Jed Anderson

Alterna Shoot – Through the lense of Graham Dalik

Sunday March 29th was a beautiful day. Blue skies, warm temperatures, and a 70 foot stepdown manicured to perfection. The Showdown Over the City was a thing of the past but that beast of a jump used for the competition still remained, begging to be hit. Jeff Silcock, the Grouse Mountain Events Manager, invited the Alterna Films crew to come up and do a shoot on the monstrous jump. Mr Silcock also invited a small group of skiers: pro team rider Spencer Watson, local shredder and all around good guy Liam Casey, and yours truly. The jump was meticulously perfected by the park staff (and a few of the riders), and by noon, the session was on.

Unfortunately Spencer Watson was injured early on after overshooting the jump and landing nose heavy, on his left side, near the flat bottom. He went absolutely, unfathomably, HUGE. Spencer decided to call off the rest of the session. But don’t worry, he’s fine now.

I invited my good friend Graham Dalik to come up and shoot some photos. As promised, here are a few of his shots:

Waiting for the session to start.

Beau Bishop rocking the Westbeach tall jacket.

Huge.

Spotting some transition.

In living colour.

Backflip or BASE jump? CJ loves hangtime.

Liam Casey and CJ. Front flip and back flip.

Dan Jonas. Grousepark.com. Legit.

Gettin tail.

CJ corkin a 540.

Goin huge. Gettin corked. Grabbin tail.

Liam showing Grouse Mountain why he is the man. - Flat Spin 540.

You can check more shots from the session and some of Graham’s other work on his flickr page.

Grouse locals Jason Macfarlane and Brian Choi were also in attendance snapping shots. As this post is already getting a little photo heavy, I will save their shots for another time.

Hope you enjoyed. I sure did.

-cj

Private Showdown Sunday March 29th

So last Sunday there were a select few skiers and snowboarders invited to hit the showdown jump. From noon to sunset the invites didnt waste a single minute. Sadly I was scheduled to work back in Coquitlam on that date, but still managed to get a few shots in after selling tools and welders for 9 hours.

Here is CJ!

Here is Liam and CJ!

JOSS: The sceret goods.

A good friend of mine, Andreas Amble, is attending JOSS right now. He is working with Friflyt Magazine, a Norwegian ski and snowboard magazine. Andreas is a very smart man. He knows that people want to see what’s going on at JOSS. If you’ve been checking Jon Olsson’s videoblog,  josupersessions.com,  Jacob Wester’s blog, or the Newschoolers.com blog, you would know that everyone at JOSS seems to be a little hush hush on showing the goods.

This is were Andreas comes in. Check out his edit from Trysil, Norway and the Sweet Rumble. It may not be the most professional video but it gives you a great idea of what is going down.

While you’re at it, check out Andreas’ blog…try to be forgiving of his English, it’s his second language.

PK Hunder... Photo: Newschoolers.com

Wish I was there.

-cj

Passholder “Bring a Guest Free” Day this Friday!

Sorry for the blatant sell message here, but this Friday is your opportunity to share your mountain with your friends. If you are a Grouse Mountain Y2Play or Full Winter Season Passholder, you can bring a friend to ski or ride free this Friday only – April 3rd.

Check out all the Grouse Mountain “Bring a Guest Free” Day details here. And if you don’t have your Y2Play 2009/10 pass yet, now is a great time to pick one up.

Oh yeah… and we’re extending the season.

Showdown and an Alterna Tease!

The Quicksilver Showdown Over the City invaded Grouse Mountain this past weekend and I was lucky enough to land a spot in the judges booth as the event tabulator. Fortunately for me this made for an amazing place to watch the madness but, unfortunately left little time to get the shot. So bear with me on the action photos for this one.

MC's getting it done.

Anyways, as you all know by now, the jump was huge, the riders were stoked and the weather was…well, crap. But that’s how contests seem to go. The fog would roll in just as fast as it rolled out leaving precious windows of opportunity for the riders to drop. Taking full advantage of the few moments of clarity on Friday during the qualifiers were Wiley Tesseo, Warren Williams, Jason Wexler, Jesse Millen, Gordon Emery, Nathan Ramler, Tim Barker and Max Ritchie, all of whom advanced to the semi-finals on Saturday.

Someone getting a better shot than I...

Along with the semi-finals came the invited riders and the same blanket of fog as the day before. Regardless of the weather, the riders threw down. Making their way through the semis and on to the finals were Jesmond Dubeau, Sebastien Toutant, Dave Fortin, Immanuel Anderson, Chris Collard, Matt Munn (who also won the rail jam on Friday night, and a cool $3000, despite the six stitches in his forehead thanks to an edge to the face earlier that day…that’s $500 per stitch if anyone’s counting!), Atsushi Ishikawa, and the only qualifier to make it all the way, Warren Williams.

The pros.

Impromptu dance 3-6-0 battle while waiting for the fog to clear...

Just when you thought the fog couldnt get any worse, for a change, it didn’t! The sun almost came out (in patches) for the finals and allowed the final 8 to put on a show. As you may already know, Sebastien Toutant took the win and $10,000 with a beautiful double cork 1080, Jesmond Dubeau scored $4000 in a well deserved second, and Atsushi Ishikawa, who came all the way from Japan, took home $2000 with third place.

Judge Duff giving the people what they want.

What you may not know is Chris Collard took fourth, Warren Williams fifth, Dave Fortin sixth, Immanuel Anderson seventh, and Matt Munn eighth (for a full list of results check the Showdown website). These guys definitely deserved the top spots. It’s hard to imagine hitting a jump of that size in less than perfect conditions.

Speaking of perfect conditions…anyone check the Alterna shoot that went down Sunday? Here’s a little tease for now. Check back in the next few days for copious amounts of uber banger shots courtesy of my good friend Graham Dalik and a few others.

Beautiful... Photo: Graham Dalik

Ok, here’s one more…

Best session ever. Photo: Graham Dalik

Mmmhmm it was gooooood,

-cj

p.s. I heard they let some skiers hit the jump…

Alterna Blog

So I went to visit Mr. Carlo Wein of Alterna Action Films at their office in West Vancouver and it was awesome! They have started a blog at alternafilms.blogspot.com that is available right here on the GrousePark Blogroll on the right hand side… if you didn’t know.

I will keep everyone informed of all their updates.

Keep it real, PYP style!

Chuck

APRIL FOOLS!

Hey everyone, this week is April Fools!!! So get in the spirit and go raid your moms closet and get on the tightest and brightest fitting one piece you can find! Get out those fanny packs, sunscreen and headbands!  Get into value village and get whatever you can find! We will be there all weekend giving out yellow flavoured snowcones to the best dressed!!!!

Check it out!

Showdown update to come soon!

-Dan

DAN JONAS!

Hey!

You will laugh, this is funny. Dan Jonas is a nice guy and I love him!

[video]

PYP and Grousepark.com!
Chuckles

Another Showdown Update

Hey folks,

So I ended up sleeping in and just woke up.  Whoops.  Anyways, Quiksilver’s Showdown Over the City went off this weekend on Grouse Mountain despite the weather.  The fog made it hard for the riders to throw down as big as we’d normally expect at these type of events, but they still put on one heck of a show.  Depending on where you were standing, you could either catch the big air or the jib section, but rarely both.  The weather did clear up for a short period near the end, just in time for Sebastian Toutant to throw down his winning double cork 10.   All he had to do was stick the jib and he had it in the bag, regardless of what he tricked on the rails.  Toots, who’s still hammering out high school science at the ripe age of 16, flew back home with 10K in his back pocket.  No biggie, just some spending money for those summer trips to 7-11 with his buddies.  Rounding off the podium were Jesmond Dubeau in second, taking home $4000, and the only Japanese rider in the line up, Atsushi Ishikawa, grabbed third and $1000.  Claiming the Rider’s…I mean, Judge’s Choice purse of $1000 was Dave Fortin, who threw down a massive 10 in the fog when everyone was sticking to 9′s.  Unfortunately, he couldn’t hold on to the landing on his last lap, but regardless, everyone could see Dave was having a blast riding all day.

As promised, here are more pictures!

Dave Fortin claiming his Rider's Choice prize. The cheque came later.

Left to Right: Jesmond Dubeau, Seb Toots and Atsushi Ishikawa.

After a quick run home to upload pictures and shower (it wasn’t all standing around snapping pictures, I had to get a few laps in too!) I was back out and headed to the Showdown Afterparty.  Needless to say, it was the perfect way to end a super fun day.  Even more pictures of that to come in yet another update.

Peeeeeeas!

Sam