Dominique Vallée

26.05.2008 | comments [0]

Allo! HOw are is everybody? Time for some sweet summer sunshine and some much deserved heat or what? I'm ready for a few weeks of escape to the beach before hitting the glacier on Blackcomb again end of June. So my last snowboard trip was epic, like no other I have ever done before. I went to the middle of the Colorado Mountain, NOrth of Vail Pass to stay in this hut at 11 200 feet. When you're coming from sea level Vancouver, that isn't easy at all. It was a trip for The Drift with Future Snowboard Magazine. For riders, there was Mercedes, Marie-Beth, Spencer Obrian and Myself, plus Geoff Andruik as the photographer and Adrian Ritter as the writer. So luckely, we got snowmobiled most of the way up there with all our stuff, food and generator. From there, we had to hike half a mile to the hut and back down a 1/4 mile to shuttle all the gear up from there. On my 3rd hike I wasn't feeling good at all. I spat some blood from huffing and puffing so bad carrying huge packs. Once we all got settled in, the hut was amazing, built in the 1940's it was open to public in the 80's and so well equipped you can sleep 16 people with full kitchen and out-houses. We were melting snow for water, cutting wood for heating and hiking all day to get some good riding shots. But I have to tell you that living at that altitude was really exhausting. We stayed there 6 days, had the best time, even had friends hike up to come and visit for a few days. It was lots of work, but amazing experience. We were able to ride most of the way out and we had a hard time getting back into civilization. Our cell phones, emails and traffic going back to Denver airport were way to much to handle. We all left pretty tired and wanting to sleep for a week, so I had decided to go to San Diego to visit some friends and surf it up a little. I ended-up staying for 2. Road Blackcomb for a few days till a big in-bound avalanche sort of finished things off for the Spring park riding. So now I just pick-up my parents at the airport coming in from Montreal and we decided to take a little family vacation in the Wine country of Osoyoos, BC. We did about 7 wineries today and had some time by the beautiful lake. The vines are so much younger then French vines but still so beautiful in this Desert Country. Well that's about it for me. Have to go taste some more wines for dinner. here are a few photos from the hut trip. Ciao dom