Effective April 1 - 30, 2003 the Forest Service will be implementing and enforcing a Supervisor's Closure on Vail Mountain, which will prohibit unauthorized access to the Minnie's Deck area where the end-of-season BB&B event has occurred. The Forest Service issued a directive to Vail Resorts under the terms of their special use permit to shut down the BB&B event on Vail Mountain. Historically the BB&B event has taken place at Minnie's Deck and the event had evolved into a gathering of as many as 2,000 people. The behavior of participants posed serious risks to public health and safety as well as caused resource damage. The Supervisor's Closure will be in effect to ensure protection of public health and safety.

So, with a stroke of the pen, the US Forest Service ended the infamous end-of-season party on Vail Mountain, ending a 22 year tradition.  Know by many variations, Boobs, Boomers and Beers; Buns, Boobs, and Beers; Boobs, Booze and Brews, etc, (BB&B) was held on the second Tuesday in April as a way for Vail valley residents and employees to blow off some steam at the end of the season.  The event started in 1980 as a small end-of-season birthday party on Minnie's deck. BB&B devolved into an orgy of drinking, snowball fights and raucous behavior. During the last several years, partiers spent days before BB&B building large snow forts, stashing large quantities of alcoholic beverages, and, too often, hauling up more illicit substances.

Historically, the end of season party probably started much earlier with the Great Race.  This season-ender was usually held in Lionshead and People would dress up in all kinds of wild costumes. A photo of Vail local hooligan Packy Walker standing on the winner’s podium wearing nothing but a fig leaf and his gold medal made the front page of the Vail Trail newspaper. After Vail executives and lawyers killed that event people continued to get costumed up and party at Minnie's Deck.  In those days it was called the mountain formal.  Costumes included top hats and suits as well as high school prom dresses, horrible powder-blue tuxedoes and ballerina tutus.  The event grew and was combined with Warren Miller’s Mad Mountain Marathon and the Rubber Legs Slalom.  The race involved 150 or more slalom gates at the bottom of Vail Mountain and the event raised money for local charities.

When I was there in the spring of 2002, my brother Travis, his wife Michelle, Mayela and I went to the BB&B.  We all carried backpacks loaded with beers, booze and buds.  When we arrived at Minnie's deck the atmosphere was relaxed and people were lounging on the deck in the sun enjoying the event.  We set up camp on the deck and in one of the nearby snow forts crafted by a group of Beaver Creek's happyshack community.  We took some runs and explored the other various snow forts in the woods.  It was amazing the elaborate complex of forts and the adornments within.  Some had full Ice sculpture bars complete with barstools carved from compacted snow.  Others were complete igloos with only a small portal in the roof for ventilation.  Another was an elaborate maze to thwart cops and security spies.

As the day continued, there were jam sessions on the numerous rails that had been created in the woods.  One was a 50 foot long triple wave that dumped out into the main area opening.  Eventually the traditional snowball fight erupted with the main focus from the snow forts surrounding the opening at Minnie's deck.  Some forts were equipped with water balloon launchers.  A couple of times I snuck out through the woods with my snowboard to take runs down born free.  After riding the gondola back up to the top, I'd come rolling into the woods with my pants down and flipping the crowd off in my black afro.  The trick was to ride fast and get to the fort as quickly as possible.  Poor unfortunate souls that tried to follow in the wake turbulence of my entry would get blasted into oblivion.  I would stand on the wall and yell out obscenities to the enemy forts.  The response was a furious barage of snowballs.  People were getting pissed because we were getting bombed with snow.  One time, standing on the wall, I took a water balloon launcher shot to the chest that blasted me flat on my back.  Heffe came right up like a  medic with the Jaegermeister bottle to nurse me back to insanity.

In the evening when security starts to herd everybody out of there is a Chinese downhill of sorts.  This race to the pub progresses down the mountain. There is one particularly steep pitch where people who are so f*cked up that they just take their skis off and hurl themselves bodily down the face, laughing their drunken asses off.  I came up to the edge and launched the hand bag I was carrying as high in the air as I could--only to find out Mayela had her camera in it.  We all ended up at the bars in Vail village till the weee hours of the morning.  It was amazing.  I'm glad I got to experience the greatest party on earth before it was over.  Good times

As kind of a sick footnote to all of this, the event has been commercialized in a couple of different forms. Never shy about making a buck off the sweat and toil of the locals Vail Resorts promptly christened Siebert's Mad Mountain Marathon and Beaver creek Blues, Brews, and Bar-B-Que. There is no limit to the depth of slime with Vail Management.

 Add/View Comments (0)

Twin ninja babies? New 2008/09 ad campaign.. Church party scene!

According to my Japanese news source the best ninja snowboarder in the world is having twins! Two babies! Dam, is there anything Tadashi isn't good at.



Our 08/09 ad campaign has hit the news stands. Yep we're hitting hard this season with spreads in Snowboarder, no biggie.. Keep posted for Dev's ad in the October issue which should be out any day now.

I didn't know the church party scene was so wild.



Someone must of spiked the holy water.
Thanks for sending that over Jeff.

# posted by Furious @ 10:47 AM 0 comments

Monday, August 11, 2008

Dev didn't tell me about this...

Kimball just sent us a revised IS Eyewear commercial



Just got these German peddler shots in the mail.



Coleman showing the Black Forest who's boss!



Caine and Coleman kickin bike ass in Berlin. I hope they have some video on the way.

# posted by Furious @ 1:32 PM 0 comments

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Today is Kale's Birthday!

Or... Today is Kale's B day??



I couldn't decide... If you see him out Tonight buy him a bunch of drinks and introduce him to your younger sister. Happy Bday Buddy!


Classic clips!

# posted by Furious @ 11:33 AM 0 comments

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Guido Epidemic

Warning: These dudes are for real..







Sorry I posted that.

# posted by Furious @ 10:08 AM 0 comments

 Add/View Comments (1)

Since the release of our Poachers web story on burton.com, several people have contacted Burton complaining of our actions. While I fully respect their prerogative to voice their opinion, they should in return grant us the same courtesy. We have been snowboarding at major resorts for well over 20 years now and in the process, we have demonstrated our sport to be for real, and of no threat to society. The fact is that two of the four resorts operate on federal forest land, which makes this issue even more frustrating since the taxes of many snowboarders help finance these resorts. I'm confident that if these four resorts outlawed skiing tomorrow, there would be a protest long before 20 years passed, and rightfully so. I want to add that we have been careful not to break any laws, nor to encourage anyone to break any laws (see the Poaching 10 Commandments on burton.com/poachers) in our efforts to liberate these mountains. If you have spent as much time in the mountains as I have, you would know that every mountain has a personality, and while they can be brutally cruel at times, discrimination is not in their DNA.

 Add/View Comments (4)

Recently the AFP reported that China was experimenting on dispersing clouds to prevent rain during Olympic events. Conversely, officials claim that China has already set up an extensive system that may be able to make it rain during the games if needed. Now wouldn't this kind of thing be useful in the winter. Especially after the winter we've just had on the east coast with very little in terms of actual snow fall. A little rain would also be useful in fighting the forest fires that recently ravaged the western United States. On the other hand, this could also turn out to be just another modality to spread disease.

It was August 10th, 2007 when the AFP reported that chinese scientists were "conducting high-altitude tests to eliminate clouds and stop rain [from] spoiling next year's Beijing Olympics."¹ This was achieved by dispersing silver iodide and Diatomite into the atmosphere. These two compounds are thought to prevent moisture from forming into rain drops. Silver iodide is used as an antiseptic and diatomite is a naturally occurring, soft, chalk-like sedimentary rock so conventional wisdom would lead us to believe that the process is safe. At the very least, spectators at the 2008 Olympic games have little chance of catching some form of an infection while chinese scientist are pumping the air full of antiseptic. The idea of controlling the weather with chemicals does, however, raise a small red flag in my mind, although maybe I just watch too many James Bond type movie with over the top, megalomaniacal villains.

The one thing that I find most interesting about this is that silver iodide, having a crystaline structure similar to ice, can induce freezing to the moisture in clouds when disperssed in the air (in China they use old anti-aircraft guns to shoot cans of the compounds into the sky). The first idea that came to my mind when I learned of this was that this seems like a feasible way of making it snow. I suspect that if done properly, this could also be much more effective than arrays of snow cannons on your favourite hill, or even better, combine the two.

Apparently this technique called cloud seeding is not new which makes me wonder why I hadn't heard of it until now. Had I known about this, I would have focused my energies last year on cloud seeding the skies over Vermont and western Quebec instead of wearing my pyjamas inside out and flushing ice cubes down the toilet (which is commonly thought to be a fundamental part of the snow dance). Perhaps the researchers who study this know something that we don't such as: a) cloud seeding is prohibitively expensive or b) cloud seeding is a potential health hazard. In the first case, I feel bad for the people of China who will have to foot the bill for this when the Olympics come around in 2008. In the second case I feel bad for the people of China who will be exposed to cloud seeding and the side effects of this technique, probably even after the Olympics are done and gone. In either case, it looks like I feel bad for the chinese. In the meantime, I'll be accepting donations to the "seed the clouds to shred the gnar" fund in an attempt to raise money, kind of like a snow insurrance policy, to seed the skies if we are again in dire need of snow this winter. I give you my assurances that this fund will be used only in cases of emergencies, namely on days where I'm snowboarding and can't find any freshies. The governing body of this fund will not be elected for obvious reasons.

So next winter when your hitting the slopes and you notice a little precipitation starting to fall. Look up in the sky, you may be getting a random dose of anti-septic for a few fresh lines. One way or the other, the important thing here is to...

Keep shreddin' the GNAR!

References

1. China working to make clouds vanish during Olympics, http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070810/sc_afp/oly2008chnweathercloud_070810064642, Fri Aug 10, 2:54 AM ET.

 Add/View Comments (0)

Edad: 21

Ocupación: Estudiante

Lugar de nacimiento: Orlando EEUU

Spot favorito: Me encanta pucon cuando esta bueno, también chillan y cualquiera que esté ponder.

Tabla: rosignol

Stance: goofy

Sponsor: gotcha y rosignol.

1. Cómo y cuándo comenzaste con el Snowboard?

Cuando tenia como 11 años estaba en pucón esquiando con mi familia y de aburrido le cambie mi ticket a un local por que me prestara su tabla un rato y ahí empecé a tirarme a fe con botas de ski en una tabla gigante jajaja. Después cuando tenia 13, moleste caleta a mi viejo para que me compre un snowboard y empecé a subir y a subir con mis amigos

Cuál ha sido la experiencia o aventura más terrible en la montaña?

Una vez cuando tenia como 14 años estaba en el llaima y de alucinado me pase del camino caleta y me perdí, estuve caminando como 4 horas perdido y aparecí como a las 9 cuando ya estaba oscuro hace rato, esa vez me asuste caleta, menos mal éramos 3.

2. Qué haces para combatir la rutina santiaguina?

Andar en skate con mis amigos en donde sea y carretear cuando se puede.

3. Consideras el Snowboard más como un deporte que un estilo de vida?

Para mi el snowboard es un deporte fantástico que te lleva a un estilo de vida mejor.

4. Qué te lleva a hacerlo parte de tu vida?

Que es lo que más me gusta hacer, entonces no podría dejarlo, seria como dejar una parte de mi.

5. Tienes proyectos futuros concretos?

Salir de la u y ponerme a trabajar y andar en snowboard lo más posible.

6. Si no es la nieve es…

Hacer eventos, pero siempre relacionado con la montaña.

7. Cual es tu spot favorito en Chile?

Cuando pucón te toca bueno es el spot mas bonito y es perfecto para hacer saltos con formas perfectas, me encanta.

8. Agradecimientos

A mi hijo, la carla, toda mi familia, mis amigos, HM2D y todos los cabros motivados.

9. Quienes te inspiraron o te inspiran a andar y mejorar día a día?

Cuando chico me volvía loco viento los videos que salía terje y hoy en DIA los que mas me inspiran a andar mejor cada día son Manuel díaz y el pen Camus porque siempre están tratando cosas nuevas y motivados a cagar.

 Calentamiento global: estupidez

Número:1

Agua: que sed

Comida: quiero           

Música: hip hop

Religión: nada

 Add/View Comments (2)

 

Africa’s Congo is the world's second largest rainforest, and it is under threat. Tens of millions of people depend on the Congo for their survival, and as a major biodiversity hotspot, it’s home to some of Africa's most amazing wildlife, like gorillas, bonobos and forest elephants. Like all large intact forests, the Congo is a critical defense against man-made climate change.

Take Action!

International logging companies are creating social and environmental destruction in the Congo. Taxes paid by companies for rights to log the forest are supposed to go to forest communities for essential services like education and healthcare. But over the last three years, not a cent paid by logging companies has reached local communities.

In exchange for timber worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, the companies are giving “gifts” like bags of salt and crates of beer worth less than $100. Poorly paid officials sometimes have only a bicycle to help them patrol vast areas of rainforest, making enforcement of conservation law basically impossible.

Help Save The Congo!

Despite a moratorium on new logging being in place since 2002, over 37 million acres of rainforest (an area the size of Illinois) have been granted to the logging industry, most of this in areas vital for protecting biodiversity. But it's not too late to prevent the destruction of this rainforest and the communities it supports. Please help: make your voice heard!

Peace!
ERIK

 Add/View Comments (0)

The road trip started for me when I picked up the rest of the Ottawa crew who were riding the Bangbus to Blue (No one is really sure how it came to be known as the Bangbus, but this became its official name).  Once Chris (AddictiveEscape), Jeremy (Mr. King), Brianna (atomicsnowqueen), myself, food, booze and snowboarding gear were loaded into the bus, it was time to face the white out conditions on the long drive to Blue.

The drive took about 7 hours total (including a stop at Wendy's to steal trays for beerbogganing and a few pee breaks).  Upon our arrival in Collingwood, it took us a while to find the right chalet, "Chef" (crasiestwy) came through for us, he arrived just minutes after we did and immediately knew where to go so he let us in.  Once we were settled, the craziness began with a jump building party.  Most of the night was spent in the parking lot in front of the chalet drinking beer and doing acid drops (the snowboarding kind, not the small paper square kind) from the second floor balcony.  We developed a bit of a fan base including the skanky girls from the chalet next door; they saw us building the landing and asked us if we were planning on jumping from the balcony.  We call them skanky girls because with a little more convincing, they probably would have taken their clothes off to watch us do acid drops; however no one from our chalet seemed particularly interested in that.  Within an hour, most of the neighbourhood was outside their chalets watching the show with iPods blasting from car stereos and crazy shred dogs doing their crazy thing, it was a good night.

Once we got tired of jumping, we re-appropriated some DVD cables from one of the other chalets (our chalet had a DVD player without cables for some reason), and proceeded to chill out watching shred videos and eating pretzels.  Chris eventually passed out on the couch so the pretzels then became projectiles to try to wake him up.  The floor was littered with pretzels, so the next morning while walking around in the living room area, the floor seemed a little crunchier than usual.  The phrase "f**king pretzels" was uttered on a number of occasions.

Saturday was a day of riding.  In hopes of not having to buy lift tickets, we parked the cars at the top of Blue and rode down from there.  The conditions were great, I suffered from toe drag on the first run however (this is what happens when you angulate too aggressively) and did at least one complete flip, dragged my backside, got up and rode it out to hoots, hollers and laughs from the rest of the crew.  There was much progression on this day too, by the end of it we had the rookies cutting lines in the trees, dropping cliffs and trying terrain park features.  All this without buying a single lift pass and there were nine of us riding together that day, this feat still amazes me (thank you to lax standard liftie operating procedures).  Once we were done riding for the day, it was time to head back and plan the festivities for the night.  This included more front yard jibs, a bangbus jib (videos coming soon hopefully) and even more progression as the rookies all successfully executed trash can bonks.  As was the case the previous night, our adoring fan club was there to watch the show and drink their trashy asses silly.

The final day started a little later than the previous.  We were all pretty tired and sore for the previous day's riding.  There was still one thing left to do however; ride down the Orchard.  Since it had been snowing on and off all weekend, and nobody rides the Orchard on account of there not being any lift access, we decided that we would go poach some freshies on Sunday morning.  This required some pentagon planning and military like precision.  The plan was to park one car at the bottom of the Orchard, pile everyone else into the other two cars to shuttle them up.  After the run, the drivers of the other two cars would be shuttled up in the car that was left behind to come pick up the rest of the crew.  So off we went, Carrie (Cazza21) parked her car in the P1a lot, and she jumped in the Bangbus for the drive up the mountain.  We parked on a dead end street, skated back to the mountain road, then stealthily snuck into the forest.  Once out of eye sight of the road, we started hearing the distinctive sounds of snowmobiles.  Thinking it was the Blue Mountain Gestapo, we hid in the trees hoping they wouldn't notice our tracks.  Once we were confident that we hadn't been pinched, the hike to the orchard began.  It was totally worth the effort, we arrived at the top to untracked runs; freshies are so beautiful.  Sean (powjunkie) took the lead followed by Jeremy, Chris, then the girls followed by Adam.  I was bringing up the rear to make sure everyone made it down since at least half our party had never ridden fresh powder before.  I'll tell you, there's nothing quite like riding fresh untracked snow.  Even if it's in Ontario and it's on top of a thin layer of surface melt; it's a total Zen experience.  After getting my fill of nose presses and spraying the trees on turns, we gathered up at P1a and decided that we should end on a high note.  We packed up our gear and made our way out of Blue Mountain to finally take our separate ways home.

This was easily the best Snowboard.com meet I've ever been on which gives me high hopes for Telus this coming April.  A special thanks to the entire crew for being the super chill individuals that they are and making the weekend as fun as it was.  Here are a few things to remember from this weekend:

• It IS possible to ride for free even with a large group of riders.

• Skanky trailer trash girls are willing to take their clothes off to see people do seemingly life threatening stunts; just take inventory and make sure that you actually WANT them to do this before you make the suggestion however, it sometimes sounds like a better idea than it actually is.

• If you don't have cables to watch DVDs in your chalet, "borrow" them from another chalet.  On a related note, I am still in possession of said cables, I'm willing to make a trade; show me what you got.

• I think all the ice cubes I've flushed down the toilet have finally started paying off.  I think mother nature loves us now (at least until this weekend, +8 degrees, aye fawk off).

Keep Shreddin' the GNAR!
J.

 Add/View Comments (0)