Photo Blog

Volcom. Mt. Seymour. Peanut Butter and Rail Jam. S.K.I.D.’s represent!!!!

Dropped the ball a bit this time around. Haven’t been back to my second home of Vancouver since last December. By the time my head cleared the morning of the jam and I made my way up the big hill in North Van, I had missed the qualifying rounds and the pb and j feast and was just in time to catch the last 5 minutes of the under 15 finals. Brilliant.

I ran into the ladies winner from Lake Louise, Jess Kimura, and got the low down on the kids and how the rails was riding. It was a sick set up @ Seymour this time around with a good sized trench to gap before you got to the actual metal. The actual metal being; a six-foot launch to an elevated 12-foot flat rail, a 30 foot butter boxed shape of snow to a 30 foot down rail and 12 foot up rail with a 6 foot gap to a 30 foot down rail. To top things off, a poll jam and tree bonk were encased in snow at the bottom of the site. As Jess so lovingly put it, “If you can’t jump a 2 foot gap, what the @#%! are you doing here?!!” Indeed.

Missed half the show. Shoot-dang! Vancouver knows how to party. Truth.

Volcom Jeff holding it down on the M-I-C.

Jess Kimura jumping the gap on her way to another win. Ustoppable.

15 and Under Winners:
1. Geoff Stinson
2. Matt Wenham
3. Taylor Hay
4. Kamron Edmonds
5. Justin Parker

16 and Over Winners:
1. Blake Payne
2. Jordan Welter
3. Ben Giesbrecht
4. Gino Mcleod
5. Taylor Pfaff

Ladies Winners:
1. Jess Kimura
2. Tia Sanders
3. Lesley Hunter
4. Sarah Pelletier
5. Caley Vanular

Open Winners:
1. Brian Mclatchy
2. Matt heneghan
3. Scot Mckenzie
4. Kellan Bruderick
5. Mike Ruddy

Well the Volcom crew rolled into Alberta with their HUGE bag of rails, prizes, money, good times and of course, the PB and J for the kiddies this past weekend. On the line were a bunch of qualifying spots for the finals @ Mammoth in May, and the kiddies were eager to stomp some shizz.

The deviants from over at Rude Boys were the guest judges/hosts/mcs/embassadors and ensured that a good time was had by everyone. Even as it tried to rain on the parade. All the riders in each division threw down some sick runs and as the day progressed, the tricks got more and more tech. I was personally blown away by the skills and techincal prowess the ladies were showing. Alberta girls know how to hold it down! Truth.

This dude was fullblast trying to land this front flip onto the straight down. He tried 2 or 3 times. Never quite finished it off though.

Check the one foot steez. He slid part of the rail on his foot. And landed it!

The ceremony down at the Kokanee Kabin.

15 and under winners:
1st: Ben Blundell
2nd: Andrew Markowski
3rd: Grant Marshall
4th: Chad Gendall
5th: Spencer Lajeunesse

16 and over winners:
1st: Layne Treeter
2nd: John Graff
3rd: Scot Brown
4th: Kyle Cook
5th: Joel Conrad

The Winning Ladies:
1st: Jesseca Kimura
2nd: Gillian Andrewshenko
3rd: Kendra Scurfield
4th: Lauren Hyde
5th: Taylor Godber

The Open winners:
1st: Kevin Griffin
2nd: Tim Nelson
3rd: Jesmond Dubeau
4th: Cody Burchell
5th: Dave Schmidt

Thanks YOU Volcom!

The story starts with a frantic call from Timmy Nelson, saying a crazed Spanish dude was hanging with him and the Golden Crew for a few days and they needed a photographer to get some shots, like NOW, or the Spanish guy was going to get a chainsaw out and start chopping off legs. I had heard tales of this maniacal Spaniard a few days earlier, so I packed my gear toute suite and drove from Red Deer, Alberta to Golden, BC at first light.

Once I arrived in Golden, The Spaniard was apprehensive. “You don’t snowboard? You’ve never taken snowboarding photographs before? Goodbye to romans!!”

I assured him, I knew what I was doing.

And with that we hit the mountains. The conditions were less than ideal for shooting (flat light, cloudy, puking snow) the 3 days I was out there, but perfect for riding, and after the first day I brought some samples to the Spaniard. I had won him over. He may have even shed a tear. But probably not.

And now here I am. With a bit of what I saw out there. In the fresh powder of Golden, BC.

Canada, son.

The boys consrtucted what we thought would be a pretty decent hip jump in the middle of a large roller. Turns out they didn’t level it out enough between where you come into the jump and the lip and it made for some crazy compression and they was getting blasted off that thing. Check the Golden Falls video for some of the results.

At least the Illustrious Blueberry Award got handed out for the Best Hip Jump!

Darcy Keller stomped one of the biggest cliff jumps he’s ever hit.

Riders: Timmy Nelson, Darcy Keller, Sasha Musji, Jessie Smith, Jason Gretzinger and Jeremy Sherwin.