Another Introduction
Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Bill Hawley. Born and raised seven minutes from the mountains in North Vancouver, I’m a new addition to the Grouse Park Blog and very grateful for it! As much as I’m new to the blog, I’m not so new to the mountain. I started skiing at Grouse when I was 3 years old and it just became the regular thing to do after school and on weekends. Things progressed from there and when I was about 12 years old, I picked up my parents little point and shoot camera, took a few pictures around the house to keep myself busy and that’s when I realized what I wanted to do for fun. Skiing and photography. Now, I’m finally starting to combine the two and it’s proving to be the most kick ass thing I know how to do.
So, now that you know who I am, don’t be shy if you see me up the mountain, I’m the guy wearing the bright blue jacket and pants looking like I shouldn’t be shredding the park. Come say hi and maybe strike up a conversation! The temperature’s dropping a little bit, so let’s be optimistic and say that’s a sign of snow on the way. Here’s some of my most recent shots to keep you stoked on the season, enjoy!
Park crew Adam Nicholls spinning the step down before the rain came
Kyle Jasper getting inverted on Blackcomb
Fred Hawley dropping in powder on Blackcomb
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JIB Edit
As Friday afternoon was one of the first sunny days in a very long time, I decided to make a quick edit. I spent an hour filming with Jason, Shayan, Simon and Ben in the jib park. Hope you enjoy
It’s Sunny, Go Shred!
Hey all,
Contrary to popular belief, Grouse Mountain is still super fun right now. Call up a couple homies and hit it up. Get creative and you’re bound to have a good time. Just ask local boy Shayan Aghourlikhani. I got a call from him yesterday afternoon and he was having a heck of a good time with fellow local and grom, Kevin Dzah. Temperatures are dropping, snow may be coming, but go now and enjoy yourselves.
Also, I’m stoked to announce that we’ve taken on two new bloggers for the remainder of the season. Grouse local and aspiring pro photographer, Bill Hawley, and a guy that I can’t say enough good things about, Hamish Baxter are both on board to bring you more content from the hills. Both these guys travel a bunch and they’ll be sure to bring you not only what’s fresh on the local scene, but also around BC and maybe outside of BC too. And you thought the universe ended outside these borders. They’ll be introducing themselves real soon, so watch for that.
Cheers,
Sam
Ride!
As a skier, I came to realize very early on that you can never expect too much from the hill or the weather. You must make do with what is handed to you. This year, being an El nino season, has very much been that for all of us riders. Instead of complaining about ice hurting, rain melting our jumps into jumps for ants and causing our rails to slide down the slopes, we should just be stoked that we even have this amazing sport and it will become that much better when the temperature drops and the goods start fallin!!
Here’s some shots of Saturday! Keep hyped!
Will Binks getting ready to ride.
Sliding it to the end. If this is you, comment below and let us know!
Me tailpressing the rainbow.
I like your goggles, Matt Cooper.
Keep it Real, Grouse!
Eric Beckstead
Outdoor Graduation Bail Scenes
Hi,
This is from Voleurz:
We put together a montage of less-than-par clips from 2009. Usually big fancy super-corporations like us would hide such footage as this, but the humor got the best of us.
So here it is… kersmashes, ball-boinkers, snaps, crackles and some pops from the film Outdoor Graduation:
Love,
Chuck
First Legit Contest Winner
I’m stoked to announce that the winner of our first online contest this season is Grouse Mountain local shred, Eric Behn. Congrats Eric, you and three buddies are going to spend a most likely rainy Sunday afternoon with a bunch of the Grouse Pro Team. The weather may not be super hype, but I’m sure you’re still stoked. For those of you that didn’t win, have no fear, we’re working on a second contest dropping in just a couple weeks, so keep it locked on grousepark.com for that.
In case you were wondering what the answers were, here they are. Out of 24 entries, only 11 answered all 3 questions right. I warned you that number 3 was going to be tricky.
- Chris Dufficy’s big comeback part was in Forum Snowboard’s True Life. I have it on VHS if anyone of you wants to borrow it.
- C.R. Johnson won the 2002 US Open Big Air for skiing with a bio 1260 mute. Everyone that entered got this one right. I guess skiing, all around, is just too easy. I’m joking, don’t hurt me.
- The first resort to allow snowboarding was Suicide Six in Pomfret, Vermont, back in 1982. A lot of you said Stratton, but the questions wasn’t which major resort was the first. Can’t always trust Wikipedia!
Peace,
Sam
The Mug Shot Blog
It’s time for you Grousepark viewers to get to know the faces that frequent Grouse Mountain. Here are some mug shots from this season.
First up we have Corey Mcintosh. This kid is killing it on the hill, keep your eyes on him as he is definitely going somewhere in snowboarding.
A frequent in my blogs and another kid blowing up this year, Shayan the brown man.
You might recognize this guy from a personal blog I did on him, but he’s worth mentioning more than once. Here is the mean mug of Ben Neil.
Next we have our friend from Eastern Europe, Eduard Mikulcik. He also answers to Halldor Hellgason and might really be from Iceland.
Up next is Bryce Mclean, the one other tight pant skier who frequents Grouse.
Geoff Shaw from the East Coast, so he has had no problems dealing with the less than stellar conditions this season has presented us with.
And lastly, your man behind the lens and the blogs, myself, with this lovely self portrait.
So if you see any of these guys on the mountain, don’t be shy. Say hello, as they are usually pretty friendly people…usually.
Frodo.
Alterna Shoot
At the end of the 2009 season, I was invited to film the Alterna Shoot alongside Charlie Grinnell. This was an amazing experience involving superb riding, course and location. The weather was in our favour, providing the shoot with soft snow and the occasional cloud. As both days came to a close, my P2 cards had been filled and I knew I had something. Here’s the edit of what I came up with, hope you all enjoy it.
Jeremy
Part 3 – Uptown Riot
And now for part 3. The inspiration behind this post came at approximentley 2 o’clock when Conrad came in for the evening park shift. For those of you who don’t know, C-rad, as he’s affectionately known, plays a mean bass guitar for one of Van City’s finer punk bands, and seeing as how he couldn’t come up with any more skate vids or injury’s for the list, it just made sense to do a blurb on the band. They’re called Uptown Riot and have shared the stage with the likes of S.N.F.U and the U.K. Subs. I personally have stumbled through about half a dozen of their shows and can assure you that they wail. They are soon to be recording a full length album with limited number of vinyl prints. So check ‘em out now before they get all big and famous and you cant afford their shows anymore…
Also here are a couple more of Conrad’s recommended local bands….there’s no excuse not to get up, get out and embrace the music…
- Love Bomb (Former Park Crew member, Ricky Svitek’s band)
- To the Nines
- Ninja Spy
The Winston Campaign, Jones Bones, Blackjacket, Real Problems, The Jolts, China Creeps, Dead Voices (formerly Rio Bent), Joyce Collingwood, Raised by Apes, Scarstruck, Blacked Out, Impeders of Progress, Picking on Toddlers, The Fight United and Downtown Deathscream.
Love,
Chris
Part 2 – The List
For post part two, we thought we’d poke a little fun (and awareness!!!) towards the lameness that is injuries(seeing as you guys aren’t missing anything in the park)…
So, some shout outs include:
Andrew Nicoletti(park crew)-broken collarbone
Marcus Cartwright(park crew)-tweaked sciatica/strept throat
Trint Thomas(park volley)-broken collarbone
Pascal Schram(local die hard)-broken collarbone
Ryan Belich(park crew)-fractured wrist
Alice Gorton(Blogospondent)-broken wrist
These were just a couple from the past few weeks off the top of our heads, and we know there are tons more out there so we are encouraging everyone to keep this “list of sadness and despair” going and maybe throw a line or two of the story behind them as that’s always the best part….
Stay safe,
Park Crew