It finally happened

i can't believe that they're are people who do this! i have never gone to a camp because i didn't want to get pwned by 12yr olds but now that ive seen your guys' drive and lack of fear i may just do it.
 
Hahahahaha, As much as I would love to I am not sure that would go over well with Momentum management nor the police for that matter. You will have to find another way, if that is your goal. I didn't used to go to ski camp when I was in my teens but I was on the Canadian karate team and always managed to get some kind of "beverages" on last day. Not that I would encourage YOU guys to do it, I am just saying.
PS. Beer is not cash efficient for dollar per volume of alcohol- it is this relationship taught me fractions as a kid. It is also high volume for its alcohol content (thus takes up space, is heavy to carry around in volume and has a strong scent so it is harder to hide. Plus, girls tend not to like it as much and if the reasons for underage drinking haven't changed since I was 16-18 then I would be looking elsewhere. Not that I would encourage underage drinking...
 
What started as "The Unemployment Chronicles" on Poachninja.com, where I had left work to ski the Southern Hemisphere season, ended after only a month and I never even left the first destination of my grand tour, Momentum Ski Camp in Whistler. I was, in fact, only going to spend a couple of weeks in Momentum before going south but I sold out to the almighty dollar (or yen in this case) and was lured back into the working world. With only a little over a month of work and the season still early down south I opted to spend 1 month with John Smart et al. working on my park skillz with the kiddies. I was the oldest camper for 2 of the 4 weeks I spent at camp but the experience was better for it. The kids are the youthful exuberance of the ski lifestyle and I got to feel a part of it. The photos of the kids and pros are all over Newschoolers and will be in the magazines next year. Here is one (old) man's ski camp experience in pictures.There was a pro photog named Hans cruising the camp and taking pics. He got my "unnatural pensive" quite well
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One of the things I for one looked forward to in camp is coach Rory Bushfield's jury rigged portable bbq. It started with hotdogs but as his confidence progressed he was even grilling fish. I have suggested that he get a beer fridge backpack next year, we will see...
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Two new things this year at camp was the introduction of a stuntman's airbag to learn new tricks and me (and fellow mag ForrestBro) with Casio's new high speed casios with auto sequencing. Here we see both in action
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Also quite new to me is the "double double" of DH mountain biking almost every day after skiing. Here myself and StillNoProgress (who, as a snowboarder, was at Camp of Champs) in the Whistler bike park. It was the ability to do both biking and skiing that helped keep me in Whistler over Chile, TBH.
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In the second week we got fresh snow and got to ski a few inches of pow in the AM! This was at about 1500m
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A couple runs of pow turns and I remembered I was at feeride camp so I did the last pow run switch (not quite to the road)
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I should also mention, momentum runs a kicking sound system to keep up the stoke
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Age does reveal itself in the park. Here a combo of a beer belly and poor flexibility conspire to defeat my attempt at double safety...
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The airbag jump got bigger and bigger through the week and they built a quarter pipe hit on the side, where I got to work on my "flat spin alle-oup 5's" or something like that. I cannot remember the terms for the life of me...
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Low angle rail shots can even make the most over the hill skier look steezy
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Halfway through camp I broke my Armadas and bought these Atomics off of a coach. I didn't realize at the time that they were next year's most hyped ski in the park scene and all the kiddies thought I was sponsored, until they saw me ski
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In order to keep it real and a bit oldschool, I hit the odd mogul lane
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And in order to keep young I did a few no-pole runs...
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Finally, it took a couple of weeks to work up the courage to hit the 75 footer on the far left. By the end of a month I could even spin over the fukker.
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So that is my month. Instead of an aborted Southern season, I choose to remember it as a month at ski camp. For a month at least, I was a park rat, not a 35 year old wage slave and that is a good thing. Warren Miller is wrong, if you don't do it this year, you are even less likely to do it in the next year so go for it, go to to park camp and I will see you there next year.
 
screw it. I thought I would just post the TR here. To all I met drop me a line any time. If you are in Japan and want to ski the backcountry do not hesitate to reach out. I loved my experience at Momentum and I would love to share the Japan backcountry with you guys. You brought me the stoke and I would love to bring it to you. At least in the real BC I wont feel like a 'tard like you guys made me feel in the park ;)
 
Such a killer story yet again, super glad you are still kicking it hard and going huge. Like someone said, I one day hope to be a rad as you are. Thanks for the smiles!
 
sick! keep it up man and don't listen to what any of those younger kids say. There are old skiers everywhere, but when I see you being a park skier (even though your not really old at all) its sooooo sick! Keep it up man
 
my friend(user: fattyplankers) and i wanna hit up japan! his uncle owns some ski town over there so he said he could hook us up. its just a matter of finding affordable flights at this point
 
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