My first adventure splitboarding!?!

What an insane experience! I got to Buttermilk just before 11:00pm to meet up with my buddy Matt and begin the hike. He has 4 different splitboards and literally lives to ride, he brought along a board that I was going to be using and he couldn't have picked a better board! It was an Atomic Poacher 157 swallow tail splitboard, super stiff and super fast. He gave me the run down on how to set it up, showed me how the binding system worked and we were on our way. We started right at the base of Buttermilk and skinned straight up through the X-Games halfpipe, followed the slopestyle course up and headed toward our destination, Fort Frog. It took us about 2 hrs to make it, since it was my first time skinning up (and because I'm way out of shape) it took a little longer then it usually would have. So we made it to Fort Frog and I still felt like I could have kept on going, I didn't realize how helpful the split skis were when hiking up hill, it makes it so effortless. Well I've never been to Fort Frog but let me tell you, that has to be one of the coolest forts I've ever been in, it's this fort surrounded by a huge wooden fence. The best part is inside the fort it self there are couches, tables, chairs, electricity, and heat!! It was basically a mini house in the woods on Buttermilk, most comfy place to have a cold beer after a long hike. By the time Matt and I finally checked the time it was already 1:30am which is kind of a problem because the last bus we could catch back to our apartments was at 2:00am! So we rushed to put the boards together and get everything put away in our packs and started on the trip down. This was by far the most amazing run thus far in my snowboarding career. The moon lit up the entire mountain like the sun, it was only mid twenties and not windy at all. The way the board cruised down the fresh corduroy, the wind against my face, everything about the ride was totally different from any other run I've taken in my life. I felt a sense of accomplishment, I had climbed up a mountain so that I could take that one perfect run all the way down again. I have been bitten by the split bug! I love the feeling of earning that run and I want to keep at it! Last night may have been my very first splitboard adventure but it surely will not be my last. I have decided to start on a project and build my own splitboard, I've got the split kit ordered and I was lucky enough to find the perfect board to use for my project. Once I start building it I will keep updating you on the progress as well as with some photos! Speaking of photos I am sad to say my phone died before I had the chance to get any good photos from last night but next hike I will make sure I snap a few!

Bluebird day at Aspen Highlands

Well I was lucky enough to end up with today and tomorrow off of work, this is awesome because we just got about 6-8" of fresh snow! It may not seem like a whole lot but it's better then nothing for this powder hound in training! I woke super early this morning, did some stretches, made some breakfast and was out the door to meet the bus by 8:45. I was able to make it up to the mountain by the time the lift opened and was on the first 10 chairs to the top. I decided to try out a new board today, thankfully I work in a rental shop that is filled with different styles of boards. I took out the Burton Sherlock 157cm, the board caught my eye because it has a nice loose flex yet is still a directional board. I set it up with my usual stance, 12 degrees in the front and -12 degrees in the back with a 21" width. I first rode it just set off of the reference points but quickly found out that it put me a little more forward then I really wanted to be, after a quick adjustment to where my bindings were and a fast buff wax I was set for some runs. I had hoped there would still be a good amount of untracked powder but I was sadly mistaken. The conditions were still fantastic, it was fresh soft corduroy as far as the eye could see! I really couldn't have asked for a much better day ( I wouldn't have complained if it had dumped over a foot though!). Although I had a lot of fun riding the Burton Sherlock, which handled the groomers really well, next time I go out for a ride I'll be taking out my Burton Hero 158w. It has become one of my favorite boards for just about every kind of riding, well everything except for ice of course! I still have quite the day/night ahead of me though, I signed up for a CPR/AED and First Aid class at the Colorado Mountain College (CMC), it starts tonight at 5:30 and again tomorrow night at the same time. I figured it would really be nice to know exactly what to do in the case of an emergency, as well as just good common knowledge to have when working in a ski rental shop where, for some reason, people tend to hurt themselves kind of often haha. Mainly it's for a few summer jobs I applied for, a few up at High Cascade Snowboard Camp and at Windells Camp. Once I'm out of the class this evening the real fun begins, tonight is my first time trying out a splitboard. It's a full moon and in Aspen that means full moon party at the top of Buttermilk! It should be quite the interesting night! Stayed tuned for how my first splitboard experience goes!

The Spot

Favorite spot to relax on the mountain

The base of Highlands

View from the Deep Tamerity lift on Highlands today

Such an awesome powder day at Highlands

From earlier this season, hiking the Highlands bowl with my buddy Andy

Cobie, my roommate, creepin at the Buck Lodge

My roommate drives cat and the perks are awesome.....

You never know what life has in store for you...

Well it has been some time since I last wrote anything and a lot has changed over the past 9 months!! It has been an extremely challenging time for me and so much has changed in my life. Many people have come and gone throughout this time and so many memories have been set in gold. I had the privilege of living with a few of the best people I have encountered, Tom and Amanda opened their doors to me and allowed me to be their resident "guy on the couch", While living with them in their small studio apartment I learned to expand my mind and look at things from a whole new perspective, I was able to see the kindness that often times goes unseen. I learned to find pleasure in the little things, Taking a bike ride for hours just to take in all that is around me, sitting on the rocks by the lake watching the waves allow the seaweed to dance slowly to the beat of the water. I lived with Tom and Amanda for most of the summer and I must say it is one of my most memorable. Though with all good comes the bad, while expanding my mind over the summer I not only was able to see the good in the world but also it emphasised the bad as well, this took a very big toll on my mental state. It had pushed me closer to a place I hadn't ever wanted to be, the darkness. I began to lash out with anger, I felt so unhappy with where I was in my life and what I still had yet to accomplish. So I had a falling out with Tom and Amanda, I moved back to my parents house to figure out my life. To this point I hadn't put the attention I should have to my bus, which made my father quite angry since this was my "dream". I was afraid of my own dream though, the freedom that my bus represented terrified me because I wasn't ready to take on the world alone, I was too weak. I was still in a dark place through this time and again had a falling out, but this time it was with my parents. I lashed out at them because I felt I could but it just made our relationship weak and pushed us apart. So I did the only thing I felt that I could, I packed up everything I thought I would need and left everything else, moved into a place known as Green ST. and begin the saddest part of the past 9 months. I moved into a room with a woman I had been on and off with for the past year, except she was pregnant with another mans child. She had been seeing me and still seeing him behind my back, and I still stayed with her because I loved her. Though I pretended most of the time that everything was fine, I was so destroyed inside. I spent most of my days either working or riding my bicycle for hours just to keep my head clear. It was at this point I finally decided I needed to begin the journey I was so passionate about once before, only this time I would do it differently. I had begun to save everything I could and started making plans with a good friend, Colin Darcy, to move with him up to Killington, VT. We would both work at the ski resort for the winter and live the dream of a ski bum. Like most things though, it never works out quite as well as you hope. I had given Colin half of the security deposit for an apartment he had found right on the side of Killington, the landlord then decided to run off with our money leaving us broke and without a place to live in Vermont. I thought I was meant to stay in Canandaigua forever at this point.
        Then, I had remembered another one of my friends telling me he was moving to Colorado for the winter season. Cobie was moving to Aspen, CO to drive snowcat for the winter, I told him my situation and he said I could come to Aspen with him if we could split everything down the middle, I explained I was very low on funds but would pay him back for everything as fast as I could, he agreed. I finished out my last few weeks at the apartment complex that I had been a head groundskeeper at, made amends with my parents, and said my good byes. I was extremely broke, only had 2 bags of my things, and had no guarantee of a job, but I knew the snow made me happy and that I needed to get away from where I was, so I just went for it. Three days of driving across the country, countless terrible gas station and fast food meals later we made it to Aspen. The first week we slept on out friends floor, Andy Pullis, who had moved out the season before us. We arrived on a Saturday so Monday I went straight to the HR for Aspen Ski Co in search of a job. I was able to immediately find a job working as a rental technician at Buttermilk Mountain, home of the X-games.
        I've been in Aspen for almost 4 months now, I have paid back all that I owe to Cobie, and I have been able to set aside a comfortable amount of money for traveling after the season is over. I have been able to replace all of my riding gear and can ride 2-3 days a week. I get to wake up in the rocky mountains everyday and breath in fresh mountain air. If you had asked me where I would be now 6 months ago, I never would have thought it would be in Aspen. I've been able to make it this far and now all I want to do is continue this journey. I have plans to either remain in Colorado for the year to add to my traveling money or if I am able to get the positions I may be moving to Oregon for the summer to work at a snowboard camp. I don't quite know what is in store for me after this season, all I do know is that there is a large part of the world I still have yet to see and a lot of snow I have yet to ride. I'm going to continue chasing my dream and I truly encourage you all the never stop chasing your dreams and desires, it will take a lot of work and with every up is a down but keep pushing through it. Life is about trials and tribulations, you will face many obstacles throughout your journeys they are their so you can prove to yourself that you are strong enough to follow your dreams, some will not be strong enough, that doesn't mean you give up. It means you work twice as hard to reach what you desire.