More Hose

Tahoe weather sucks again. It's hot. Really hot. So hot that I was wearing a t-shirt outside yesterday. Sucks. If i want hot, I'll go to a hot place. I want bitter winter goodness and enough snow to bury a small town. A small town like Truckee, where I'm living while waiting for the doomsday snow. The good part is that the crap weather thins the crowds, the resorts are slower, and more employees are on the hill. It's cool to cruise around the mountain, do park laps, and every other person you see happens to be your friend. It's actually in these conditions that one sees the progression of freestyle riding, because everyone's in the park. The future of snowboarding is freestyle approach to natural terrain, but the practice is in the park. You know what place seems to never get hosed? Mammoth. In the last storm, where we got maybe a foot of snow, Mammoth got 12. Twelve! TWELVE FEET! 4 METERS!

For anyone who thinks 30ft kickers are huge, or even the record-breaking 187ft kicker at Hemsedal, Norway was big, check out this jump. 250ft.! That tiny speck in the middle? That's a dude! AutoSnowCo. Agent Scott Llapitan photo.