March 2008 Archives
Simon Dumont checks in via web clip to reflect on the season thus far. He takes us through his shoulder injury, getting back into the competition scene, making an epic trip out of un-epic snow in Europe, and heading to the heartland to school some youngsters. Check out the video here!
It's that time of the week again and Tanner Hall's film crew is checking in with another behind the scenes webisode. In previous entries concerning Retallack, we've regularly seen Karl the Gnarl, Retallack's celebrity cat driver, popping up here and there, always bringing unparalleled stoke to any situation. For this installment, Karl is the focus of attention, and deservedly so. Check out the video!
Red Bull Skiing recently had the chance to sit down with Tanner,
in his Park City home, and talk with him about the season thus far.
Tanner can talk for hours about skiing with little prompting, so the
standard interview format doesn't always work out. Fortunately what we
are left with is the man himself, uncut and uncensored.In the second installment, Tanner discusses dealing with injury, the reality of making ski movies, the Provo brothers (Ian and Neil), and the Pettit brothers (Callum and Sean). Enjoy.
A Conversation with Tanner: Part Two
*Click here for Part One
Simon Dumont's recent appearance at the Spirit Mountain, Minnesota Salomon Jib Academy stop was the biggest thing to hit the land of lakes since Jesse "The Body" Ventura. Ice fishing holes across the state froze over as groms abandoned the lakes for the hundreds of feet of vert at Spirit Mountain, and the chance to ski with one of the best in the world. The Dumont laid down the basics for everyone and a contest was held to determine who would go on the Salomon Jib Academy finals later in the season. Fun was had under balmy Midwestern skies by everyone who came out.
Check out the video, eh?
This week the "Massive" dailies come to us from Retallack again, this time with some perspective from Karl the Gnarl: Retallack's ever present stoke monger. Tanner gets inverted in this episode, and Sammy Carlson overcomes a pesky road gap. Click in here for the video!
Red Bull Skiing recently had the chance to sit down with Tanner,
in his Park City home, and talk with him about the season thus far.
Tanner can talk for hours about skiing with little prompting, so the
standard interview format doesn't always work out. Fortunately what we
are left with is the man himself, uncut and uncensored. In this first installment Tanner discusses striking out in St. Anton, coming home to Utah, and what lies ahead for the remainder of his winter. Make sure to check back for the continuation of this conversation with Tanner. Enjoy.
A Conversation with Tanner: Part One
Go back to early January. With hindsight we know Tanner wins the gold medal in Superpipe at Winter X Games, again, but the question is how does the three-peat champion prepare to thwart the onslaught of innovation from guys like Simon Dumont year after year? Good friend and fellow skier C.R. Johnson give us a bit of perspective on Tanner's days leading up to X Games. Check out the video here!
In the wake of his successful quest to ski all the 14,000ft peaks in Colorado last year, Red Bull Skier Chris Davenport has set up an online community to help others follow in his footsteps. The descent registry is located at www.skithe14ersforum.com on the web, and is designed to provide a wealth of knowledge and beta for routes up, and down, Colorado's highest peaks. Dav himself get on there often to provide first hand accounts of summiting all 54 peaks. As the spring corn season ramps up in Colorado, so does the high alpine climbing season. Everybody planning on climbing, please be safe and well-informed! If you have questions or need information, head to Dav's site!
Check it out: www.skithe14ersforum.com
After having our well-laid plans of powder domination destroyed by sledneckers up North in Logan, we regroup back down by Park City for another sled mission to find fresh in Utah. It’s somewhat of a gamble as temperatures are unsettlingly spring-like across the state, but Ian and Neil Provo know of a zone at high altitude with North facing aspects. It’s not a cakewalk getting to this spot. More than thirty miles in from the trailhead, it’s difficult to figure out if our light-headedness can be attributed to the altitude, or sucking two-stroke fumes for the last hour. Cutting the engines, it only takes seconds to see the toil was worth it. Silence envelopes us like a flood and the ridge before us—rising from a frozen alpine lake—is a natural terrain park covered with at least a foot of fresh snow that is still good.
Read the full story here!
Click into the massive gallery here!
We arrive at the trailhead well before sunrise. A quick three-mile buzz up a groomed trail, we spill out onto a frozen lake. The scene that lay before us is hard to describe. The small lake is rimmed by ridgeline probably a mile long. It’s littered with spines, chutes, flutes, pillows, and mandatory airs. And it’s steep. The sun crests the horizon and the face is aglow in pinkish light. The line possibilities are endless. For an hour the silence is only broken by the yells of “three, two, one, dropping” and the hoots that follow. Inevitably, we hear the drone of more sleds ripping up the trail. We knew we wouldn’t be alone out here, but nobody was prepared for the fury that was about to be unleashed upon us.
Click in here for the full story!
Click in here for the complete photo gallery!
Once again, Tanner takes a moment from the road to fill us in on his latest adventure filming "The Massive." This week we find Tanner and Ian Provo shredding the Tahoe backcountry. These guys get up well before the sun to get fresh tracks on the best features. Keep an eye out for Tanner's stomped 900 and Ian's slab-a-lanche surfing. Click in here for the vid!
Shane McConkey checks in with a Russian ski magazine and talks life, death, and the functionality of monoskiing. The interview seems straightforward enough, but we're pretty sure the Russian Secret Service has had there eye on Shane for some time. Word is they are looking for a connection to Saucer Boy.
Click in here for every last word.
It’s 5 a.m. and we’re ripping down the Autobahn in a rented van. Sean Pettit is buried amongst the rolling body bags, sleeping, and Callum Pettit is working on the same thing in the middle seat. Next to him Tanner Hall is dying. It sounds like it anyways. He’s moaning like someone stabbed him in the stomach and he’s not so much talking as he is gasping out words. Tanner cracked a tooth on his knee back in January in Retallack and now it’s down to the nerve. Munich is two hours away and the States at least 24. Somebody digs some painkillers out of the mass of bags filling the van. It quiets Tanner a little. This Austria trip is falling apart like a satellite coming out of orbit. We need to get stateside fast. Jamming down the Autobahn at 140km per hour, you feel like your hair is on fire. An Italian accent develops from deep within and you demand everyone call you “Mario.” That’s until some Klaus absolutely smokes you in a Beamer. And then it happens again, like pretty regularly all the way to Munich. Quickly you morph back into an American driving a glorified minivan. Besides, somebody has to drive in the slow lane.
Rolling through the airport in Munich, Tanner is in bad shape. Aside from the tooth pain, the ankle he thought was no big deal is still really swollen. Tanner relents to wheelchair and mulls over the 14 hours of flights, in coach, to get back to Park City. Step backwards and we realize this is the dirty side of ski movie making and lives of the pro’s that trot the globe to do it. We traveled halfway around the world to ski, and Mother Nature slammed the door on us. This is what most people don’t see or understand. In the movies it looks like the pro’s just show up and slay pow. While they do get their fair share of those trips, this crew is working on getting nothing of much substance on film for over a month. It’s wearing on everyone.
In the end it’ll make a good story. Seriously, who the hell travels halfway around the world to Austria and leaves a day later because there’s no powder? Red Bull Skiing and Tanner Hall do, that’s the hell who. Winter is painfully short and this is a job for everyone involved. Like a cruel joke, it’s snowing in Jerusalem and Lebanon, but Europe is smothered in a high-pressure system and rising freezing levels that won’t be letting up anytime soon. Weighing all options it seems Utah is set to pop with a couple storms. Tanner has crazy sled to terrain nearly in his backyard, and word of an epic zone up North has sparked great interested amongst Tanner and his crew. We all settle into our coach seats on a jumbo jet and let the exhaustion of the last three days render us unconscious for most of the trip back.
Keep checking into www.redbullskiing.com for reports out of Utah.
