February 2008 Archives

T. Hall takes a break again from filming for "The Massive" to give his fans a look a what he's been up to . In this episode Tanner is set to blow minds with a wall jib you will just have to see to believe.

Check out the video!

This fall, Simon Dumont and Jon Olsson put their heads together in the purpose of revitalizing the tired "Open" scene in the states. What emerged was Simon at the helm of a world-class halfpipe comp and Jon shaping a slopestyle course appropriate to handle fast moving progression in our sport. What we ended up with is the North American Open, for skiers by skiers, at Breckenridge this past weekend.

Local and international amateurs converged on Breckenridge's park to bro down with big names pros from all over the world. The event began with jam sessions and everyone got to know each other at communal lunches everyday. The event was a resounding success, despite the best efforts of Mother Nature, and will surely make a mark on the competition scene for years to come.

The Red Bull Ski Team dominated, taking spots on nearly every podium. In Men's Slopestyle, Jon Olsson threw down a slew of double flips on his hand crafted jumps to nab 2nd place. In Women's SuperPipe, Angeli VanLaanen boosted higher off the deck than any of her fellow competitor and nailed a smooth 540 to clinch the 2nd place podium spot. Simon Dumont absolutely ownerized the SuperPipe on the men's side and easly waltzed off with a 1st place finish.

Click over to photos for a complete gallery!

Thanks to Shay at Freeskier Magazine for the shots, and click over to freeskier.com for complete coverage of the NAO!

The decision is made: we’re leaving St. Anton. It’s Monday night and we’ll pack up the show and hit to road to Munich at 4 a.m. on Wednesday morning. But right now, we’re in Austria, and dammit were gonna have some fun while we are still here.

The crew has posted up in the Funky Chicken. Red Bull and vodka is flowing, C-grade American hits are bumping, and Euros are getting sloppy on the dance floor: most of them still in ski boots. Tanner and Sammy Carlson are hobbling around on crutches, Simon Dumont is keeping his cool, and Jossi Wells and Sean Pettit are straight dancing on the tables with 17-year-old Swedish girls. It’s a miracle the night ends without incident.

The next day, Sean Pettit is the only one healthy enough to hit the hill. We head to Stuben, the “smallest” resort in the Arlberg area, to take a few runs and shoot some B-roll footage for the webisodes. The terrain is out of control, like nothing in North America. It goes from steeps to rolling with wind lips, spines, gaps and drop off everywhere. It’s literally like a natural terrain park. Right now, the snow is super variable. You might have one great turn in some sugary week old pow, only to transition into some windbuff with a thin ice layer on top. If it was a powder days it would’ve been like no place on earth, but the snow conditions make high speed turns risky and jumping out of the question.

Nonetheless, getting up high in the Arlberg is amazing. The sun is shining and the groomers are soft, but not too soft. People are out having a great time and soaking up the rays on the decks. If we were on vacation it actually wouldn’t have been bad, but we were here to make a movie and that was obviously impossible. We make our way down to the road, actually finding some pockets of still creamy powder in the deep, dark drainages near the bottom. We nearly get stuck above some gnarly rocks clustered with Alders, but Sean leads the way and we pick our way back out into the sunlight.

Down in Stuben, we kick off the boards and hightail it to the Sportcafé for some rösti. Tanner couldn’t stop talking about the rösti, so it was an obvious stop. It’s basically some kind of hash brown scramble deal. It was damn good, and for about $20 (confounded weak dollar) it should be. We spent a good two hours basking in the sun, looking at lines, and drinking beer and cappuccinos. Very Euro of us, don’t you think?

Three-peat in X Games SuperPipe. Winning the King of Quarters. "Best Male Performance" and "Movie of the Year" at the Powder Video Awards. All this in one-week in January. Tanner talks about Winter X and Aspen and "the best week of my life." He also give props out to you, his fans, for being so supportive. Hit him back with a comment!

Check out the video!

Two planes, three trains, 6,100 miles, and 26 hours after leaving the comforts of North America; we roll into the station at St. Anton, Austria to join Tanner Hall, who is here filming for his new movie, “The Massive.” The fact few others get off at this stop isn’t suspect at this point. Weary and waiting for a ride, we fall prey to two drunk Germans rocking out to “Bad Boys” echoing around the empty station: blaring from one of their cell phones. They ask for a picture taken and insist on repaying the favor with a shooter of Jägermeister. Mild refusal is quickly overcome by the Duetsch-ers, and imbibing is appropriately set as a theme for this trip.

Tanner has already been in St. Anton skiing with Sean Pettit and Callum Pettit. The eve we arrived was also the eve of their one and only day skiing. Tanner is on crutches, Sammy Carlson (on a different film project) is on crutches, and Callum is complaining of a pulled calf muscle. Earlier in the day they went up to St. Cristoff near St. Anton and hit a zone of unreal natural terrain features. Unfortunately the snow was very real. It was surely powder at some point in it’s life, but two weeks of bluebird skies and relatively warm temps in Europe ensured that time is days past.

Tanner launches off a natural hit to a rollover landing and goes real big. Snow conditions are a few inches of sugary powder on top of a significantly firmer underlayer. Tanner bounces and on second impact he punches through the firm layer. When he finally comes to a stop he’s screaming about his ankle. Photographer Mattias Fredrickson hurriedly packs up his gear to rush to Tanner’s aid. CP looks on calmly. “Tanner always fears the worst about his injuries,” he says. “Give him a minute.” While Tanner definitely takes it easy for the next 24 hours, the next day he is nearly jogging around.

The facts stack up: Tanner is hurt (sort of), Callum is hurting, it hasn’t snowed in two weeks and the forecast is for the next week is great for sun-basking and laying it down on groomers, but there is not a flake of powder in sight for all of Europe. And St. Anton is schralped: in a zone where finding powder days after the storm is normal, the fact that all the hike to zones are haggard is a less than stellar omen. Take all this and throw in the nagging little fact that the Western United States is set to pop with storm cycles and one thing becomes painfully obvious: it’s time to pull the plug on Austria and turn this show around.

Keep checking back to www.redbullskiing.com for updates on the journey to create “The Massive.”

Only 16 years old, Oscar Scherlin was handed the keys to a brand new car after winning the Red Bull Playstreets slopestyle contest. With stomped switch 9's in all his runs he impressed the judges and earned his first international win.

Thousands of spectators were standing packed alongside the event area in central Bad Gastein on February 16 to see the world's best new school skiers fight for the Playstreet crown. Not a balcony around the area was empty.

Scherlin, who's more of a big air specialist than a slopestyle expert, made it through qualifying and beat his opponent in the quarter final in all three rounds. In the semi he was faced with Oskari Raitanen from Finland. Raitanen had so far into the competition looked like a winner, with advanced tricks and perfect landings. But Oscar was determined. Beating Raitanen with a 337 point score, he reached his dream final.

In the final he met another 16-year-old Red Bull athlete, Russ Henshaw from Australia. Filled with adrenaline, Scherlin managed to pull a perfect rerun of his semi final, and stomped tricks like a corner mute 540, mute switch 900 and safety 720. A somewhat sketchy landing off the rails at the finish made everybody grasp for air. Henshaw answered with a very clean, but a bit less difficult, repertoire including a misty flip and a great 720 jump from the rails.

In the end the victory was given to Oscar Scherlin, who was crowned with the Red Bull Playstreets crown and given the keys to a brand new Suzuki Vitara.

Some new footage from the filming of Tanner Hall's next movie, "The MASSIVE," is filtering in. Tanner's "Believe" just won the POWDER Video Awards "Movie of the Year," so pay attention and get a sneak peak of what Tanner is bringing to the table this fall.

In this episode, Tanner is back from pipe training in Copper and calls up his buddy Frank Raymond to hit some Salt Lake City rails. Cops, nollies, and disasters ensue.

Check out the footy!

What drives today’s ski world? Sledding out to shred the biggest backcountry peak, dropping massive cliffs, terrain parks or a little old-school hike and ride? This weekend at Red Mountain Resort in Rossland, BC, Red Bull Cold Rush proved it isn’t the format that matters, but the talent. 18 of the sports elite competed for the title of most versatile and best all-around skier, first hitting a natural cliff zone for a slopestyle session, followed by a freeski big mountain component, and finally a summit approach to make sure the athletes are well… athletic. So who is the king of all disciplines? According to a video-judging session conducted by the athletes themselves, it’s Golden, BC, resident Dave Treadway.

Click in here for complete details on the event and Red Bull athlete Sean Pettit's second place overall finish!

Check out the full photo gallery here!

February should be renamed “Powder.” It makes sense from a skier's standpoint. The holidays are over, X Games is over, the trade shows are over, and the time for talk is over. Winter is in prime time and it won’t last long. It’s time to get out there and slay some POW!

Fortunately for riders and winter enthusiasts of all kinds, Mother Nature is pretty much universally blessing everybody with dumpage. Little Cottonwood Canyon has been under Interlodge numerous times in the last two weeks, Tahoe is getting pounded, Wolf Creek is sporting a base depth on par with Mt. Baker, and somebody took the powder phone off the hook in the Pacific Northwest and forgot to put it back. It’s been snowing for weeks. Highway 26 through Government Camp up on Mt. Hood is like driving through a tunnel. The snow banks are at least 25 feet high.

This last weekend the unthinkable happened in Washington: it snowed too much. Eight feet of snow in five days managed to close all major skier highways. Effectively Mt. Baker, Alpental, Steven’s Pass, and Crystal Mountain were all cut off from the mass of Seattle powder hounds foaming at the mouth from the smell of fresh killings. If ever there was a time to “catch the flu”, today was it. All highways were back in business as of midnight Sunday. Let us not forget, too, that Alpental is closed on Mondays. Fat Tuesday, indeed.

Seattle-ites can rest easier knowing the slight tardiness of the earth in its turning will give them one more day in February this season. Use it wisely.

Click here to see some shots of Tanner Hall and Shane McConkey in the deep.

Tanner's crew checks in with two new behind the scenes updates from filming for the new movie, "The Massive".

Check out some insane over/under action in Copper's SuperPipe here!

Check out the crew nearly get bowled over by a full on Chinese downhill here!

In the post X Games fallout, Red Bull Skiing found itself in Summit County where temperatures were sub-zero in the sun and the wind was furiously carrying all the fresh pow off to a land far, far away. Not ones for standing around, we hopped in the car to find out where it all landed.

Get the full Roadtrip Report!

The event that fascinated 5,500 spectators through the “Bad Gastein Spell,” and attracted the 16 top newschool skiers from 10 nations last winter, is going to step up a notch on February 16, 2008. Red Bull Play Streets 2008 promises to offer a breathtaking show on a challenging course with additional obstacles and even better athletes.

A rigorous qualification procedure, as well as the new and exciting event layout, will demand an extra portion of freestyle skill from the athletes. This year’s tough competitors won’t make it easy for last year’s champion, Charles Gagnier, to defend his title.

The sequel on February 16, 2008 will ensure a top notch freestyle show in the centre of Bad Gastein. With a daunting Kicker right at the start – which has been moved 50m uphill – Gaigner, X-Game Champion Simon Dumont, ski legend JP Auclair, and further international adepts such as Jacob Wester and the Völkl athlete Russ Henshaw will tackle this ultimate challenge head on.

This unique spectacle, which brings the athletes from Funparks right to the village centre – making their astounding performances accessible for a wider public – will thus achieve new dimensions. The top-class starting field alone can bear comparison to the legendary X-Games line up. Spectacular slides on rooftops, road gap jumps and stylish jumps amidst the spectators promise to be a true eye’s delight.

Scoring will once again be carried out by an expert judge panel. Creativity, acrobatics, style and secure landing are required – and that is what the judges are going to be looking out for.

“It was really tough last year already. I have heard a few rumours about this years course – and I am really looking forward to it. I expect 2008 to move up one level,” declares freestyle icon Sven Kühnle from Germany.

Red Bull Playstreets

Location: Bad Gastein, Austria

Date: February 16, 2008

Click in to www.redbull.at/playstreets for more info and a video from last year's event!

Tanner Hall takes a few minutes to tell redbullskiing.com about this year's Winter X Games, filming in deep powder, and what he has in store for the world with his current movie project, "The Massive".

Click here to get the words from the man himself!

The Dumont is an X Games veteran, and while it may seem like he just shows up and slays it, he actually trains a ton for the competition season. Go inside the X Games with Simon and see what it's really like to be one of the best skiers in the world: not ALL fun and games. Keep an eye out for the part where the Winter X Games production dudes talk about having to raise the lights to keep Simon in the shots. Good thing they didn't have a roof over the SuperPipe...

Roll the video!

What do you say about five medals (three gold) in the four men's skiing events at Winter X 2008? "Damn" is a good place to start. Get the final word on how the Red Bull Ski Team skied in, slashed it up, and rode away fakie with some hardware around their necks.

The Full Report Here!