It’s On
It’s on. Another season of snowboarding on Grouse Mountain. Another year of tree runs, park laps, and powder turns. To introduce myself, my name is Myrosha Daley and I have been riding for almost 20 years, competitively for 15, and I have worked in the snowboard industry for nearly 10. I have been fortunate in my shred life to snowboard at many different mountain resorts. Grouse is still one of my favorite places to ride. It might be how close it is to my house. Or it might be how I can get a hot lap with rollers one run, and hit the park the next. It will be another year of getting off work, quickly grabbing my gear while eating dinner, and out the door to catch the Skyride tram for a night session. It will be another year of laughs on chairlifts, 9:30pm powder slashes and eventually slushy spring fun wearing jeans, a t-shirt and shades. When I really think about it, it makes sense. Another year of riding Grouse Park and I can’t wait.
"It's on"
This is my first year on the Grouse Park blog and I am stoked to be contributing and acting as editor. Hyped to join the team and bring you some killer features:
- Real Talk – Interviews with snow pros and snow industry heads
- Playlists – New tunes for your park riding pleasure
- Trick Tips – Delivered to you from the Grouse Park Crew
- Game of D.I.C.E – You’ll have to wait and see…
Keep updated with us on the Grouse Park blog for these features, videos, regular posts from the contributors and more.
Happy Holidays,
Myrosha
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That Man’s Got a MEGAphone!
Saturday was a good day. No, scratch that, Saturday was a brilliant day. The sun came out in force, along with all the local shreds to get radical for the Oakley Year End Jam. The park setup was stella, with people throwing themselves into all sorts of ridiculousness, all egged on by Sam, the megaphone fiend. The prize bank was deep and everyone left stoked, so props to all those that made it happen, it was awesome!
Callem Peake gettin pressy.
Kate Thrasher MacMillan
Uhh, Mickey, the sign clearly says slow.
Oakley Year End Jam: Sunny Skies, Good Friends, Hecka Prizing
Yesterday afternoon, on a spring day that could not have been any more perfect than it was, with a park setup built especially for the occasion, the good folks at Grouse Mountain Terrain Parks and Grousepark.com threw a season ending jam for the ages. Shaw Butterworth, Marcus Cartwright, Adam Nicolls, Tom Robinson and Dan Ripper were up early yesterday morning, hoping to get some solid build time, only to run into technical difficulties. With all issues finally resolved at 10 am, they went to work to build a formidable set up consisting of two jumps, a hip and a variety of rails. The hip seemed to be the feature of the afternoon, with kids sending it bigger than I’ve ever seen at a local Grouse event. I won’t ramble on too much as the other bloggers will be bringing you better coverage, pictures and some Go Pro footage. I just want to thank everyone from park crew that was there helping with the jam. Rob Morrison came out for his afternoon shift and helped out huge with course maintenance and tear down. I also want to give a huuuge shout to Jeff Silcock, Grouse Mountain’s Events and Sponsorship manager. Jeff is a background guy, you don’t really see what he does, but without this guy, we’d have no park and the parks definitely would not have grown to where they are. Jeff was there taking pictures all afternoon and you can find them all on our Facebook fan page.
Sunglasses and smiles all around.
Thanks to our sponsors, Quiksilver, DC, Oakley and Roxy, as well as Pow Gloves for hooking up over $3000 worth of prizing. Also, huge thanks to everyone that showed up and ripped hard. Most of you took a tongue lashing from me and put up with it. Not that you really had a choice. It’s tough love, kiddies. You’ll thank me one day. I called the local scene out on their lack of A-game, but you all definitely brought the noise yesterday. We’ll be back next season with more prizing to give away, hopefully I’ll be back as well, but that’s up to Jeff and the crew downstairs. Here’s to hoping we can get the parks bigger and better next year!
No one took me up on my offer to dance for a pair of goggles. Weak.
Do You Know What Beef Is?
What is beef? According to deceased rapper Biggie Smalls, beef is when you need two gats to go to sleep. By that definition, it would appear that there is no such beef between the parks at Grouse Mountain and Mount Seymour. Most likely because we’re not located in east Brooklyn. In any case, any one who knows anything about the local scene is well aware that there is, unfortunately, beef between the two mountains.
It’s not intermountain beef either. It’s strictly park related. Maybe I’m just old fashioned, but when I was growing up riding, I enjoyed both Grouse and Seymour. Yea, I went to Grouse way more often, but I got up to Seymour every now and then. I was just stoked to ride, didn’t matter where, didn’t matter who had more snow, or who had a better park, or how much the food was, or whether you had to drive up or not. A day on the hill was a day on the hill. Now, it seems like people want to talk shit more than they want to ride. Listening to all the drama that’s going on within the local scene is like reading a script off Peak Season or the OC. It’s absolutely ridiculous.
I’ve heard people say “Why doesn’t Grouse put in some corrugated pipe?” Why does every park have to have the same features? Seymour has corrugated piping set up and yes, it’s super fun. BUT! Grouse has an S-rail, and that’s fun too. They’ve got Nike as a park sponsor, we’ve got Quiksilver. In the end though, who cares? It’s so frustrating, having to deal with all the road blocks that this situation throws up when it comes to the two parks. You go to Seymour as a Grouse rider, you get called out. Why? That’s absolutely retarded. It happens at Grouse too, so don’t get too smug. Moreover, it has nothing to do with the management at either mountain. Have you ever talked to the powers at either mountain? Nicest people ever! It’s just skewed attitudes and ignorance of the riders that ride at either mountain that lead to more drama than all of Shakespeare’s plays put together.
So here’s the deal. Big props to both crews, they’ve both killed it this season. Instead of talking shit, go to one of the local parks, strap in, and get creative on what’s there. There was a time, not too long ago, when having a box and a flat bar was a huge thing. It’s not about who has the most legit handrail, or the most pristine jump. It’s about doing what we do best, and that isn’t dishing beef. It’s riding. If you’ve forgotten what having fun and just riding looks like, here are a few videos to refresh your memory.
Thank you Crapneto, for keeping the fun in snowboarfunding.
Love and Peace,
Sam
Pre-Christmas Trip to Baker
Every year, I aim to make a trip down to Mt. Baker right before Christmas. For those of you that have never been, I don’t know what’s wrong with you. Baker is one of Washington State’s most legendary mountains. The inbounds ski area is HUGE, with so many lifts, that there are never lift lines longer than 2 minutes. On any given day, you’re always bound to find a playground of powder somewhere on the mountain. If the inbounds terrain bores you, which it shouldn’t, you can always hike into the backcountry, given that you have a beacon, a shovel, are avalanche safety certified and a bunch of other things.
We left Vancouver bright and early, at 5:30 in the morning. Usually too early to be alive, I came up with the genius idea that instead of sleeping and struggling to wake up, I’d just stay awake till 5 in the morning. Needless to say, the drive there was a challenge (the drive home had it’s own pleasant situation. Ask me about it if you see me on the mountain, it’s a great story). In any case, we got to Baker at 9 am, after making a quick pit stop in Bellingham for a hearty breakfast at McDonald’s, where a super size meal actually means a super size meal. My buddy Charlie and I met up with Duke and Jordan, a couple Washington locals and hit up the mountain. There were freshies on the ground and not a cloud in the sky. It made for a perfect day of riding and was a nice break from the local skating rinks we’ve been riding. My words won’t do it justice, so here are a couple pictures that sum everything up.
- Sunrise on Old Baker Highway
- View from the parking lot
- Looking back from the very top at Jordan
- Mostly untracked going down
- Short break when the legs started to feel like Jell-o
- The active volcano itself
- This is how close the backcountry is
I was riding a 150 Rome ArtifactSK 1985 the entire day. For those of you that haven’t tried reverse camber in powder yet, it’ll change your life. I’ve never had such a fun pow day in my life. That being said, if you getting into the deeper stuff, you probably don’t want a super soft jib board with reverse, but seriously, reverse camber is the beeeest. All in all, a great day with good friends and new friends. Get up there if you can, they still have midweek discount lift tickets, so try to get there between Monday and Friday.
Lastly, from all of us at Grouse Mountain Terrain Parks and Grousepark.com, we’d like to wish you and your families a super duper Merry Christmas. Hope you all had a good one!
Sam