First photo in Powder Mag.!!!

Last season I got a call one night around ten. It was Steve Lloyd wanting to know if I was up for doing a 4am night shoot. Without hesitation I said I’d be there. I was on a mission and stoked at any oppertunity to shoot with a photographer that gets as much published as Steve.

So I went right to bed and before I knew it I was turning the alarm clock off and getting all my gear together. The plan was to meet at the top of Little Cottonwood at 4am. That would give us enough time to get to the top of the ridge and set up the shot before it got too light.

It was a beautiful night, with snow falling ever so lightly and still winds. I remember the skin up being so calm and beautiful and the whole time just being in awe that my life choices had lead me to such an incredible place and that I was hiking up a mountain at 4am to go ski and shoot with athletes and a photographer I had looked up to for years.

I guess it is when you feel the most ballanced and your spirit is in such a possitive place, that magic truely happens.

We set up the shot with remote flashes, but with the cold temps and the dead tree in the way the flashers weren’t working right, making only about 1/4 of the shots actually happen.

It just so happened that on my turn the flashers went as planned and my body was in the right position. The minuit Lloyd took the shot he said it was a winner! I knew that if Steve was saying it was it good it must have been.

Since that evening there have been different percentages that Steve has given me for the probability that the shot would make it into Powder, but I never counted on it being a sure thing…. Well, until I got the Powder Photo Annual on Monday and saw it for myself.

Photo: Steve Lloyd

Photo in Mountain Sports and Living Magazine

I got a call in September from Chad Spector saying that he needed to do a ski photo shoot up in Ogden. Aside from being totally confused, because there was maybe a dusting of snow on the ground, I was kinda excited to get the ball roling on the season.

So we went up to Ogden dressed in our ski garb and with skis in had posed with the bronze sculptures at the base of Snowbasin. Sat by the Fire place in the lodge, staged a bar shot, and ultimately changed into lifestyle clothes and headed into town.

We did our best to convey the wintery images that the magazine was seeking and in the end it was the image of us walking down the street that won us the spot. Since this article has published I have thought seriously about my pro walking career. Could I be a pro walker and a pro skier?? It might just be too much to take on at the moment, maybe I should just stick to skiing.

Pro walker rocking the Trew Beanie

Telemark Skier Magazine Article- "White Crush"

The one thing that I have found on this crazy journey is that it is the unforeseen trips that end up to be the greatest. No matter how hard I try to plan my season before the crazyness starts there are always the opportunities that open up before me mid season, and it is usually those brief windows that open into incredible experiences.

Last season’s trip to Alaska was one of those windows. I was not planning on competing last year, I had decided that my real focus was going to be on working with photographers and pushing hard to get published in as many magazines as possible.

However, during the Outdoor Retailer Trade Show in Salt Lake City I bumped into
Lizet Christiansen, a fellow Rossignol athlete. She was reintroducing the Alpine meadows comp. to the Telemark circuit and was hoping to get some competitors signed up. I thought on it for a minute and then decided that I always say I want to inspire others and what better way to inspire others than to get involved in a competition that might attract a bunch of first time competitors.

So I told Lizet that she could count me in and I would see her in February at Alpine

As things so often do, once I made that decision the ball just kept on rolling. I soon received an email from Megan Michaelson, who prior was just a name that I had seen in Mags and a reputation that I had heard about. Her email, was inviting a list of people that I had never met (but some I had heard of) inviting us to stay at her mom’s house in Lake Tahoe for the comp.

I was shocked to receive such an incredible open invite, after all I had never met the girl and as far as I knew she didn’t even know I existed, let alone was planning on competing after my 2 year comp hiatus. But after making sure she meant to include me on the invite I accepted the open invitation with out ever thinking it would lead me to an article published in Telemark Skier and an incredible experience up in Alaska.

I went up to Alpine Meadows, competed and met some amazing people.