The Battle Cruiser Lives to Fight Another Day
Doubling up to a jump on cloud mt
Well I jinxed the battle beast. A couple posts back I ran a photo of my truck with a caption that read something about how the truck has been killing it this winter driving from VT to Quebec to Michigan to Tahoe and Utah with no problems. Well the other day the ole Battle Beast ran into some problems. Anyone that really chases snow whether it be with friends for pow, pros for contests and shoots, or filmers and photographers with crews knows that you end up spending a lot of time in your cars on super long drives. My friends and I call them “death drives” ones like Mammoth to Seattle, or Colorado to Tahoe, Utah to Whistler, long remote ones where your going for ten plus hours, this is where you really pay your dues. The battle beast and I have made a bunch of those but the other day on a drive from Nelson BC to Whistler it was almost the last. On a long remote downhill my truck decided to blow a wheel bearing, lose breaks and try to do it’s best Ken Block imitation.
The Battle Beast fixed and back at the team house after doing a bit of "off roading"
Well I’m no Ken Block but I somehow managed to keep all four tires on the ground and rally through some ditches and gravel and somehow come to a stop without hurling off of some giant cliff. The truck was a little beat and I ended up having to get a tow into Pemberton BC late night. After getting a hotel and negotiating a really sketchy restraunt/bar scene that seemed to resemble something out of the movie From Dusk till Dawn. I left my truck at a garage and got picked up by LNP and Will Lavigne and headed to Whistler to wait out the repairs.
Lnp's house/Quebec house in Whistler got Sold while we were there
Once in Whistler I stayed at LNP’s home where half the snowboard population of Quebec lives. His truck which he calls “the black widow” decided to die as well, so that left us carless in Whistler. No worries though, LNP and his roommates have a mini park built in their backyard. It’s got rails, whoops a spine, and some pallets. We spent a couple days filming some stuff with Will, Greg and LNP for a DVD extra along with Quebec friends like Charles Gagnon, Nick Suave, Pedro, David Melancon, Young Jason, and even our favorite Quebecor Dan Migno.com. Am army riders Jess Kimura and Johnnie Paxson did some shredding with us and I think you’ll all be very stoked on the outcome.
Our friend Dan Migno.com was there, LNP was trying to say He was "Against Em" Ha!
We spent the rest of the time waiting for the battle beast to be finished by watching Hockey (apparently it’s really popular in Canada), digging LNP’s sled out (started third pull), we went and checked out Trevor Andrew’s band play one night (all of whistler was there, even the one and only Jesse Fulton), it was good times but finally I got the call that the truck was good to go and after settling up on a sizeable bill I headed back out on the same road I came in on back to Nelson.
3 french Canadians who will be having 3 serious video parts this fall - LNP, Greg D and our friend Nick Suave
When I got back to the team house I was greeted by a really excited Yan Dofin he was really stoked that I made the trip to the house and was really stoked to show me around the house, he started saying things like, “Man I’m glad to see you, we haven’t got to hang in while” this was weird because I had just seen Yan right before I left. MFR and Eikki kinda rolled their eyes behind him and I put two and two together and found out that Yan had received a giant concussion that day on the hill and had no memory. He repeated himself probably 50 times, asked me where I was coming from, how long he’d been there, if he had any shots. We told him time and time again that he had bought a sled and time and time again he was just as exited as the first time he got it. Kind of scary, the hospital said he was ok and that his memory would come back and sure enough the next day it slowly returned. It took him a while but he finally remembered landing a certain jump and exploding into some debris and knocking his head.
This was Yan testing out a jump before his crash.....He doesn't remember this
Things have been going great on the hill, everyone’s getting shit done. Things are getting put down and everyone’s stoked, We just celebrated our third birthday out here with ole MFR aging another year. Eikki rode away from something wicked yesterday, Mike Paddock is here shooting photos with us, and even BC rep Derek Hale has been up in the mix….good times, good pow, good jumps, good friends!
Here's MFR and Eiki trying to tell Yan what happened.....50 times
Is Eiki really stoked because he's got some pepsi and candy...or did he just stomp something serious