there should be LOTS of pics popping up over the next few days...i'll put up screen-grabs once i download the 84 minutes of HD footy i shot but WOW...what a freekin' GREAT weekend.
gardiner, phatty and WFO came over from utah...dan bush came down from washington, smasher-smashington made his Team Summit debut and when it was all over, tons of great footage was captured for Elevation 4 & Boondockers 5!
we also flew in jason schulte from south dakota who won the ES3 pre-order contest last summer. that kid lucked out for a sunny california ride on spring snow, big climbs, drops, a helicopter medi-vac and one of the most horrific scenes of sled carnage most of us has ever seen.
here's the short version....
phatty started things out on friday by losing his turbo dragon in the top of a NASTY chute. result: destroyed sled #1.
the oberti/gardiner rivalry was alive and well...lots more on that to come.
smasher smashington opened a sidehilling clinic...that dude is unreal!
jesse o'rourke (new team summit rider) launched a 100 ft cliff drop with a brutal landing...he scored one of the best shots for a film i've ever seen and a chopper ride to reno. he checked out OK and actually rode saturday with us. as dan gardiner told me while we waited for the chopper..."there's only a handful of guys on the planet that would have tried that". props to jesse for a great season of riding.
on saturday, dan put the camera down and ripped a sweet jump session with sledfreak and smasher on a kicker some snowboard guys left behind.
but the highlight of the trip was the pull that anthony oberti attempted at paradise valley. after scoping the line for an hour and in front of 40 people, oberti pointed his trusty Struthers 1140 into a pull that was un-frickin' believable.
anthony made it through the impossible entry to the climb, coaxed the sled into a tough, off-camber right-to-left in heavy trees, hit the vertical open face and the skis started coming back. in the end, he couldn't hang on and "Leroy" landed skis down, made a slow turn toward the bottom, gained speed and launched off a series of cliffs which shot the 30K sled into a cartwheeling freefall. it made several crushing impacts on the rocks and finally came to a stop in the trees at the bottom of the hill. gardiner and i were both shooting it next to each other, pulled our heads out of the cameras when it was over and could NOT believe what we had just seen.
oberti made it down OK and actually rode Leroy home after tons of zip-ties and a lot of help from the gang.
all in all, one of the best weekend rides i've ever been on. met lots of great new people...HOLY COW...clint's pull on the turbo M1000...jaw dropping!!
we shot a ton of killer climbs and lots of wacky behind the scenes stuff that will be a lot fun this summer when the movie comes out.
thanks again to all the riders and everyone else who came out for the 60 degree, t-shirt weather ride.
pics coming later this week....
jeff
