Friday, April 10, 2009

The Move South to Santa Barbara





Last night Mike, Tom and i arrived in Calgary after saying our goodbyes in Fernie. The bus trip was only 3 hours after being 3 hours late, so for some reason we still arrived at the time we were meant to prior to it being late...Mike and Tom left this morning to board their flight to Vancouver for a week. I stayed in Calgary for another night to organize some things and then boarded my plane to LA in the morning. I had some trouble at the airport because i didn't have a flight out of the states, only in. So they get Suspicious quickly. The flight was good, only a couple hours until touchdown. I then waited 2 hours for my bus to Santa Barbara. It was a 3 hours bus ride but it was a good one, meet some cool people. The coast road from LA to S.B is really nice, i was really stoked to be there. I borrowed a phone on the bus to call Tory to come and pick me up. It was great to see her. Her and her roommate Tyler picked me up. He seemed like a good bloke.I met her other roommate Breisa, shes Tylers girlfriend. We went out that night and i couldn't believe my eyes, the girls were amazing! The accent worked a treat and i had a fun night. The next night one of Torys friends that lives in Isle Vista was having a house party, so her friend Peggy picked us up and we drove out there. It was really quiet but i met some more cool people. That was another great night. Torys friend picked us up the next day to drive a couple hours north to Pismo beach, he was a really shit driver and kind of 
a tripper, wasnt that fond of him, but it was good anyways. Spent to day on the beach and taking photos of the beautiful Pismo beach...
Id been going out almost every night since arrival and it was great i was having a blast! Mike and Tom arrived the next day along with Dean, Jarryd and Tim. I was super stoked to see them all. Tom and Mike stayed with me and Tory while the other boys stayed at the hostel down the road. That night we went out on the town and had an awesome night. It was great, the boys were frothing as much as i was on the amount of beautiful girls. lol The next day was Floatopia its an event thats only held once a year and its been going for about 5 years with each year getting bigger and better. We were super pumped and started drinking at 10am saturday morning. We got our boardies on and drove for 20mins to I.V (Isle Vista) when we pulled up there it was packed, girls and guys EVERYWHERE!!! and we hadn't even got near the beach yet, we had to park 2km away.  
We put our booze in a bag and started to walk down, there were people everywhere drinking out the front of their house and just having a great time. I wore my ozzie flag as a cape, from the word go it worked a treat and met a heap of new crew and some more ozzies through it.
When we got to the beach there was a huge line of hundreds of people just trying to get down the beach. We finally got our first glimpse of the beach, it was something you cannot describe, it was just a trip out, i had to stop for a big and soak it all up. You couldn't see a bit of sand for 1km, it was that packed, 15- 20,000 drunk, college girls and guys in their bathers running round the beach and dancing to the various dj's along the short stretch. Its an incredible sight and the girls are like no other in the world i've seen, shit to drool over. hahahah
We had one of the best days of our lives. Getting drunk on the beach and running a muck, chatting up every girl and group we saw, such a great day. I don't know what else to say, it has to be seen and experienced. The day eventually ended with parties at 3am the next morning. We all finally met up late the next morning, it was sik and we were all hungover and yeh, trippin balls. An AMAZING day and a great night!
Heres just a couple of pics of the event mentioned above...

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Snowboarding is sik!

Settling in Fernie took me a while, but when i was ready i bought myself a snowboard setup. I was really stoked trying on the boots and finding the right board for me. I had to buy everything...gloves, pants, jacket, goggles, boots and a board. Mike, Casey and i walked to the Hitching spot about 500m away where people heading up to the mountain in their cars pick up those without cars (me). The excitement of finally seeing snow and walking through the Fernie resort was sinking in. I received my season pass from the office and Mike said we should go up the Deer chair to teach me the basics. It was pretty tough, having a surfing background i wanted to use my weight alot which is the wrong thing to do. The Mountain was pretty icy as they hadnt received snow in a while so that didnt help at all. After a couple runsi definitely wasn't feeling confident but i was slowly getting the hang of it. Many many stacks later i had sore hands and a really sore ass. They then took me on some crazy runs for a beginner, a couple of black runs and some trees and i was feeling pretty sketchy. One run i slide down the ice for 150m as i fell and it was too icy to get my edge back!Over the next couple of weeks i slowly improved, by my 10th day of boarding i was feeling confident doing alot bigger turns, bigger jumps and going straighter. :) i was stoked!

I slowly began to learn the mountain and the better routes to take. I began to really enjoy my time here in Fernie, it was amazing! Then like 100 christmases at once we had a big amount of snow over a couple days, like huge amount. Everyone gets excited in the town. We were out at the pub and walked outside and everyone started hugging eachother and jumping around, it was a good vibe in the air! The next morning we were up there bright and early to get amongst the fresh powder. I had heard all about how good of a feeling it was riding in powder...i finally got to experience it! It was soo amazing, and now that i was confident at jumps it was even better! It feels like floating on air and still being able to do big surfing turns. We were throwing ourselves off every small cliff and drop and hitting every jump flat out because you just cant get hurt. We spent the whole day up there just frothing at every run. More and more days of fresh powder seemed to come our way and i was loving everyday more and more.

Over the next month until i left i felt i was getting good at what i was practicing, jumps were getting bigger and i began to do some rails and boxes in the park. We did some amazing hikes that lead us to the most amazing powder, best tree runs and some beautiful untouched back country. Fernie is just another world. ITS AMAZING!!!
I came, stacked it...alot, learn from my mistakes and by the end, maybe one stack a week and it was mostly due to hitting jumps wrong...i was stoked that i had come soo far!
Here are some photos for anyone who reads this...
Thankyou soo much, hope you enjoy!