Whistler 4/20

This was the most memorable 4/20 holiday celebration yet.  I jumped in a car with Halo, Karim, and Ellie. We made our way through the northwest and over the boarder of Canda and the U.S. to make our final destination in Whistler, B.C.  On 4/20 we got to go ride even though it was socked in and difficult to see. Shredbetties,com was nice enough to be able to help with lift tickets making the day and the whole trip all that much better.  

Post riding, we celebrated further by lazing about the pool and hot tub as the sun graced us with a few moments of sunshine.  Eventually, some how, Mark Frank Montoya joined our shit show and drank some vodka and grape cool-aid "Grape Drank!" with us to kick start the night.  

A nice stroll over to the Aussie house solidified the purpose of celebrating 4/20 and rejoined some good friends for a good time.  Well intoxicated at this time, I thought it would be a great idea to go long boarding with Josh, which turned out to not be a good idea.  I was left with a wonderful scar the size of my shoulder blade to forever remember this day.  

At this point the rest of the night beings to become a fuzzy mess, but a few more drinks later and a few bars later we ended up at Buffalo Bills dancing our asses off to a Led Zepplin cover band.  With all of us doing air guitar, one could have guessed we were all having a great time.  Thankfully, Erykah showed up to help us drunkies make it through the rest of the night.  She helped us purchase food to eat and baby sat us like a bunch of little kids.  

The rest of the trip panned out to be just as fun.  I had a great time riding with Erykah and Ellie.  It is not too often I have the opportunity to shred with those ladies. Karim was really sweet and was nice enough to take photos to document the event. I think spending 4/20 in Whistler may need to become a yearly tradition.    

Billabong's Flaunt-it at Mt. Symoure

Canada was quite the adventure.  Halo and I started our way into Portland to meet up Karim Hadid, who was rad enough to come with us to shoot photos.  From his house we hit mad rush hour traffic so we scoped out some stuff at the zoo.  There we chilled in the train, drinking beers in mailing envelopes and killing some green.  Our final destination for the evening was Bellingham, WA at a friends house to post up before crossing the boarder the next morning.  The next day started out amazing.  We made it through the boarder to Mt. Seymour with ease and the morning was sunny and splendid.  Billabong was holding a competition called Flaunt It for female riders only.  There was a huge turnout, I thought, with 30-35 girls.  The slopestyle course was really fun. There was a pseudo stair feature at the start going into one easy to clear jump into an impossible to clear jump.  The second jump needed to be pointed straight at from the first.  I went for the large side, only to case it and bruise up my heel.  From there I stuck to the small side.  Halo was killing it.  She has been recovering from a knee injury and I thought she had a great performance.  The second part of the day was dedicated to a rail jam that was held on the pseudo stair features.  The comp was based on best trick, not overall performance, so I focused one doing my best stock trick...tail 270 out on the flat down box.  That landed me a spot on the podium in 3rd.  From there we drove to Whistler.  Thanks to a group of Australians, we had a place to crash and people to party with.  The village was a riot that night.  Halo and I got our dancing shoes out for the occasion.  Did I mention we polished a bottle of 151 prior to going out.  Unfortunately, I lost 20 canuck dollars and my hoodie.  Where they went?  I wish I knew.  At least I didn't loose myself.  We were expecting fresh snow the next day, which was a total deception.  Due to the lack of snow and our major hung over state, home is where we found ourselves late that night.