Videograss’ “Roll Call”
feat. Dylan Dragotta, Johnny O’Connor, Mark Wilson, Cody Beirsdorf, Spencer Schubert, Sam Taxwood, Brandon Hobush, Derrek Lever, Blake Paul, Austin Young, Toni Kerkelä, Mike Ravelson and Dylan Alito.

Videograss’ “The Last Ones”
feat. Bryan Fox, Chris Bradshaw, Danimals, Danny Larsen, Darrell Mathes, Gus Engle, Jake Kuzyk, Jake Olson Elm, Joe Sexton, Jonas Michilot, Jordan Mendenhall, Justin Fronius, Keegan Valaika, Nick Dirks, Scott Stevesn and Zac Marben.

Nitro’s “Down To Earth”
feat. Dominik Wagner, Marc Swoboda and Benny Urban.

TOO H∆RD from danyale patterson on Vimeo.

(Thanks to Fancy!)

It’s hard to explain what happened to me this past weekend at Bear Mountain. With the effects of sleep deprivation and perpetual Dubstep still pulsing through my veins, I will try my best. The 9th Annual Hot Dawgz & Hand Rails has come to an end, giving 8,000 attendees a small taste of the winter season ahead. This legendary kick-off event provided big tricks, even bigger features, and a crowd of people better suited for a UFC fight.

I wasn’t the only one who made the long strange trek out to Cali. It seems like everyone woke up from their month-long post Mount Hood nap. Names like Justin Fronius, Jordan Small, Dylan Alito, Pat Moore, Mike Rav, Dylan Dragotta, and Jonah Owen were throwing down the bangers like they just got back from summer camp. Riders dropped in from the scaffolding to two rail lines divided by a new wall ride for Bear’s park. They were then sent into the “Parking Garage,”, with large dumpsters on either side. This giant feature forced the athletes to get all sorts of buttery and flip-tastic. The word on the street was: a little too gnarly for a September rail jam. With so much focus on the giant dance floor that was the ending feature, it seems the event wasn’t correctly titled. But hey, gotta please that rowdy crowd, right?

Walking home with the HDHR crown this year is Oregon native Jonah Owen. A well deserved win for Jonah. While pleasing the masses with flips and things, he still managed to stay true to his unmatchable style. It was unanimous, three cheers for Jonah Owen! Jager Bailey took home 2nd, and Bear local Ian Sams finished with the 3rd place title. Holding it down for the ladies was Desiree Melancon, a hero to any female rider taking her urban skills to the streets. A big thanks goes out to all the contestants who hiked all day and rode harder than ever. You guys make this industry what it is.

If it’s excitement that you wanted, than that is exactly what you got from this noteworthy competition. As a first time Bear Mountain visitor, I was almost more intrigued by the breed of humans present than the snowboard competition in the background. Words cannot do justice to those folks. Hats off to the unmatchable scene, the insane level of riding, and a winter season that is quickly approaching the eager masses. Until next year Bear, until next year.

Great bros, Justin Fronius and Dylan Dragotta, just being bros.

Jordan Small putting in some work at the office.

Instagram is great for instant recaps.

The victorious victors with their big ol’checks.

Jess Kimura is being followed around this winter as she films her video part for Fall 2012 with her new web series called “Barely”. This is her second episode with shots taken in Quebec along with Bonfire/Salomon rider Desiree Melancon.

Jess took home the “Women’s Rider Of The Year”, “Women’s Video Part Of The Year”, and “Women’s Reader’s Choice Award” at this past TransWorld Riders Poll 13 Awards earlier this year in Denver.

Check out the video here at Transworld Snow.

Second episode.

Still waiting for my own Sundays in the park…

Justin Mulford, Chad Tarbell, Darrel Mathes, Desiree Melancon, Ian Dodds, Richie Conklin and Daniel Brown.

Peepshow Productions is a crew of friends that wanted to bring everything to the table that was lacking in the female snowboard community. They are made up of 17 riders, everyone from Burton team rider Gabi Viteri to Bonfire/Salomon rider Desiree Melancon, to Volcom and Nike rider Bryn Valaika and so many more. Peepshow says it best when describing who they really are: “We are not filmmakers who snowboard, we are snowboarders who film.”

Peepshow just won the best “Lo-Fi” award from ESPN for their new film “Winter Wars” which was released this fall. ESPN explains what the award is all about. “It’s the movie that is most like finding Slayer on Vinyl in the middle of a DVD store.” For this film they hit every gnarly spot out there – From Quebec to AK to the cities of Minnesota – these chicks show where the secret spots are at (just not how to get to them!).

Melissa Larsen with ESPN Action Sports wrote an amazing article on the film and about what snowboard films have transitioned to over the years – comparing films like “The Art of Flight” to low-budget videos such as “Winter Wars” and Videograss’ “Ransack Rebellion” and discusses how both are so important to have in this world. You couldn’t have one without the other, there would be no progression. Peep here to read it.

I asked Sj team rider Baylan McGraw what he was stoked on right now, and this was something he brought up…

Gnarly shred girl Desiree Melancon and her close friend Brynn Hayes are currently working on a new brand. As you might guess by the title of this post, it is called “Willow”. They’re just making hoodies right now, but the buzz is enormous, and they plan on getting into the underwear/socks game… cuz who doesn’t need that stuff!

Read a neat little article about Willow on YoBeat

Getting geared up, Bryn and Desiree help Gabi wrap up her ouchies from yesterday’s ripping.

Bryn really wanted to wear these today, but decided to go for the more functional option…..

Snowboard Boots!

Elena and Bryn scope lines with Filmer Pat

June filming the shred.

Desiree, Elena and Bryn Triple up

Elena on top of a fun pillow line.

Featuring Chris Bradshaw, Chris Grenier, Joe Sexton, Johnny Paxson, JP Walker, Keegan Valaika, Scott Stevens, Scott Vine and others. Enjoy

also I couldn’t help but notice that desiree now resembles andrew loaiza

Esthera with coffee, so necessary.  June with a sling for her broke off elbow.

Hadar and Esthera get ready to have bungee time.

Gabby imagining the possibilities.

Tarah got her trick FT, she was just sessioning this ledge for “fun” when she knocked her noggin.

Jonas hurt his knee while trying to avoid me on the stairs.  Sorry Jonas.

Desiree is a master multi-tasker.  Banging out some school work between banging out some bangers for her video part.

Subaru’s are the new black.

www.sbcwomen.com

So being home again means more blog posts, hooray! I stopped at Xtreme-Adrenaline on my through Regina the other night and Eldon passed along a copy of the new Snowboard Canada Women’s Annual to me (Thanks Eldon! ) and I’ve got to say I was super impressed by this issue compared to the past ones. There wasn’t a huge change in the amount of content or the appearance or anything, what impressed me was the actual article ideas and most notably the Step Up section. You might recall me whining about the problem’s with women’s snowboarding a while back with my post Good for a Girl. The inspiration behind that post was the SBC women’s annual trick tip, which was a 50-50 on to a rail. In this issue the trick tip (Step Up)  is a Cab 540! Hooray! Finally a trick that brings us a little bit closer to the level of trick tips that the men are always getting. Jess Kimura is the “teacher” in this one, and it’s pretty much perfect… thanks SBC for giving us something awesome this time around, I love it! 

Desiree Melancon, photo: snowrev.com

Another one of my favourite articles in the new mag is called “Defining Style.” It takes a look at the riding style of five female shredders in five different photos. Cheryl Maas, Marie-France Roy, Laura Hadar, Hana Beaman, and Desiree Melancon are all the ladies featured in this one. I really liked the idea of this one because in snowboarding your riding style is just so important. If you have a messy or sketchy style it will come through in shots or in video parts and make you look like you have no idea what you’re doing. I can think of a million examples of bad styles that I’ve seen over the years, there are lots of girls that are good riders but they just have bad style and it makes them look out of control all the time. If you don’t know what I’m talking about go watch some female video parts (think la la land, ro sham bo, or stance) and you’ll definitely be able to see the difference between the riders who are really solid and have good style and the riders who are definitely talented but are lacking in the style department. For example, when you see a shot of MFR or Laura Hadar you don’t need to see a name to tell who the rider is. Their style shows through in the shot right away! Okay anyways enough of that rant for now…

This issue also has a short story from Allie Jenkinson (
http://alliejenkinson.com/blog/
) Who is a phenomenal writer, you can go read the story on her husband Mike Berard’s blog…The story is called All Time Hereafter. Then go check out her blog for some more stories!

There’s so many premieres going on, and resorts are opening and basically the season is slowly starting. Just in case you’re getting wondering and getting anxious here are opening dates for some of the bigger resorts in western Canada:

Canadian Olympic Park (Calgary, AB) – Open!!!

Mt. Norquay (Banff, AB) – October 31st

Lake Louise (Banff, AB) – November 7th

Sunshine (Banff, AB) - November 11th

Marmot Basin (Jasper, AB) - November 11th

Whistler-Blackcomb – November 26th

Silver Star (Vernon, BC) – November 28th

Big White (Kelowna, BC) – December 5th

Fernie,  BC – December 5th

Other things you should probably know… Xtreme-Adrenaline has launched their new blog, and you should go check it out by clicking here.

Regina’s own Angelisa Hollick won one of Nikita’s photoshoot spots for the Fall/Winter 2010 cataloge, check it out –
http://www.sbcwomen.com/hotbox?news_id=292

Sara Tollestrup has a review of Peep Show up on the SBC Women’s site. Go check it now! 

The powder highway is having a ski bum contest this year, meaning you could win accom + food + season passes for the winter just by telling them why you deserve it. Check it out…
http://powderhighway.com/SkiBum/

Sun Peaks is also doing a similar contest, www.snowbumcanada.com

The second Party Snakes teaser is up…

TJ Schneider & the snowboard realms take a look at Vancouver’s streets…

“just a short little movie I put together of Bart , Brad and Sylvain. 3 homeless men from Vancouver.
I made portrait of Sylvain and gave it to him to sell to try and buy some food, I like that he wanted to keep it.
The night we met he told me I was different than most people.
That he could tell …. I am a good man.”

This one is random…but it’s an Iheartsnow productions vid and they’re making me so jealous. We have no snow again..

The Westbeach webisodes are back! Go check them out here…

Do you all remember this? Switch the Movie, for some reason it’s all over the internet again. Maybe it’s actually coming out this time? Chris Brown is in it, FYI. I remember Zach showing me this like two years ago, and I wanted to see it sooo bad but then it just disappeared… I was actually wondering about it a few weeks ago… anyone know the story behind this? I heard that it’s got new producers, and it’s coming out this year sometime. Rumour or truth?

Videograss isn’t just a team video, it’s a collaboration between some of the best snowboarders in the world including Mikey Leblanc, Justin Benee, Darrell Mathes, Nick Dirks and Canadians LNP, Ben Bilocq, Louif Paradis and Alex Cantin.

Check out the teaser on YoBeat. There should be enough bangers to keep you thinking until the video drops this fall.

Charles Reid sends it over the gap

Calgary’s Jed Anderson and Raewyn Reid both put down top 3 performances at the 2008 Hot Dawgz and Hand Rails competition at Bear Mountain.

Jed took the top spot on the men’s side with a ton of technical tricks on the rails, a down bar and a down-flat-down. Chas Guldemond and Scott Vine took the 2nd and 3rd spots respectively. On the women’s side, Reid placed third behind Desiree Melancon (1st) and Marie Huchal (2nd).

Check out photo albums on Transworld and Snowboard Revolution, and two videos chock full of bangers and bails on Transworld.

TWS Video #1
TWS Video #2