What a day…

Well quite a lot has happened in the past day and a half since I last posted. I am in Portland now shooting photos with Hiroshi for Honeyee.com. First let me go back and wrap up the AK story. So the contest was set to finish with the finals yesterday the 6th after things got pushed back a day by the bad weather. Well the snow kept falling all morning of the 6th and the patrol could not do the safety avalanche preparations for the contest, so it was pushed back another day to the 7th. Well my flight to Portland was the night of the 6th, so I had to miss the finals! Well, hell yes, I was rather bummed out about that. After spending all that money and time to go to Alaska I could not even see and shoot the finals! Shit. Well we spent the 6th shooting scenic shots around the resort and talking with some riders etc.,

Even met up with Jonas Emery for a run down the North Face of Alyeska. We were shooting at the top of the resort when he rode up and said hi. So we joined him for a few runs. I then ended up doing a follow cam shot with Jonas all the way down the North Face to the bottom of the resort. Very cool, so it was not a total wasted day, but I was still bummed that I would miss the finals. I arranged to extend our rental car and filmer Tsukasa stayed behind to film the finals. He was so stoked to be filming the contest I think he enjoyed it even more than me. So I am hoping that he was able to get up there and get the good shots of the finals on Headwall today. I have no way of contacting him until I get back to Japan, so I can only hope that it all worked out!

Talked with Johan Olfson yesterday as well, even went to his room and talked about Noboarding for about 30 minutes. He is a die hard Noboarder now. He has not ridden with bindings since December he said! He showed me pictures of himself Noboarding by Helicopter in Canada, and now he is going to Valdez AK for a month to film with Standard Films! Yes that is right the legendary Johan is back and he is riding a Noboard!

I am so happy to see Johan back in the game. We talked about how few snowbaorders actually ride the mountains top to bottom anymore. His comment was that there are only a few guys left who do that, everybody else just looks for the cliff to jump off or the pillow line to ride. Well said Johan! I am glad he is coming back to show how mountains can be ridden top to bottom, and he is doing it totally surf style, no more bindings! He showed me his original board design for a Noboard, he is going to try and get one pressed by a local guy in AK.

Right now he is riding a sample of the Burton Nofish that is coming out next year, but he wants a much more surf style board.

Johan told me to get a helmet and knee pads for the Noboarding, advice that should be taken by everyone!

Then drove to Anchorage and did a little gift shopping at Wal-mart, met Shinya to say goodbye and then caught the late flight to Portland. Was able to see the sunset at 9pm near the airport. We drove and found a random park with a huge motocross course and a great view of the ocean. The icebergs floating on a still sea, the huge mountains all around, Anchorage city in the background, and planes flying into the arctic sunset….. it was quite surreal and truly a lucky treat before leaving.

It is always hard to leave AK, as I really like it there. There is an incredible energy that high up on the arctic circle, I cannot imagine what it must be like in summer time…..