VD'S PHOTODAWG BLOG



Hi Folks
Let me introduce myself.
Vernon Deck
Kiwi/import Swiss
Photographer
Cynic.

Any comments?? Send me MAIL HERE!

VD'S PHOTODAWG BLOG

28/02/2011

Tomorrow is a down day, tonight we get hammered.
We went out for some Thai food. Guch's brother-in-law Sam owns Teton Thai in Teton Village. Its the best Thai food I ever ate and we go there often.
Tonight Sam was in party mood too. We ate a perfect dinner and then he started bringing Sake-Bombs, Whiskey and beers.



Sake-Bomb



Dillon Alito's face gets swollen when he drinks. Joe squeezing it back into shape.



The famous Mangy Moose where we have had a few memorable nights. There was a band playing really good PinkFloyd and Led Zep.



Face squeezing #2



Out of me you evil creature.



It was absolutely dumping snow when we made our way home. Reset!

24/02/2011

BrainFarm released the teaser for their new film "The Art of Flight".

We came across them the other day on the way back to the trailhead.
One of their filming vehicle's had broken down and the plan was made to rescue it by driving a pickup out on the sled trail to tow it back in.
It didnt really go according to plan.
Pat Moore and Luke Mitrani having a chuckle about the shit-uation.



Tree huggers.



The pickup got hitched up to about 600 horses.





Sleds got crossed up and Jake got bucked almost in front of the pickup.

21/02/2011

This Is our rig. The Volcom truck is called the Beast! 4 Sleds, 4 riders, no doubling here.



Cheeky buggers. Tipping petrol out of my sled to get the fire going.



As we were in a new zone with a big layer of new snow Guch and Kevin spend a good amount of time checking the snowpack for dangerous layers. Its a good feeling to know we have guys with such experience looking after us.



Our base camp for the next 3 days.



The long drive home, everyone else in the car sleeping.

20/02/2011

We woke up at 4.30 and after filling the sleds and getting some food we drove 90min out to this remote zone that Guch thought would have good snow. On the way out we were pretty skeptical as it was flat as far as we could see. At the last minute some mountains showed up.

Keller landing a pretty sizable cliff and on his way to the next step dow.



There was a lot of wind up on the ridge above us. The blowing snow backlit looked amazing.



The snow in here was amazing but the layer of new snow was slipping right away.
Markus rode the line you see on the left and the whole face slid next to him. Not huge but make a mistake and you're in it.

The slide actually cracked right around the corner on the right of the frame and continued about 100m to the right side.



Jake Price has been bringing his No-Board out with him. He rips on it! He let me have a blast on it and not expecting much I hiked a line. Ended up going ok, was a good laugh.



The sun leaves this zone around noon so Guch went up and dug a snow pit to check the snow layers and stability.
Markus thought it was a good chance for a practice jump.

16/02/2011

Location change!
Our time in cowboy country isn't over just yet though, we are going to be based out of Jackson Hole for the next little while. Staying at Bryan "Guch" Iguchi's house and discovering more of what this region has to offer is an amazing opportunity.



We were on the road early as I had been invited to join another crew for the day. Nice time to drive though, Wyoming is an amazing place to drive through.



There are a few places that the wild Elk get feed during winter. This one was right beside the main road.



Markus and Pirmin dropped me and my sled off at Guch's and went to ride the resort. In the afternoon they both drove back down to SLC, Pirmin had to fly home to Austria the next morning.
I loaded my sled on Guch's trailer and off we went on a new adventure.



My crew fore the day, L to R. Jake Price, www.boardasfuck.blogspot.com, Wille Luoma, Curtis Ciszek, Bjorn Leines and a filmer from VBS.com.

15/02/2011

A day off means its time to go shopping. US Supermarkets are great entertainment for us Euro's. Giant Sandwich for the Pirminator.



Keller found a little piece of home.





Your toast bread options. I'd like to see a Bob's Crusty.



Classic! Laughed so hard. Only wore once

13/02/2011

We went into the local Sled shop to buy some oil and the owner Justin asked what we were doing in that small town.
We told him we were just sleding and snowboarding a bit. He was super friendly and offered to take us to this other zone that he told us had some great snowboarding terrain.
We took his number and a few days later took him up on his offer. Here we are at the trail-head, Jaustin even brought his second sled for Pirmin to ride.

It turned out to be an amazing day, we discovered a whole new region and Pirmin got to ride a sled all alone after being doubled by Keller the previous 2 weeks.
Thanks very much to Justin for the day! If you pass through Thayne, Wyoming and need anything sled related please stop in at RPM, its right on the main road.



Justin hiked a line with Keller, the snow looked good but turned out to be crusty. He just straightlined it but at the bottom going mach-10 he hit all our sled tracks and tomahawked.



Keller and I were at the top of this hill and Justin gunned it to come up to us.
Right then his sled went BANG. I looked at Keller and said "that didnt sound very good". We both thought the engine had popped but it turned out to just be a snapped drive belt.



Keller watching and learning how to change a broken belt.

12/02/2011

Markus has been getting frisky on the sled lately. Good to see him getting more confident, also funny to see when the confidence doesn't quite make up for the lack of skills.



There's been some serious digging



Loading the sled on the trailer one night. Keller's excuse was that it was so cold his thumb got stuck on the throttle.



He seems to tip over on the flat a lot. I often look over my shoulder and see him tipping it back over, hopefully before any of us see him.



This is actually Eero Ettala's skidoo, he kindly lent it to Keller for this trip. After this roll down the hill it wouldn't start for about 30 minutes.

11/02/2011

The last days were just brutally cold, for sure the chilliest I've ever felt for an extended period of time. We built fires each day to warm up and so that we could have a hot lunch. We found dead tree's and hauled them to the fire with my sled. Here's Markus cutting one into bite-sized blocks.



Markus's lunch was pine-smoke-on-shovel tasting pizza.



It got to the point where the smoke would get so bad you'd move away from the fire but two minutes later would be freezing and decide the smoke was better.

Me and Pirmin got a nice little powder run at the end of the day. Bonus turns!

06/02/2011

My New Toy!
There were a few people wondering what it was, some guesses were, a gun, a blowup doll, a horse, a house, a new camera.



After 3 days out with her I made a discovery!
The previous owner hadn't told me he had installed a "hotpot". its attached on top of the exhaust, you put your lunch, in this case pizza, in there and the motor keeps it warm all day.



I had been searching around in SLC for a couple of days and couldn't decide on what to buy. In the end I spent more than I had planned but this one just seemed right. From what I've gathered talking to others I've ended up with a rather awesome deal.
2009 Skidoo XP800 with 250miles, still 1 year factory warranty on it. It came with a tunnel bag, boardrack and Hot pot. Rick, the original owner is a cool guy and sold her to me for $6200.



Scenic Sunset



Keller took a few shots of me shredding.



Its the nicest sled I've ever riddin, hopefully it will last me a few seasons now.

05/02/2011

Molly Moose. She was chillin on the trail every morning and would run in front of us for a while before we could find a place to overtake her.



On the way home at the end of the day as well.



We had had a super hard day and were all frozen to the core, my nose was raw, any little bit of skin exposed to the wind while doing 70kmh on the skidoo was instantly burned.



Yesterday was brutally cold about -30 and over -50 with wind chill.
I drove by Molly in the morning and she tried to get up but fell over again. We stopped and chatted for a while but she wasn't really feeling it. On the way home that night she was stiff.



Its nature I guess, the strong survive.
Now the birds, cougers and other critters are chewing on Molly and maybe they survive the cold winter because of her.

03/02/2011

After a week in SLC we decided it was time to further explore this huge country. Truck, trailer, sleds and all our boardbags etc loaded and off we went. Direction Wyoming.



Big beast and little beast.



Thats what he said.



I did the driving, Pirmin and Markus did the snoring.



????



Was a nice drive, wide open roads, some passes to cruise over, lakes to skirt and lots of broken old farms.



Random tree's.

02/02/2011

Our stay in SLC came to an end, we had finally got a truck, trailer and sleds organized and had made vague plans to drive north and see what happened.
SLC has weird weather, sometimes its snowing in the city and totally blue in the mountains.



Real American truck. The rental joint had nothing smaller for us so we took this beast. Driving this and towing a trailer takes some getting used to. I nearly squashed a whole school class at an intersection, ran the trailer right up over the kurb.



Jules gave us a tip where to find the best Sushi in Sugerhouse. Tsunami Sushi turned out to be mighty fine.



Pirmin ate the most and to cap it off swallowed about a teespoon full of Wasabi pure.



I spent a day collecting cash for my new toy. She was expensive, but hopefully worth it.

01/02/2011

We decided to go and watch the Utah Jazz, playing against the San Antonio Spurs. None of us had ever seen a NBA game live before and threw down a fair bit of money each for good seats. It was pretty cool, a big show the whole time and the game itself was only a small part of the show. The Jazz Mascot was really good, getting up to all sorts of things i the time-outs.



I protested this demand.



The Jazz got beat for about the 5th time straight, it was pretty funny listening to all the local fans scream at the referee.



Keller getting into the American spirit, coke and popcorn.



In the end the Spurs won by about 8 points. The Jazz had 2-3 really good guys and 2 dudes that plain sucked. Keller said fully serious that he could shoot better than them.



True fan. This kids father was screaming obscenities at the ref and the players of both teams the whole game. Guess the kid will bring in the next generation of fans proper.