george crosland photo blog

http://www.skateboard-revolution.com/news/2008-Wendy-Invitational-Report.html

Mike Casanova took either the last contest of the 07-08 season or the first contest of the 08-09 season? Well, since the second issue of both Transworld and Snowboarder are out
and ready to psych you for the next season, it can be considered the first contest of the upcoming season. The Dew Tour is an action sports tour that does not usually have snowboarding; it focuses on skate, moto-x and bmx. So why have a snowboard rail jam at stop #3 the Wendy’s invitational? Possibly it all started when this stop of the Dew Tour was the Van’s Invitational and since Van’s makes snowboard boots AND Portland is home to the US year round snowboard Mecca (mt Hood), well why not throw a snowboard jam? One year I went to the snowboard jam it was pretty hectic. Tons of heads showed, even Danny Kass rode a little and I somehow ended up at a bar with him at 2:30 am. That year it was a full on party. This year was a different story. They only invited 8 guys to show up and being snowboarders, half of them did not show. So we go from a crazy hectic rail jam/party to a rail jam with only five guys in it. Is that what happens when it goes from being sponsored by Vans to Wendy’s and Nike? Anyway, it was definitely not hectic; the 5 guys could not keep it going without some breaks in the action. However it was snowboarding in August and that is always fun so who cares. Maybe if they do it again next year they will invite more heads again. Oh and just for the record, they are starting a winter Dew Tour this upcoming winter with three stops in Breckenridge, Mt Snow and Northstar so look for that.

A few of the no shows were Nick Dirks and Lucas Magoon. Who did show was a Vermont kid named Riley Nickerson who ripped it up pretty well. Trevor Jacobs who out and out kills pipes, it was cool to see him ride rails, something I had not had the pleasure of seeing until now. In fact Trevor did one of the sickest moves of the event; a transfer from the take off of the rail all the way over to a front 50-50 on the down box. Jonas Michelot won it last year. This year he said he was at a friends bbq and barley made it. He was wearing shorts, had some funky binding stance and just kind of cruised and had fun. Of course having fun for Jonas means doing a lot of crap most of us can’t. Mike Casanova did maybe the burliest tricks, 360’s on and off, had some good style. Always good to see Casanova ride appearantly the judgesd think so too as Casanova won. Chris Rotax was the hard charger, logging 18 runs in thirty minutes. Chris did every 270 on to 270 off you could think of including a sick cab 270 on, 270 off the hard way. Chris got second It was not the highest energy due to lack of entrants but then again when is snowboarding bad?

Hana Beaman was lurking around, no wait only creepy photographers like me lurk, she was hanging out

How do you make “snow” when it is 80 degrees? Easy, a big truck pulls up full of ice and they grind it down into “snow” and spray it everywhere

Krush from the Summit at Snoqualmie and his crew from Snowboy productions came down from the Washington Cascades to help put the jam on

Chris Rotax gives it the thumbs up from the top of the set up

The sun going down over Portland, Burnside, the home of the Portland Trailblazers and the rail jam

Vermonts own Riley Nickerson with a 50-50 to front lip

Chris Rotax - one of his 18 runs

Mike Cassnova does a nose manny on the rail

Jonas had NO practice, actually showed up as it started. This was his first run, a front lipslide stale fish or something, check out the alpine race style stance width

Chris Rotax - front smith on the rail

Jonas - front board in tight shorts

270 on/off for Rotax maybe

Trevor Jacobs

Chris Rotax with a cab 270 on - maybe

Jonas got the last hit of the event

Check the guns on Casanova

Jonas shows off his stance and his Union/Airblaster collaborative bindings. No not the 17 year Burton Airs that Craig Kelly rode, even though they kind look like it

Chicks strutting their stuff in the crowd. Every seemed to be having fun, enjoying the summer weather in Portland

How can you go to Portland, cover a snowboard event and not go ride Mt Hood? Sure all the camps are over, it is back to school time at Wal Mart, most of the pros are down to the Southern Hemisphere but Timberline at Mt Hood stays open all year except for a few weeks in September for maintenance. The fall gets dicey weather but you can still ride in October if you want

You get about 1500′ vertical of riding on the Palmer snowfield lift. If you are willing to walk a few minutes you could get almost 2500′ vertical down to the Magic Mile lift

Sadly, they flattened the pipe and jumps the night prior, only a few rails remained. So if you are really Jonesing, head to Mt Hood. A local said it was actually more fun in the fall when the summer tourists (like me) were gone

I have been doing stuff on Oregon all week so this is kind of part 4 in a series, check out part 3 here

http://www.skateboard-revolution.com/news/Oregon-Part-3.html

http://www.skateboard-revolution.com/news/Oregon-Part-1.html

http://www.skateboard-revolution.com/news/Oregon-Part-2.html

If you have been to the top of Bear Mountain and looked across the valley to see big Alpine Bowls and thought “how do I get there”? Well, you walk, in the ealy 90’s Transworld Snowboarding did an article on that mountain which is called San Georgonio and it is the tallest mountain in So Cal. However you get up there is hard. The shortest (Vivian Creek) way is 12 miles rt but climbs like 5700 feet. The next longest way only climbs 3500′ but is twenty miles (fish creek) and requires a gnarly drive on a dirt road, another way is up poopout hill which is 22+ miles and requires 4500′ of climbing. It is pretty remote back there and some route do not have water. We met people that were pretty hating it for lack of water. It is beautiful and we even saw a big bear. wilderness in SoCal, who knew. Now we just need to go up in the winter

Camp at sunrise

Sunrise over the Yucca Valley and Joshua Tree

The 11,499′ summit from Fisk Creek Saddle

San Jacinto on the way up

Across Cajon Pass to Mt Baldy

Looking down the Big Bowl from the summit and we are looking towards Big Bear and the Sierras

Looking towards Oceanside from the summit

In 1952 an Airforce C47 plane ran into the mountain, “of thirteen passengers there were 13 deceased” The whole plane is strewn about the mountainside, here is a propeller

A pretty good old friend of mine opened an art gallery in Venice a week or two ago. it was a packed opening. He sude to work at the Saloon and somehow got Buweiser to sponsor it and thus provide free beer. The second day the gallery was open Stacy Peralta cruised by. Last weekend he showed a Pink Floyd Film and soon he is supposed to do a skate oriented show with Jeff Ho. For more info go to cavegallery.net

Close up of a few pieces. If you are ever in LA single or with a chick, roll by the gallery and get some food in Venice so your date thinks you are all arty and deep

The art is of a sensuous nature

Pat on the left owns the gallery with his cool girlfriend Tanya, Tim dj’s (and is a middle school teacher and owns a dog accesoriy company) and I don’t know the guy on the right. I still remember meeting Pat in 7th grade on the school bur in Western PA

Venice has sure changed in the past 10 years or so. It used to have some pretty questionable areas and this (Rose Street) was on of the you may not want to be if you were not a local. Now it is getting all cleaned up, Good by to latino hair salons, drug dealers and poor bohemians. Hello to art galleries, wine shops, restaurants and rich bohemians.

Venice Boardwalk, 9 am on a Sunday. There were actually some crazy people yelling stuff, Hare Krishnas and peopl living in their cars at that early hour

Venice Pavillion was the scene of some heavy ripping back in the day. Names like Jeff Heartsell, Christian Hosoi, Aaron Murray, Jesse Martinea and more would rip the Pavillion a new one in the early days of streetskating. Today there is a little park there and it wa quiet at 9 am on a Sunday