Recently in Red Bull Skiing Category

Tanner Hall landed at LAX from IF3 in Montreal a few days ago for the next leg of his premiere tour which would the showing at Red Bull North America Headquarters in Santa Monica on Thursday night. But first, T took a day to check on on his two other biggest sponsors, Oakley and Armada, and get some business taken care of while he was in the neighborhood. I rode along.

The day began by getting picked up at the hotel in Santa Monica by a tinted-out Suburban limo. I was chasing in my economy-sized rental and really putting it to the test trying to keep up with the driver on the freeway in LA. Glad it wasn't my car. It's one of those places were after you drive on the highway you feel like you need to lay down and take a nap. It's exhausting in a strange way.

A couple weeks ago we celebrated the end of July by heading up to Mt. Hood to meet up and shred with Red Bull team rider Angeli VanLaanen. We rolled up to the lift at Timberline and got up on the glacier just as the racers were getting out, and cruised around with Angeli as she sessioned Windell's jumps, rails, and pipe. Afterwards, we sat down and talked about her season, injury, the former USSR, and being a Red Bull rider. 

What are you doing up at Hood?

I had an ankle injury this season that I was taking some time off to let heal, and I got the A-OK after the Fourth of July to come ride. So I started biking and doing some mellow stuff and then came up here to see how I felt on my skis.

And how's is it?

It's going good. I'm going every other day to be nice to my ankle, but overall it's feels pretty solid.

What have you been working on  up here on snow?

Definitely just getting my ski legs back. Just jumping, doing basic stuff.

Catching up with Daron Rahlves in the summer at Mt. Hood requires getting up at 5am to leave Portland. I roll into the parking lot at Timberline around 7am and find Daron ready to head up the lift to the glacier. It's a good three hours before the Windell's campers will begin to trickle onto the lifts and everywhere you look it's skin-tight race suits. In my baggy pants, plaid shirt, and twin-tip, I'm definitely the odd man out. With snow still frozen from the night, I skid turn like a maniac in an effort to keep up with Daron. It only takes a few seconds to realize it's a lost cause. Fortunately, the little racers gawk and yell at Daron in the liftline and slow him down enough for me to catch up. After a few thigh-burning runs, we sit down at the top.

How's it to be back at Mt. Hood in the summer?

It's my first time at Mt. Hood in I'd say about 8 years. I used to come up for US Ski Team and summer camps way before that. It's good to get a lot of mileage in, do some gate training on snow, but it's a place that's hard. There's not a lot of variety for racing and the runs are pretty short. That's why I decided to stay away from Hood for a while, but now it's refreshing to get back up here. It's July 24th and we're on snow. Not a bad life. I wish I'd been up here in June this year. I heard there was so much snow they were skiing down to Govy (Government Camp), which is insane. That'd be some vertical to ski. The guys I grew up racing with are running the camps now. Lot's of kids up here too, lots from Tahoe. I know a bunch of the kids, or the coaches at least, and it's inspiring to see them up here flying down the mountain with big smiles on their face.

In the fall of 2007 I was searching for a project to challenge myself and my desires to ski bigger and more challenging mountains. After completing my "Ski the 14ers" project and then going on to ski the Grand Teton, Mt. Rainier, and many lines on Denali in the spring of 07, I naturally turned my attention to the Alps. When thinking about the birthplace of skiing and alpinism, I immediately came up with four objectives that I thought would challenge my skiing and organizational skills, while at the same time being very interesting an inspiring to the general public when presented in film and photo form. The Matterhorn, Eiger, Mt. Blanc, and the Monte Rosa, the most iconic mountains in the Alps, served as the platform to take my ski mountaineering experience to the cradle of ski mountaineering in the spring of 08. 

With my old friend and skiing partner Stian Hagen, of Oslo, Norway, but living in Chamonix, I planned the project. Photographer and partner Christian Pondella signed on to join us on the climbs and ski descents. Writer and friend Jack Shaw would document the trip for Powder Magazine and several European Magazines. Photographer Peter Mathis would shoot the project for German Magazine Stern as well as Kastle skis and others, and Matchstick Productions, whom I have worked with for over a decade, would produce a film segment for their new movie, "Claim" as well as a television show about the project.