excuse to spend a winter in the mountains with friends. Sadly, it was proved an idea that was not sustainable. As the winters have blown through, the friends have drifted away. Last winter marked the 7YW yet very little time was spent amongst friends.

Luckily 7YW.1 has been pegged on the epicocity meter for some time. When you bring good snow and good friends together, you know good things are going to happen.

This is the story of the first run at Mad River Glen.

For the full Mad River history as collected by bad colonies, [CLICK HERE].

I awoke, well unpassed out, early Sunday morning with a dream in my foggy brain. A dream that I have lusted after for quite some time, to finally inked some turns on the sacred snow of the pinners and rear entry sick booters. The plan was simple, which of course was the beauty of it.

First, we would all walk around the house aimlessly for 30-45 minutes, discussing conditions, checking 5-6 separate weather sites, and very briefly (and I mean extremely briefly) glancing at a trail map of Mad River and the Long Trail. From this clinic in preparation, it was determined that we should load our bellies with an exorbitant amount of heavy breakfast grub.

Completing the aforementioned preps, we loaded some junk into packs while Rawlings lectured my dog on the merits of checking your pack at the house, something along the lines of, "See Bob, 5 minutes in the house is worth 6 hours on the hill, blah, blah, blah." With that bit of wisdom imparted, we hit the road quick like so as to ensure no further map reading was performed.

Rawlings and I were dropped at the top of App Gap while Medros and Vin Diesel rolled to the base to spot a car. Naturally, Rawlings had ensured failure by bugging Bob with his prep bragging. We found his toe strap snapped completely off. Luckily, we grew up riding when your bindings snapped every fourth trip down the mountain and were able to jimmy the little bastard back together before the Avalon came roaring back up the pass. This had the added benefit of guaranteeing that my fingers were properly frozen, a prerequisite for any hike in my honest opinion (IMHO).

The punters suited up while Rawdog and I scooted up the first headwall to scout out the sick lines. Lucky for all involved, we didn't utilize any of this extra time to ensure we were on the actual Long Trail. And off we went, into the great white unknown.

I proved my worth as a human being, strapping my board extra high to knock every last bit snow out of the trees and on to my head, shoulders, down my back, into my pants, and any where else snow likes to go. This came in extremely handy when we found ourselves completely unsure of our whereabouts. I was able to clear large expanses of snow for my fellow cartographers to stumble through. While certainly an enjoyable sightseeing tour, the misplacement of the trail also allowed us to elongate what should have been a relatively short hike by walking rather aimlessly around the woods of the Green Mountains.

Finally Medros, the least likely to the find the trail, directed us to the well camouflaged white blazes that marked the Long Trail. Now all we had to do was figure out how far to go on said trail before embarking on the descent portion of the adventure. At some point amongst the huffing, panting, and complaining, it was discovered that we lacked a carabineer between the four of us. A long conversation ensued as we tried to determine if we could carry on with this extreme activity lacking such critical equipment. Vin decided he would put his water bottle in his bag and not clip it to his pack. We all continued on, deeply saddened by our lack of extremeness.

Sometime down the trail, we stumbled upon a sign for the Mad River snowshoe trails. This seemed familiar to me from the brief glance at the maps. I also took a wild guess at the elevation which Vin confirmed to be close via his GPS. (Yes, we had a GPS yet no carabineer or maps or clue.) All this resemblance of having a clue of our location combined with a desire to not hike anymore and we halted our progress and prepped to descend.

Now don't get the false idea that you are dealing with amateurs, no bush league stuff here, we know how to hike. I broke out the Chimay Grande Reserve and we all warmed up around the cold beer.

There was a lot of discussion about the probability that we would all end up post holing our way out at some point. Gazing down into the gentle slope, it was easy to see myself bitching about the snow shortly.

Taking another appraisal of the situation, smiles were broke out by all, no better way to spend a Sunday.

As luck would have it, the ride down was fairly righteous with no post holing. The turns were deep, the trees were sparse-ish, and the lads were ripping-ish.

Vin sported his kit from the last Seven Years Winter in honor of the epicness, including the same smile I last saw in North Conway.

At some point along the way, these wee female skiers came upon us. They looked at us with eyes wide. I took the opportunity to wrestle the head ass title from Medros and asked, "Is this Sugarbush?" followed by some admittedly lame verbal pollution. The girls seemed unfazed and decided the best route would be to send us to detention at the bottom.

It turns out that we should have taken at least 5-10 minutes longer learning the trail map. Seems odd, doesn't it. Well we ended up on what has to be the lamest traverse at Mad River. I was pretty stoked that my forward lean was lax, as Carrie will have you know, "Vegans hate forward lean." I am a pretending Vegan that really misses bacon and cheese and hamburgers and roots, wait I get to eat all the roots I can handle, ummm dirt taste. After traversing around for awhile, we locked in a few turns and did not fall in front of the chair lift, which would have sucked large.

The little girls of the forest found us at the bottom and after some words about us being in big trouble, they shuffled off in their rear entry ski boots to find "Bruce". Had we wanted to escape, we could have simply run off in our snowboard boots while the rest of the resort waddled after doing their best impression of the Family Joseph from Lowell. However, we had nothing to fear and in fact many people asked how the snow was and were honestly very welcoming to their area. I have a feeling a fair few people feel the ban on snowboarding is an idea that has passed. We closed the day and the weekend sipping a rather tasty Bloody Mary while slowly nodding our heads and playing air acoustic guitar in the lodge.

I will conquer the Glen in the future, more to come...