Season Update

The summer of 2011 seems to have been pushed back 2 months, with the traditional warm, dry weather of summer just hitting British Columbia in the end of July. As such, the pace of this summer is downright feverish. The first part of summer was a whirlwind of photo shoots, filming days, guiding work and building days. It all has blurred together into a wet, cold smile inducing memory.



Currently I write this from Retallack lodge, deep in the Kootneys where I have been for the past few weeks building trails, guiding groups and riding huge descents. Being fairly removed from it all, in semi-remote wilderness (no cell service and patchy inter-web;) has given me a chance to reflect on the season so far and a good opportunity to share it with you.











I have been working closely with Squamish based photographer David Fournier on a few projects and we created these shots below at the beginning of this season. Check them out and look for a 'Day in the Life' on Pinkbike.com soon.











Next on the agenda was adding to my part for Reel Water Productions The Season 2. This involved heading back to an area called the Burn, and riding a line that was featured in You Like This except this time the line was snow free and twice as long. Since it was snow free I could incorporate 3 additional features making it a 6 hit line.





Garret Grove was out shooting with us and captured some great moments like this one of the first feature and this one of my building gear. Garret and I have a photo journey in the works, can't wait to get out there with him again, look for it this fall.



Right before I left for Retallack I participated in the Deep Summer Photo Challenge with a good friend of mine, Tim Zimmerman. Tim is a phenomenal photographer, and comes to the bike world from snowboarding, where I believe in 2010 he was the most published snowboard photographer. Although we didn't win I had the best 3 days in the Whistler Bike Park of my entire life, made some new great friends and produced some stellar images. Check out the slide show!



2011 Deep Summer Photo Challenge slideshow from Tim Zimmerman on Vimeo.



Until next time, here is a photo from the top of Toad Mtn in Nelson, both the Banshee Legend and Spitfire are ready to shred Powerslave. Thanks Riley and Kris for killing it on this trail!