The plan was simple: Go snowboarding. Seriously, that’s it. Snowboard and shoot photos/video.
Tactics Boardshop recently added Jared Elston and Demetri Bales to their snow team, so what better way to introduce them than heading to their home mountain for three days of shredding? And that’s exactly what we did.
The forecast called for blue skies and warm weather all weekend. The coldest day was Friday, with temps hovering around freezing. The weekend progressively warmed up until we were riding in T-shirts and coaches jackets by Sunday. We’re not complaining, but it would have been nice to get some snow seeing as it is the end of January.
Friday consisted of lots of follow-cam park footage. It’s easy to get those shots. Talk about stacking clips. In case you didn’t know, there is such a thing as too much footage. That’s a good problem to have, though. We cruised back to snow team rider Randal Seaton’s Sunriver cabin, grilled some burgers, cracked a case of beer and played Lick The Cat’s X-Games Drinking Game. #triplecork
Mt. Bachelor’s Summit lift opened Saturday, just in time for all the weekend warriors to track out the bowl. Wait, what? Yeah, there wasn’t any snow, but it’s hard to avoid Summit on a bluebird day. We hiked a couple hundred yards past the lift to a small ravine where Randal had found a natural quarter pipe. With a little shovel work and elbow grease, we shaped it up and got the session going.
Handplants. Handplants everywhere. With Randal Seaton and Beau Cummins dropping in, we wouldn’t have it any other way. Are you sick of handplant photos? Cause we sure ain’t.
As the sun dipped to the west, the session wound down and we traversed Mt. Bachelor’s bowl and dropped into some steep slush. It’s wasn’t pow, but at least the bowl was open. And it was surprisingly rippable. Today was a good day.
Sunday – man, people were beat, battered, and bruised. And hungover. Damn you, Carlo Rossi. Pro tip: drinking wine from a gallon jug in a hot tub is not the way to end a session, or start your night.
Sunday’s session started with everybody in the park, but, just like Friday, it felt like too many cooks in the video production kitchen were trying to stack clips. Some people broke off back to Summit. Some headed to Pine Martin. Some lapped the park. No bad days when you’re strapped into your snowboard.
Are you still reading? No. No you’re not. You probably just watched the video above and bounced.
SQUAD (minus Jonah, Demetri, and Jared)
Words and photos by Benson Ka’ai