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after hearing stories from their team riders, about how insanely epic the pipe was at breckenridge, we had high hopes going over there for the dew tour this week. and we were let down. The pipe was long (wicked) and perfect width and pitch. however it was quite undervert and lots of riders were struggling to make it back into the pipe each hit. I'm not a fan of undervert pipes.
So our practise day came and went and we hoped for a better pipe for the qualifiers the following day. The walls were a little better, but still pretty undervert and to make it more fun a pretty good snowstorm moved into breck the day of the contest.
We had a long practise session in the morning and i was making zero headway into getting a run down. I was pretty bummed. As the girls did their runs, we ate lunch and i rearranged my head. In our short warm up prior to our guys heats I was able to figure something of a run out and was happy to at least have an idea of something to do. I didn't land a full 'contest' run in practise but I'm ok with that as long as i have ideas for runs. I'll spare the details of my runs (and it's in the video), but they were mostly switch. After landing my first run, and getting a pretty good score (i was around the cutoff score), I decided to do what would be hopefully a harder run. I moved a few tricks around, and added a few other ones and landed the run. I was pretty happy with it and it felt like it was a better run. Coaches and friends all thought it was better too, however the judges disagreed with that and scored me lower. So i ended the dew tour with being just a few guys out from qualifying. I was pretty bummed on not making the cut, but happy i was able to put some decent runs together in a pipe that i really didn't like.
The following day Ross Baker, agent to the stars/snowboard legend Bob Klein and my self went out to berhtoud pass to hike some backcountry lines. We met a few friends of Bob's who knew the area and we were off. Beauty bluebird day, pretty stable snowpack and nice snow greeted us up at nearly 12000 feet. We had a super fun day, hitting little cliffs and chutes, and getting some fun pow laps in. It was Ross' first time in the Rockies backcountry (he's from tahoe) and he quickly learned that if it looks a little bony, it's actually really bony! Very different snowpacks between the rockies and the coastal mountain ranges. It was a great day in between all the pipe days, practise sessions and contests. We all loved it.
And now my colorado trip is done and i'm sitting in the denver airport waiting to go home to squamish.
enjoy the little video
jl

justin lamoureux - dew tour and berthoud pass, dec 2010 from justin lamoureux on Vimeo.

The contest season has started down here in colorado with the US grand prix at copper mtn. It's been an interesting week for me.
I showed up a week ago to get a few days in the pipe prior to the contest. On my first day at the pipe i realized i was riding a broken board. In my last minute packing i didn't really notice which boards i packed and grabbed the wrong one! thankfully i had 2 more boards with me. I usually like having 2 identical boards for contests (in case one gets broken) and now i was left with only one of my favorite boards and a prototype which i hadn't ridden yet. Turns out the prototype didn't last long under my feet and didn't make it to the contest. Having only one board is a major stress to me when it's contest time. My boards usually take quite a while for me to break but you never know. Thankfully i got another one sent down so I should be sweet for the rest of my trip.
I had a few good practice days where the pipe was good and a few where it wasn't so hot. However, one of those days Copper received 13inches of snow so i didn't ride pipe that day. Copper has a pretty good base for this time of year so we were able to ride the trees and some of the alpine bowls. It's always nice to get a good powder day while on a 'pipe' trip. and it's puking right now so hopefully tomorrow will be another good one.
Onto the qualifiers, which were yesterday. I've never really felt 'on' this time of year at coppers pipe so I generally use it as a warm up for the rest of the season. I'd planned 2 slightly different runs for the contest. The first one was supposed to be backside air, frontside 720 indy tuck knee, cab 900 melon, switch backside 720 mute to backside 720 japan. However, i tried to adjust my line after the first 720, ended up scrubbing some speed and it just messed up my line. I ended up falling on the switch backside spin. For my second run, the plan was to drop in with a mctwist (instead of the backside air) into the same rest of the run and finish it off with a switch frontside alley oop for my straight air. Which as an entire run, at this time of year was, somewhat ambitious as it's a pretty tech run and i wasn't sure there'd be room left in the pipe for the switch alley oop. And i hadn't landed (or even tried) that run yet in practice. but i really enjoy doing new runs spur of the moment so i was psyched for the run. I ended up landing the run but it was too sketchy to go through into finals.
The video below is a compilation of both runs put together, just to give an idea of what i was going for.
We've got a few days of riding either copper or breckenridge then it's the dew tour next week at breck. and we're hearing the breck pipe is epic. I can't wait to get up there and check it out.
jl

getting the legs warmed up for the season up in the mountains above squamish.
fun couple of days splitboarding with maelle ricker, rob fagan and my girl kimmie.
whistler just got a few more feet of snow this week. get out there and enjoy!
jl

justin lamoureux - early season splitboarding from justin lamoureux on Vimeo.

A few days ago i got a call asking if i wanted to go ride and shoot some stuff on whistler mountain a day before the resort opens for the season. With a big storm bearing down on us, it was a YES from me. That storm gave us 30cm yesterday, and today we got to ride.
Our crew consisted of Mike Douglas, Malle Ricker, Paul Morrison shooting photos, his son Ian, Lesley Anthony, a few video guys, Ryan and Steve from Whistler's marketing department and myself.
nov 18, 2010. paul morrison photo.

We got an early start to the day as we only had the "morning" to get some shots and a few laps down to green chair.
After last year's epic opening, as we went up the gondola, it was a tough pill to swallow seeing trees and rocks sticking up the lower portion of the mountain. But, once we got a little higher things started looking much more filled in and way deeper!

We spent the morning shooting and riding roundhouse roll and a few trails down to green chair. Not the steepest terrain but soo fun to get back on the board and enjoy some powder. We were actually only allowed on a few trails. They do save the better steeper trails for opening day. There's some really deep pockets up there and we all had some really good turns. the whole crew was so happy to be riding.

Being early season it's really easy to get carried away and jump and ride where you shouldn't. usually I'm really conscious of that and my first few turns really made me remember. Our first run we setup for a few turn shots and i got a little carried away. After literally my first 2 turns of the year, I ollied a few little trees off a roller and launched. DUMB! i dropped right into this steeper zone (which in full winter would have been fine) and right into a bunch of little trees and rocks and was lucky enough to be able to find a landing and ride through them all down to the cat track. I laughed pretty hard, but i could have ended my season right there.

If you get up there this weekend, enjoy the snow. there's some deep turns to be had just remember it's 'low tide' in the mountains right now so take it easy. plenty more snow to come.
Winter's on!

couple more shots from today at whistler blackcomb's facebook page...
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=254131&id=11092928401#!/album.php?...