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!