With warm temps and a shitty forecast on the coast it was time to get out of town. 8 Mile was heading to Edmonton and Calgary for a week so I jumped on board.

Shit food. Check.

Filthy truck. Check.

Sweet crew. Check. We got ourselves a roadtrip. L-R Jody Wachniak, 8 Mile filmer Trout, Andrew Geeves and Logan Haubrich.

First stop was Edmonton. The crew checks things out.

This spot was a bro tow to drop. Jody and Logan watching Geeves while they stay out of the film shot.

Best part of digital is the instant reward of seeing your shots. Trout shows the crew his handywork.

Next spot was a bust since we are constantly stunting and loitering with multiple dogs. If Rick Hansen was hanging we would of headed to the right.

While we cruised around looking for more spots Trout found out that his diesel truck doesn't have unlimited gas mileage. It was a shocker.

After a few days in Edmonton we cruised down to Calgary. There wasn't nearly as much snow but we made do.

Boy wonder Loosh and his cubic zirconium joined the crew for the Calgary portion.

Watch out folks. Geeves has himself a camera and his angles could go pro.

Todd Williamson rolled with us for a day in Calgary. Had never hung with him before, he's pure comedy and a solid boarder to boot. Tone warms up before we head to the next spot.

From January 12-14^th, 6 photographers ( Tim Zimmerman, Andrew Strain, Robin Oneil, Blake Jorgenson, Ilja Herb and myself John Scarth ) were sent out to shoot for the 5^th Annual Arcteryx Deep Winter Photo Challenge. The weather delivered what the challenge is all about, storms conditions and new snow daily. After 3 days of shooting each photog put together a 3-5 minute slideshow to be shown at the Chateau Whistler. It was an amazing experience and I was honoured to be part to be part of it. A huge thanks to Ryan Proctor and the crew at Whistler Blackcomb for putting on the event. And hat’s off to all the other photographers for all there hard work.  Here’s a few pics from my show, stay tuned for the full slideshow and a making of video.

At the end of three days we had done 10 runs. All but one of them were accesed by the Creekside Gondola and Redline. Here Zeke Helliwell and myself hood up for the windy ride up red.

Phil Nicoll was the token skier in my show and here he plays the " kook " as Dave Kelleher slashes above.

Creekside Dam is the town bike of pillows. Dave Kelleher and I have shot it together a few times. Think this is the best pic we've got.

Zeke Helliwell methods below the gondy he rides daily. My favorite shot over the 3 days.

Kelleher from above.

Zeke off the bridge that spans Fitzsimmons creek.

Zeke shared a bunch of his stashes for the shoot. Thanks buddy.

With poor snow conditions at home in Quebec, Alex Cantin, Frank April, who is filming for the new YES movie, Videograss filmer Hayden Wrench, and SBC Senior Photographer Oli Croteau headed to Toronto earlier this week to take advantage of the recent snowfall and find some new spots.

The crew hooked up with PeachHat-ers Tyler Ashbee and Alex Beebe who were down to share some spots and give the boys a place to crash in Ashbee’s mom’s basement in Pickering. Don't ever say that the life of a pro snowboarder isn't glamorous.

Beebe and Ashbee on the left, Frank and Cantin on the right.

Cantin's home away from home.

On Monday morning I drove from my Toronto to Pickering to spend the day with them and, in typical snowboarding cluster-fuck fashion, as soon as I arrived, we all drove back to Toronto.

Apparently someone knew some spots, but instead of heading to them we decided to drive around, hoping to stumble upon something new. Toronto is a huge city, and it seems like there should be spots everywhere, but the same sprawl that potentially holds dozens of new rails also keeps them hidden within the seemingly endless mesh of streets.

We inched through traffic for hours without finding a setup that would work. Moral was getting low by the time 1:30 p.m. rolled around and we still hadn’t found anything. The crew had got shots on the two previous days, but today was looking like a bust especially since Hayden was hopping a flight out West at 5:30 p.m.

Toronto traffic sucks. The city has the worst commute times out 19 international cities surveyed including L.A., New York, and Barcelona.

"The real voyage of discouvery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes." --Marcel Proust, French novelist. Ashbee, Beebe, Frank, and Cantin on the hunt for new spots.

Along the way Hayden entertained us with his inverted penguin impression.

Fortunately a call to SBC filmer Nate Laverty about an unrelated matter resulted in a tip about a kink rail close to us that hadn’t been hit before. Nate has a deep list of spots from across the country saved on Google maps.  

Beebe, Hayden, Cantin, and Frank were hyped that we found something to hit.

The rail turned out to be legit, the only hitch being a crack between the first down bar and the flat. But with a little T.L.C. from Frank and Alex’s tool kits the rail was good to go.

Danger Bay.

Frank literally dropped a hammer.

Beebe buffed it out...

And the crew got down to work. Keep an eye out in the new Videograss flick Retrospective, the YES movie, and the new PeachHat to see what went down.

Oli and Hayden. Peace!

Ex pro shred turned real estate agent turned DJ Chris Brown posted a commercial for Black Snow snowboards on his Facebook profile yesterday. The video is circa 1987, so for those who don’t know, Black Snow was one of the first price point board brands. Available at Canadian Tire and Sears the boards were made of plastic and, if memory serves correctly, some combination of fiberglass. The cheapest in the line, the Mogul Monster had grooves in the base where the straps from the bindings attached. There were no binding backs. The Mogul Monster sold for around $90.

A $150 would get you some plastic molded highbacks that were T-nutted on the Legend. The highbacks were pretty flimsy, but at least they added some support to your Sorels. The board was 125cm and you only got one stance option—zero degrees on the back foot and about 25 on the front. This was my first board, picked out of the Sears Christmas catalogue. I had never seen a snowboard before, had no idea what it was, but thought it look cool, so I took my Christmas money that my mom had saved for me from my relatives over the years and bought it. I was nine at the time. 22 years later I’m working at a snowboard magazine and still thinking snowboards are cool Go figure. 

For the $200 range you could step it up to the Legend SE Edge with metal edges. It was the closest thing to a legit board even though it didn’t have sidecut a separate topsheet or core.

Ah, when snowboarding was young. Here’s the commercial. I’m not sure why the “legendary snowboarder” has Predator-like abilities to turn invisible, but I’m staying the fuck away from Black Snow Mountain.

What was your first board?

About eight feet of snow fell in a couple days around Christmas in the Whistler backcountry. Boxing Day was no question the deepest day I have ever been sledding. Sledding to the top of the pillows in Brandywine is usually a no brainer; most of the time there is even a groomed trail up to them. On this day however, the small slope was littered with snowmobiles completely buried under the snow. A friend of mine actually lost his sled at one point. He could hear it running under the snow and had to dig down four feet to get to the handlebars to shut it off. Then he spent an hour digging it out.

Dustin Craven dropping on to some flat pillows that would hurt with less snow.	Craven, unscathed, wishing he could do the  maneouveur on his base graphic.

That afternoon it cleared up for the first time in days, and Kale Stephens took advantage of it. Less experienced snowmobiliers would have had a hard time in this submarine snow.

A day or two later the high pressure came in, bringing lots of sun, and howling winds... The 8 feet of snow quickly turned to windblown and maybe a foot deep. Its crazy how fast the snowpack can change.

Of course there are still plenty of pockets with deep snow left. Dave Short finds one here.

And now, a little cold snap brought out the surface hoar, which could cause a lot of problems depending on how the next snow falls on top of it.

More snow in the forecast for the next few days, which means a couple of much needed down days after six days of going hard, three snowmobiles towed out, getting stuck about a hundred times, and a new years hangover.

Until next time. – Dalby