Category Archives: Travel

Selway or the Highway

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Jackson Frishman

Selway or the Highway

An Idaho River Rafting Extravaganza and Review

WHAT WE’RE TALKING ABOUT

What: A long river trip on an incredibly rare river with an awesome group of friends
Where: The Wild and Scenic Wilderness of the Selway River, from Paradise Creek Ranger Station to Selway Falls
When: Meet in Missoula, MT at 6pm June 17, and return to Missoula by 11am June 24
Who: About 13 of us total
What else: email any questions to Dennett Dwyer

WHAT NEXT?

Read the below. There are some logistics, as well as a lot of info on what to bring—this may require some shopping/borrowing/stealing; also, the sooner we have confirmed details from everyone, the sooner we can nail down important logistics like shuttle and food.

LOGISTICS

Travel arrangements and requirements
• Please plan to meet in Missoula June 17, or arrange to be met in Darby (SLC crew).
• Please do not plan to be able to be back in Missoula until June 24th.

Weather
There is a lot of elevation change on the trip. Temperatures could be in the mid-nineties at their hottest, but most likely will hover around 70-80 degrees, with nights in the high 40’s to low-50’s (and the nights will get slightly warmer as we go). Afternoon thunderstorms are VERY common there in June/July.

Shuttle
Rivers go one-way. This means we’ll need to shuttle gear, people, and vehicles from top to bottom and vice versa. The most efficient way to do this is a paid shuttle service, but our total costs will depend on number of vehicles, space in vehicles for people and (heavy) gear, and time (one-way the shuttle takes a full day). This is why meeting in Missoula with time for us to sort this out is essential.

WHAT TO BRING

Key point: space is a concern, but weight is not.

Equipment / Gear
Everyone will be given dry-bag space of set dimensions when we arrive at the put-in on the afternoon/evening of June 18 Couples will consolidate into larger bags, and tent partners can be determined then. Here is what you will need:

  • Mess Kit: BRING YOUR OWN PLATE, BOWL, SPOON, CUP, FORK, KNIFE
  • River clothes: swimsuit, wetsuit/drysuit, river booties (wetsuit booties, NOT water shoes); helmet; PFD
  • Land clothes: pants, shorts, underwear, t-shirt, towel, jacket for chilly nights, hat, socks, rain jacket, optional gloves, long underwear
  • Footwear: heel-strapped sandals for the river/day, durable shoes that would allow you to side-hike, or comfortably sit in camp
  • Sleepery: Sleeping bag and pad. Expect nighttime temperatures in the mid-50’s.
  • Tent: please coordinate who you will share a tent with or if you plan to sleep under the stars or tarp (perfectly viable option)
  • Sunscreen. It is probably wise to plan for one bottle for every two people. We can coordinate at put-in so we don’t end up with 90 bottles of goop.
  • Sunglasses: if they are prescription or otherwise expensive, please be sure to secure them to your head if wearing them on the river.
  • Games: we’ll bring adventure bocce. Would be ideal to have a Frisbee, any travel-size waterproof board games, etc.
  • Safety: a personal first-aid kit is wise. If you don’t have one, no worries: there will be a large group first aid kit. If you have special medications or concerns (eg epi pin) let us know so we can account for space in the group kit (it is important to locate that centrally, versus your personal bag, so any responder on the trip can move as quickly as possible)

Food:
• Jesse will have a full 3-meal menu planned for the night of June 18 (campground) through the lunch of June 23 (takeout), including large-scale snacks such as trailmix. Please plan to bring anything you expect to complement that.

Booze:
• In general, plan to bring your own booze or drugs. Boxed wine is suitable, if the wine is in a durable bag inside the box. If liquor, please avoid glass bottles (transfer to another container if needed). Unfortunately, beer is the worst violator of the space consideration and we will not be able to bring nearly as much as we’d like. The glass rule applies here, too. Be warned: If you are a beer drinker, we will pack this last, allocate cooler space and ration the beer appropriately.

Boats:
• Please only bring a kayak if you plan to hard boat more than 1 day. Rafts will be three oar rigs and one paddle rig. This should be the perfect amount of boat for us to have more beer than normal.

Communication:
• We will have a satellite phone. This means you CAN call your children, wife, or lawyer if you’d like. However, please reserve that for emergency situations if possible. The same goes for in-bound calls. We will know the number for our sat phone by Missoula, in case you need to be reached while we are on the river, but please ask those who have it to use it to not expect to get a hold of you.

COSTS

Costs: Total per-person cost of the trip is currently estimated to be between $250 and $450. We will know more as the logistics and rentals finalize. Most costs will be handled by Dennett or Jesse, upfront. If you purchase something for the group, keep your receipts. If you are bringing a raft, you are not expected to pay into raft rental costs. An outline of possible costs is below.

Deposit: None. We can settle up by Square/check after the trip

Considerations: These are the things that will affect total per-person costs.
Equipment rental
Food
Shuttle
Fees
Repairs

OTHER DETAILS

1. Communism: It’s (dumbly) important that, if asked by ANYONE, we say every one of us has paid an equal amount of money and effort to go on this trip. As a collective. The reasoning is that if one of us is profiting, that person can be fined (massively) for running a commercial trip without a license. In recent years, put-in rangers have become weirdly sneaky about casually asking this question in order to write a citation.

2. Capitalism: As Dennett has probably said a dozen times to all of you folks, this is a trip of a lifetime. For me–as someone who does a lot of these trips every season—it’s a special kind of awesome to do it with not only my family, but also mine and their good friends. I’m stoked. And if you’re not as psyched as me, then just take solace in the economics: to do this river commercially, you’d be paying more than $2,000 per person. I think we can get that much fun out of this.

Allergies/medical considerations: Again: please definitely highlight these ahead of time.

Assumption of risk: It goes without saying, this is a group trip of individuals solely responsible for their own safety. Rivers are dangerous, and so are your friends (esp when they’ve been drinking). We have a lot of qualified first responders on the trip, but they have no legal obligation to help us.

Vail Resorts Epic Race – Explanation of Awesomeness

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[YouTubeUlar] <— 442

***NOTE*** – Next week this post will be post dated back to December 24th, 2013

Merry EPIC Christmas-Holiday-New Year and Happy End of Work Day on December 24th, 2013.

As many of you know I have been charging around the world with a couple awesome people skiing and “in a way” competing in something called Vail Resorts Epic Race. The Epic Race was conceived by Vail Resorts as a contest for the first 10 people who successfully skied every Vail Resort in the 2013/14 season which included 26 ski resorts spread across 4 different continents. 12 were located in the US and the remaining 14 were in Austria, Switzerland and France — The reward for the first 10 people who accomplished this goal would be a Vail Resorts Lifetime Epic Pass. Of course, when I first heard about this randomly awesome competition in early October I knew it would be a fun endeavor to attempt to win what would be known as “THE” ski pass of all ski passes! What I didn’t know is that when it came down to the final day of the FINAL resort to open in Brides-Les-Bains France… was that there would be 131 people from across the world contending for this most EPIC of Epic Vail Passes. Vail Resorts didn’t even expect this kind of final day outcome… and even though Vail has stated that we would all know the final results from this most epic of epic races by end of work day today, I’m happy to announce that they have decided to take some “EXTRA” time to review all the content and all the angles from this 29 day race!

To summarize what Ashley Cooley, Devin L Rhinehart and I have all accomplished in the last month is pretty difficult to comprehend. I think it can best be described as a test in school, like your final final of the semester. Only if you didn’t pass this final, there was ZERO chance of you passing… or “winning” in this case – which all made sense to us. So I basically used that approach to find some motivation to get our team into and through the final day. All three of us from “Team Fun” were in the top 10 percentile through school as we grew up… so we simply needed to apply these rules of life to the final day and if we succeeded and tried our best … we should probably be ok on the final leader board. Sounds simple enough, however there were some additional requirements to get you to the top. 1 – time, 2 – paying attention to detail… and 3 – being sure all your previous content for the race was up to snuff. Of course there is always LUCK involved too, but we had plenty of that on our side with Ashley being the lucky one. Devin was our Time freak, and I was pretty much Mr Detail. Put us all together and we find ourselves at number 20, 21 and 25 on the final “unofficial” Vail Resorts Epic Race leader board. However, when you throw a little detail into it you will notice that 9 people in front of us automatically get tossed from improper uploading on the final day — Two of those don’t even have video links. Add another level of detail and 4 more get dropped for not following resort rules – aka “you can’t hike outside of resort hours”. That brings Rhinehart up to number 7, me at 8 and Cooley as the top girl finisher just out of the top 10 at 12.

Of course, these are unofficial results — even by my count. I have no idea what Vail Resorts will ultimately choose to do or how nitpicky they are going to get in judging this most EPIC of epic races! When you start digging into 26 mountains of content it becomes pretty overwhelming pretty fast! How do I know? Because I’ve done it. One of the cool things about this race is that everyones piece of content from accomplishing all 26 ski resorts is public which is why I am happy to see them taking the extra time to get the correct 10 finishers on top of the board. After jumping into the 52 photos and 26 fifteen second minimum videos from each contestant, I know who gets tossed and who sticks around. And almost every other racer knows too… Except for the one element that is publicly unknown in this race, which is who actually emailed Vail Resorts a photo of their completed European ski stamp passport by 11:59:59pm on December 20th, 2013. Assuming everyone in front of us accomplished this 1 simple task … I see myself finishing in 7th place – Rhinehart moves to number 6 and Cooley… well there is a super slim small chance that she could pop into the top 10, but even though I know there are technicalities with some uploaded content between us, I do not expect Vail to jump to that level of detail to pop her into the top 10 — If they do choose to go that route, then I would probably be dropped for having goggles or sunglasses on in one of my photos or videos. Sunglasses were never actually addressed, but goggles were recommended to be off your face as you must be visible in all photos and videos and you must include #epicrace in your titles and your Facebook posts and you must choose 1 video and 2 photo locations from a list of required elements at each area and have all your content upload by midnight of the time zone of the mountain you were visiting and you must have lift scan data from the given mountain on the given day and you can only ski 1 US mountain or 2 European mountains per day and you must accomplish this all during resort operating hours and you needed to shoot horizontal video opposed to vertical iPhone video and you need to talk loud through plastic on GoPros and and you can’t promote other brands or use copyrighted material on and on and on… can you see how run on and on this contest could get let alone judging it all!? Either way, at some point there needs to be a line drawn in the final judging criteria in order to release the official leader board and award the top racers their Vail Resorts lifetime season pass!

If we are on that list — Fantastic! If for some reason we don’t quite make the official top 10, then we will still enjoy the experiences that have been had and the Vail Resorts Epic season pass for next year that will be awarded to anyone who completes all 26 Vail mountains in the 2013/2014 season. In keeping with the original spirit of “Team Fun”, I will end this post with the 1 simple rule we had while blowing over 2700 miles in the car and almost 14,000 miles in the air to accomplish this 1 impressive task of skiing 26 ski resorts in 29 days in 4 different countries — “Skiing is fun… and that’s about all!”

It was amazing meeting so many *awesome people* on this incredible adventure! Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone!

*Awesome People*

Nick and Scott Annis
Joe Jensen, Weather Man Steve Sacco and John Victor
Michael Lahey + Epic Race Mom Sharon Mcmonagle
Devin Rhinehart, Ashley Cooley + Greg Hydle … “Team Fun”
Bill and little man Charlie Fiveash
London man Steve Curtis
Japan master Zoe Huebner
The Beard of Ando!
Golden locals Michael + Nila Ferrone
Newlyweds Jessica + Dave Schnoll
Sister + Brother team Jannah and Jeff Din!
The Wilson Duo
The Beard of Sean Regan!
The Jackson Hole Greece of Nick Greece
My manager… Kim Jackson!
Windy Wendy Smith
Ultimate video bomber Parker Jackson
The always proper Carolyn Pope!
Crazy Face Troy Martinez
The child in Annie + David Childs
The always Rad Rad Roubeni!
The hair of Tom Slazinski
Epic start with Matt Dority
Webmaster Will Tran
Crazy Man Kai Whittier (never actually met but heard ridiculous stories)
The Curls of Kim Klopp!
Tera + Garrick Keatts
The Silent JK Johnny Kuo
Sock Firestarter Zac Irwin!
The Humor of Jason Walence
Master Ski Sabbatical Jay Irwin
The entire Liu Family!
Will you marry me Matthew Walence
Ryan Garnett, “Pets Heads Falling Off” Colin Dean, and Backflip Trevor Posey!
Green Icelantic Machine Hollis Carter
Our Shit Got Jacked Alexandra Malkin + Aaron Marks :(
Completed the Epic Race Right Jessica Jackson Hill!
The Finished in Fine Fashion Lawrence Bayer
The Dreads of Jonathon Blair Ermer
Yellow Man Giovanni De Francisco!
The Ned Man Kip and Legitimately Last Place Final Day Finisher Kip Lagorin
One Take Timmy Jarred Simpson
The One and Only Man of Epicness Himself … Adam Warot!

Team Fun Post Race Recap

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Winning Leaderboard Team Fun
Well, if you’re reading this, you most likely know that thanks to some serious shifting of the leaderboard, we came home with two official winners of the Epic Race – Hydle and Rhinehart – CONGRAT-U-FREAKING-LATIONS guys!!!

After the race finished up, Hydle and I stayed for about an extra week in Switzerland to decompress and enjoy some more scenery. We would have gotten more skiing in, however so far (January 9, 2014) we have officially managed to miss every.single.storm.so.far. So, after skiing groomers for 10 days straight in Europe, we were ready for a break from the groomer days, and ended up mainly relaxing, catching up on fast internet, and checking out Switzerland a bit. I think we also didn’t realize how grueling and exhausting our pace had been until we stopped and we kinda hit a wall after it all ended.

Rhinehart had to head straight back to get back to work, but we had pretty regular phone calls with him still from Europe just decompressing from the trip, chatting about the way it all ended, and discussing the potential for the leaderboard to still change (we were sitting at 20, 21 and 25 until Vail posted the official winners)…and of course missing each other because we got pretty used to traveling as the badass threesome that we were.

Now let me fill you in on one thing about Hydle if you don’t know him that well. He gets SUPER into things, like hyperfocused to a fault, once his mind is set on something. This actually was a trait that I know can be directly attributed in a large part on the overall success of the team throughout the entire trip. The amount of research that Hydle and Rhinehart did prior to even DECIDING if we were going to do the trip probably outweighs the overall research of any team for the entire trip. Hydle has spreadsheets galore on every minor detail he could gather on each ski resort, the type of travel we would do, our scheduling, the rough costs, hotels to stay at, reaching out to European friends for local tips, local hookups on rides and accommodations, etc. It was honestly hard to keep up with because his research was so thorough and involved before we even began the race that I struggled to feel like I could even help or contribute because by the time I was able to look something up and bring it up to the group, Hydle would say “Oh I know, we already have that figured out.” That said, Rhinehart was a huge asset in research, resources, and organization too. The duo of Hydle and Rhinehart combined was pretty unstoppable in terms of overall preparation I would say throughout the entire Epic Race. I helped where I could, but these guys had it dialed to a T.

All that said, the one prop I will give to myself is that I truly believe I’m a really lucky person. I mean, I know I’m a lucky person! So, throughout the trip, the guys kept telling me they were glad I was on the trip because they needed a good luck charm, and guess what, they got one, nailed it!

So now that you know that Hydle obsessively researches everything thoroughly, you should also know that after the Epic Race ended (at 10:17 am precisely on December 20) we didn’t even ski all the way down our one and only run of the day before we ended up at a bar, with Hydle and Rhinehart borrowing a pen and paper from the bartender, and proceeding to solve ALL of the puzzles that Vail had put out on the final day. This didn’t make any sense to me, I mean, the race was over, who cares what the answers to all the puzzles were. But Hydle in particular felt he needed to know if he could have solved all the puzzles, and wouldn’t quit until he did! I think the puzzle solving took about 2 hours in total, but he did it!

So along the same lines as him solving all of the puzzles, he was the same way with wanting to know who on the leaderboard would or would not remain there after being vetted by Vail and all of the rules in place on how to properly finish the race.

Since all of the information we had to post in order to complete the race was public, it was actually pretty simple – albeit time consuming – to sort through every single person on the leaderboard in front of us and make a judgment call on whether we felt they would remain on the leaderboard or not.

The most common reason for the leaderboard changing was a lot of racers actually didn’t catch the part in the rules on the final day that said you actually had to take a photo with the epic race sticker in it on the final day. Many people made it to the final locations, but missed the sticker requirement. This alone dropped off roughly 10 people who had been in front of us on just the first day.

The sticker requirement, combined with knowing that 4 of the first guys on the board had hiked up the mountain (which we felt wasn’t going to be allowed by Vail) meant Hydle especially felt that there was still a decent chance that they may actually bump all the way up into the top 10.

We all knew it was going to be a close call on how it all shook out when Vail actually sorted through everyone, but the more Hydle dug in, the more confident he was feeling about potentially moving into the leaderboard. Remember, the beauty of this race was that all of the entries were publicly posted, so therefore it was possible to determine on our own who had fulfilled all of the requirements.

So, from Switzerland, we spent an ENTIRE day sitting inside one of his friend’s apartments who generously let us stay in it for several days (thank you Rob, Laetitia, and Francis!!). Hydle busted out his spreadsheets and started going through every single racer above us’s content, one by one, extremely thoroughly. By thorough, I mean, if they posted a 4 minute YouTube video, he watched the entire video, even if in the first 10 seconds it was obvious they were at the correct location.

He chatted with fellow racers, he emailed Vail several times, he researched edge cases, and he confirmed via multiple sources that it was in fact against Meribel’s policy to hike to the top of the mountain while the mountain was closed (this fact was crucial because it gave Vail the discretion to remove the top 4 guys who hiked the mountain and got an advantage on the leaderboard on the final day.)

I don’t even think he got up out of his chair in front of the computer for 8 hours straight. He was lucky I was there to keep him fed and hydrated. But, we did run out of food by the end of this day, and I started to get super hangry and cabin fevery, and almost left to just get pizza without him after starving for hours, but he eventually finished it up and we did get to get out of the apartment for some sweet Mongolian bbq on Christmas eve!

After his long ass day of Hydle research (and more hours on either end of this long day), Hydle had come to the determination (going into this late night Christmas Eve dinner at Mongolian BBQ) that he and Rhinehart would make it into the top 10. We cheersed a little bit, but I was cautious and didn’t want him to over celebrate in case Vail was more lenient on some of their rules than they had promised. But Hydle was pretty confident, yet anxious for the official results as well.

We finished up our time in Europe, and got on our flights back to the US. We had an 11 hour flight back on Friday, December 27 (one week after the final day of the race). There was no internet access on this flight, and we didn’t know when Vail would officially release the final results. But, the second we turned on our phones back in the US, the first thing we got was the Vail official results email, which we read together while the plane was still taxiing.

It was so exciting to see the official results with Rhinehart in 9th, and Hydle in 10th! We high fived now that it was official, and Hydle started sorting through all of his millions of congrats messages (it was like his birthday but more!)

We got off the plane, and when we finally made it through customs, his two sisters, and two of his nephews were waiting right outside for us wearing full blown beards painted red, and holding up signs that had pics from us on the race, and congrats messages to the team for coming home with some wins! It was so cool to have his family greet us like that, what a welcome home!

We had a 5 hour layover before continuing on to California (I needed to see my family since I had missed both Thanksgiving, and Christmas for this race!) so we went to dinner with his sisters, nephews, and our other favorite team mascot, Darren Droge – to celebrate and catch up for a bit.

Turns out, Adam Warot of all people saw our post that we were briefly in Denver, and rolls up with his one and only shotski, and we took some celebratory fireball shots as well. Killing it Warot!

Once back in California, we had lots of time to now decompress on the win for Hydle and Rhinehart. We facetimed with Rhinehart and his family (thank you Rhineharts and Lauren for all of the support!), and the guys had tons of messages to respond to from everyone coming out of the woodwork to congratulate them!

The guys got several interview requests for various articles about the winners, so they had a couple conf calls with reporters to discuss.

Plenty of people have asked, “how did Hydle and Rhinehart win but not you?” so I will explain.

For starters, I was the weak link anyway – I was the slowest runner by far out of the three of us, and the entire final day was literally a foot race, we skied zero turns. I can keep up fairly well on skis, not so much running! That said, the guys were so amazing and patient and waited for me, helped me, and pushed me throughout the hour and 17 minutes on the final day. Thanks to them waiting for me, we all finished at the same time (Rhinehart unclicked out of his skis and ran up the final hill with me in ski boots for our final shots, Hydle skated up which would have taken me forever!) But, because the final submission was something you had to submit via your phone/cell service, we all had our submissions pre-loaded as we were on our final gondola ride up to the last location on the mountain. But, for some reason, my phone refreshed the web page that I had my photo and video preloaded on as I pressed submit for my final, official submission. So while the guys were posting to the board, I was reloading the content onto the page and then pressing submit. This process took me just about exactly :27 extra seconds. Within that time, Bill and Charlie had posted to the board (which I am stoked they did, because I want them to win before me) and another guy who finished at another location who’s submission popped in right between us. So, 26 mountains, and I lost by :27! Lol.

So, I did finish with the guys, it just came down to a phone loading issue that wasn’t really preventable, could have happened to any of us, and I’m glad it happened to me.

I can’t express how much I know that Hydle and Rhinehart deserved to win this race. Not only was the team preparation so incredibly in depth, but their attitudes, personalities, charisma, passions and content were spot on with what Vail wanted to see out of the racers, and Rhinehart did an edit for EVERY single mountain we skied (including the two a day’s in Europe). I don’t think anyone else on the race put in as much solid effort, as well as having the right spirit of the race throughout. Mad props to my teammates on that.

I am so incredibly and genuinely stoked for them and so proud of them.

And, along those lines, many of the other racers in the top 10 were awesome, and I am also super stoked for them as well.

One final thought, Bill and Charlie (our alliance team members on the final day) we believe still have a shot at making it into the top 10 if any final tweaks still come from the leaderboard. The Vail rules very specifically say that incomplete submissions will not be approved, however somehow Brittany and Cory Heintz – currently in the top 10, still have an incomplete link for their YouTube videos. I know that enough questions have been raised from fellow racers that this is likely still being researched a little deeper among Vail currently. So, in the chance that they move out of the top 10, I would be so freaking excited if Bill and Charlie got to join the leaderboard for lifetime passes. They are great people and fully deserve to make it in if this happens!

The cool thing is, even post race we have all gotten even closer with a lot of racers, it seems that we all have this common bond and understanding among those of us that got close, and I’m excited to have a larger skiing community to relate to and ski with in the future!

All in all, the experience was freaking rad. We are so glad we got to participate in this. It sometimes feels like a dream that it actually all happened. The friendships and memories we made will stick with us for life, and now, Hydle and Rhinehart get to SKI…FOR FREE…FOR LIFE!!! Thank you, one last time, to everyone who supported us from home, everyone who followed us online, reached out and congratulated us, and for watching our videos and reading our blogs! Welcome home to Colorado Hydle. Can’t wait for a Team Fun reunion on the slopes again soon!

Epic Race Mountain 25 – Meribel, Les Tres Vallees, France

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Yesterday we did our final mountain of the race before the final scavenger hunt day today for Brides Les Baines, Les Allues and Meribel. It was a pas a pretty uneventuful day since I think everyone was wanting to prep and feel good for today. It was snowing, which was the first time we’ve had snow since arriving in Europe! But the visibility was pretty bad, so we all took it really easy, nobody wanted to get hurt before the final day!

We ran into a bunch of epic racers and took some pics in front of the final stop at Meribel, Mont Vallon, where the lift was still closed. And the rest of the day we just spent cruising all around Meribel, getting familiar with the mountain.

Once we were done with the mountain, we packed up our room and headed down to our new room in Brides Les Baines. We saw a few fellow epic racers in town, chatted with all of them for a bit, and then grabbed dinner at one of only two restaurants in town that were open. We saw some more epic racers at dinner, and everyone wanted to talk about what would happen today. Rhinehart finished his final edit of the trip at dinner, and then we all went back to the room and called it a night early.

Now we are at the calm before the storm in our rooms. As much as we’ve tried to prepare and strategize, we also all just have no idea what is going to happen today. Some predictions are that we will have to do a lot of running through towns and between lifts. I’m nervous because the guys are WAY faster than I am at both skating on skis, and running. I’m gonna be the weakest link physically for sure! I feel fine about keeping up with them on skis, but the stuff in town is gonna be really tough for me!

I also hope that however this final day happens, it doesn’t leave a sour taste in everyone’s mouth. We’ve had so much fun so far, that would suck for it to end poorly for us/everyone else and leave with that being our primary memory!

We have met so many super cool people, people that totally deserve to win, people who have sacrificed a lot to be here. People who brought their kids to literally give them an experience of a lifetime (hopefully the kids appreciate it, I think they will!) I definitely think we will leave here with some friends we will stay in touch with.

We’re excited and nervous and ready to rock this morning. It all begins at 9 am local time, and who knows what will happen after that!


Epic Race Mountains 15 & 16 – St Christoph & St Anton, Arlberg, Austria

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This morning we all kind of struggled to get up and moving – except for Rhinehart who is always first and ready to go, so he made us breakfast – eggs, cheese and prosciutto – while we all got ready.

We thought the buses ran every 10 minutes, so we didn’t pay much attention to what time we were leaving, so at around 10:10 am, we realized the buses only come once an hour, so Francis had to drive us the short distance into town.

We got our stamps done at the tourist office in St Anton, and then parked the car and crossed over a “closed” bridge (not sure why it was closed though) to get into the village. We jumped on the brand new Ganzig Bahn gondola which is ridiculous – it’s huge, high tech, brand new, and has these humongous wheels that rotate the gondola up like an elevator before it takes off up the mountain.

Today was a perfect bluebird day, no clouds anywhere so the views were amazing. From the top we dropped into the village of St Christoph and ran into a couple other fellow epic racers again (we are roughly on the same schedule as it seems maybe 20 other racers so we run into them periodically at the photo/video spots at each resort).

The information office at St Christoph was super old and historic “hospice” hotel there that offers amazing ambience and fine dining, and is a 5 star hotel. The history of St Christoph dates back 600 years ago when a shepherd founded a shelter for wary travelers making their way through the Alps. History is so much greater in Europe!

From St Christoph, we made our way up the St Chrisophobahn lift, which takes you to the center point of the St Christoph and St Anton lifts, and you can see down from up there into either valley (a village on each side). It’s so hard to describe how grand this mountain range is, especially when you’re at the top overlooking everything from a 360 view.

We had some really fun runs after that, and kind of kept getting lost so we actually rode probably most of the lifts at the resort, which turned out to be pretty fun. It’s crazy how long the runs are here, and how steep even a normal groomer tends to be at these mountains.

The gnarliest lift I’ve ever seen was shooting up from the St Christoph area to a mountain peak that seemed like it wouldn’t really be skiable because of how intense the terrain was, but apparently they don’t give a crap here in Austria and will put a lift on anything. There was also a tram, which I believe is was one of the first trams ever built taking you almost to the top of the super gnarly mountain peak also. Neither were open but if they would have been, I know the guys would have wanted to ride it, and I’m not completely sure if I would have done it. The lift was a two or three person lift, shooting straight up to the top, and the terrain down from there looked pretty insane, probably would have been the steepest run I’d ever had access to, so as much fun as it would have been, I’m also a little relieved it wasn’t open!

Speaking of lifts, at the bottom of one of the runs on the St Christoph side, we were riding a 6 pack lift up – most of the high speed lifts here have lap bars, and then an additional plastic bubble cover that you can pull down in bad weather. Because of the bubble, I couldn’t put my arm around the back side of the chair like I normally do when I ride lifts on the scarier side, and um, all of the lifts here in Austria are pretty scary and way far off the ground. I kept asking the guys if I could put the bar down, and they kept insisting no way and that I needed to suck it up and that this was good practice for me since France is supposed to be scary also. But, we got to a point where I had a mild freak out and told the guys I didn’t give a shit what they thought, and I was putting the bar down. They all gave me crap and said I had to buy the first round at the bar because I wussed out, but I didn’t care, at least I wasn’t scared anymore! And, THANK god I did, because shortly after that, the lift stopped, and swung back and forth at a high point over the ground, ugh! And then, just to freak me out a little bit more, after the lift stopped, a guy came on the loud speaker in German and said something which we didn’t understand, and all I was hoping was that he wasn’t saying that the lift was broken and that we would all have to be rescued because we were pretty high up there!

After that, I started to realize that EVERYONE puts the bar down on lifts in Austria. It makes sense, they are a lot higher up than the lifts I’m used to in the states. So, I gave the guys crap back and said “hey guys look up, see that, every single lift that is going by has people with the bar down, bar down, bar down” so hopefully they will get the point and let me put the bar down the rest of this trip, or else I’m probably gonna be riding them alone on purpose!

We then headed over to the St Anton history of skiing museum (one of our epic race photo stops). What a cute little place! It had a beautiful historical style dining room downstairs, and upstairs was the ski museum. I’m so glad we went inside, it was cool to see some of the history of how skiing developed in St Anton, seems like this is where a lot of the history of skiing began!

And then, it was time to hit up the Mooserwirt – a world famous après ski bar that overlooks the Alps, is on the slopes (but within walking distance from the base if you want to hike up for a little bit). It was a trip to see this place – outside they had a stage, girls dancing, a DJ, live music, and it was so packed you couldn’t really walk unless you were trying to push your way through to get somewhere.

Inside was a little less crowded, but still very “club” like. We got a couple rounds of drinks (we had met up with Adam, fellow epic racer there also), and took it all in. I got hit on by a local Austrian guy who kept wanting to “make dance” with me and said “you good, I’m good, lets make dance” which was pretty funny. And of course, Hydle was “famous” throughout the club – people either were thinking he was Mc Fitti again, or high fiving him because he had the best beard they’d ever seen, or apparently he also got called out by a group of people thinking he looked like the guy from the hangover, not to mention every epic racer that was there knew who he was also!

After a couple drinks, we strapped on our skis, and skied down the hill to the base in the dark. Of course in Europe you can ski after the slopes have shut down, with no lights, after having a million drinks (if you choose to have a million drinks at the Mooserwirt). What a crazy place! Apparently it doesn’t even really get started until 10 pm or so, I can’t even imagine…insane!

Back at the room we worked on uploading our content, and had leftover spaghetti. The guys went out again late night tonight where I thik they are meeting up with Adam for a bit at Bar 37, and I stayed in to go to sleep! Tomorrow is Stuben, and then driving to Verbier, Switzerland!

Rhinehart’s Edit – St Anton
Hydles Video – St Christoph
Hydles Video – St Anton (Mooserwirt)
Cooley’s Video – St Christoph
Cooley’s Video – St Anton

Epic Race Mountains 13 & 14 – Lech & Zurs, St. Anton, Austria

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Well, today was pretty close to one of the most mind blowing days of skiing I’ve ever had. I am not even sure if the English language has words for how incredible the Alps are. Maybe there are words in German that can accurately describe them, but in English I don’t think anything does justice.

The Alps are Huge. Beautiful. Vast. Insane. Steep. Heavenly. Gnarly. Happy. Lonely. Fun. Scary. Intense. Scenic. Insane. Commanding. A skiers paradise, and probably an original explorers dream and nightmare combined. I can’t explain this place other than until you see it in person, there is no proper way to explain them.

We had the best time today. We had a team breakfast here at the Apart Korona, and then headed off to the mountains. Our first stop was the Information office at Lech for our Epic Race stamps. The staff there was so friendly and even gave us the Lech keychains for free!

We ran into some fellow Epic Racers in the parking lot, of course they all recognized Hydle, and we shot the shit with them for a minute, and then parked the car and got everything ready to ski. After a quick playful jaunt in the playground (aka the guys terrain park), we walked over to jump on the first lift of our lives in the Austrian Alps!

Just the ride up alone, we were all in awe, like I already said, I can’t explain how grand this place is. It was a perfect, bluebird, glistening gloriful day!

Within the first 100 yards on our first run (for the record, it was his first run of the season) – Francis ATE it on the side fluff of the run, which I got to witness. Nice work Franics!

After that, we charged down amazing huge groomers with nobody on the runs, and headed to our three spots at Lech – the Kriegeralpe which is a cute lunch spot with a fake cow out front, the Weibermahd lift station where some European skiers asked Greg if he was Mc Fitti – again. When he said no, the guy then said “well if you were, or if you at least said you were his brother, you’d get a lot of chicks!” haha. And then we took the Rufikopf tram – HYDLES first tram ride!!!! – up to the Rufikopf panoramic view restaurant where we ran into several different groups of Epic Racers who all recognized Hydle of course!

Then, we went up to the panoramic view at the top of the Rufikopf tram. As Rhinehart appropriately described it, “This is the most panoramic view I’ve ever SEEN!!” Again, no words can describe the grand and vastness of this view, and of all things, we saw it on a perfect bluebird day!

From there, we cruised down the raddest, most fun cat-track ride I can confidently say I’ve ever been on! It lasted forever, and we had a blast zipping in and out, off the side of the run, taking videos in the sunshine, and tearing up some huge fast turns.
That brought us to the Zurs village – equally as cute as every other village we’ve seen so far, but just a bit smaller. We headed into the information office, partied with Elina and got some stamps, and then we were on our way up our first (and only) Zurs lift which was still huge.

At the top was one of our photo spots – the Madloch lift. DUDE. I WISH this lift was open. Holy crap. It was gnarly steep, took you straight to what looks like the top of the Zurs mountain area (but who knows, this place never ceases to surprise you!) and it flows back down into a canyon with a bar/restaurant overlooking what is now a frozen lake (but it must be so beautiful in the summer!).

So we took our videos, and then headed over to the bar/restaurant at the top of that lift called the Bergrestaurant Steepkopf. Insane mountain views from every angle of this place, it felt like we were in a movie!! We ordered a round of drinks from one of the coolest waiters we’ve met yet – ADRIAN! He was so cool, he played with the camera, and chatted us up in his best English. We also had our first Austrian dessert – an Apple Steudel with a vanilla cream sauce. Basically heaven in my mouth!

We shut down the place (they have to close when the lifts close and download the lift with the lifties) so we took an icy, but equally icy but gorgeous ski ride down with insane alpenglow views of the Alps on the way down.

We grabbed the bus back to Lech to get to the car, hit up the grocery store, and headed back to our hotel. I cooked up some spaghetti, the guys edited, and then Hydle and I decided to check out the sauna. Ok. I thought it was going to be just a sauna. What we didn’t realize was it’s basically a spa. It was a huge room with relaxing beach chairs in a warm room, a hot as shit sauna, a steam room, relaxing music playing, decorative plants, window shades that are on a three rail system that Hydle admired, and a shower with multi shower heads in all directions. Apart Korona – straight up killing it!

Now we are editing/blogging/uploading/listening to Mc Fitti, and there is some talk of the Moosewirt next. It’s late, but we are also kinda still on Colorado time, so it’s like 1 pm at home still…so whatever, we might rock it!

See you tomorrow, Epic Euro Race Time – OUT!



Hydle Lech Video Mountain 13
Cooley Lech Video Mountain 13
Cooley Zurs Mountain 14

Epic Europea Travel Day!

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We made it! We left yesterday, December 10 at 2 pm, and Nabor Ryan (Rhineharts Dad) drove us to the airport – thank you Nabor Ryan! After a successful early arrival to the airport (yes, early, and Hydle was not happy about it!) we boarded our sweet humongous double decker Lufthansa plane. Our flight attendant was smokin hot and super nice, and she killed it the whole flight.

Flying to Europe on Lufthansa was almost like flying first class minus the extra leg room – we got served dinner, hot towels, all we could drink wine and beer, snacks, and then breakfast in the morning, and we got to watch unlimited movies that were pretty sweet also. Hydle also drank three vodka OJ’s the next morning before breakfast!

We landed in Frankfurt which was an insanely huge airport, and proceeded to lose Rhinehart who was in total zombie mode because he took half an ambien on the flight. We cruised through the airport which also seemed to double as a super nice ass mall, and then eventually got to our gate where Rhinehart caught up with us.

We had one final flight on a small little prop plane from Frankfurt into Innsbrook that only took about an hour. This was probably the sweetest view I’ve ever seen from an airplane flying into Innsbrook. The plane basically dives in through these huge peaks of the Alps and then circles around the city before landing pretty much in the center of town.

When we landed, Hydle had a friend he had randomly met a year earlier on his last trip into Innsbrook who offered to pick us up and hang out with us for a few hours while we waited for his other buddy Francis to meet up with us.

Bine picked us up from the airport and we went back to her super cute little apartment in the city to drop off all of our stuff, and then we walked to the bus stop and hopped on to go to the top of the city overlooking everything to get a drink.

The views in Innsbrook are unreal, the Alps are huge, and there are ski resorts everywhere leading into the town. I couldn’t believe how huge and steep some of the resort runs looked, it definitely made us all super stoked to ski!

After a drink at the top of town, we rode a bus back down into the town to go to the original place that Greg met Bine – the Stiftskeller! We had some beers and authentic Austrian food (sausages and pretzels and saurkrat and meat) and Bine had some other friends (including the other original friend that Hydle had met the year earlier, Ella) come meet up. Everyone was fun and friendly and spoke English so we had a good time, and then Francis who is gonna be our fourth wheel/local chauffer for the next few days also showed up.

Bine wanted to show us the Christmas Market in the downtown area so we all walked through the Christmas market which was so ridiculously cute and Christmasy in the village, and then we grabbed an authentic hot wine drink and took some pics. After that she talked us into meeting up with some friends for one more drink at the Mustache Bar – El Mustachio!

At El Mustachio there was a group of guys that saw Greg and then started kinda laughing and smiling, so one of Bine’s friends said “Oh we should probably let you guys know, Greg looks exactly like a famous rapper in Europe named Mc Fitti” (see video above, it’s hilarious how much Greg looks like him). The guys eventually came up to Greg to ask him if he was Mc Fitti, they chatted a bit and he high fived them. Greg’s doppleganger for sure, and turns out even though he raps in another language, he’s pretty damn good and his music video kicks ass, Mc Fitti FTW!

We headed back to Bine’s house and packed up our stuff into Francis’s car (thank you Francis!), and headed out toward St Anton since we are skiing two of the #epicrace resorts here tomorrow. Francis killed it driving while the three of us jetlagged out and passed out for the hour long drive.

We arrived at our hotel, which is adorable and really clean – it’s more like a condo/mini apartment really – called Apart Korona. The family that runs it lives here, and they were really nice and greeted us for check in and showed us around.

Now we are all doing computer stuff, I’m blogging, and just made three rounds of horrible microwaved popcorn. The microwave is struggling so we kept having bags full of half unpopped, half burned popcorn, and our room smells like smoky burned popcorn now! Hah!

Time to ski tomorrow, can’t wait, it is so gorgeous here, tomorrow should be fun! Epic European time!

Epic Race Mountain 11 Afton Alps

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We are back on the grid and epic racing! The morning started off with another 3:45 am wakeup call (dude who am I? I don’t do this, I need my 8 hours sleep!!)

Darren Freaky D Roge offered to pick us up at 4:15 am from Hydles house. Boggles my mind why anyone would volunteer such a thing on a Saturday morning, but he insisted so we got in his truck and headed to the airport – all three of us wearing his onesies – in the wee early hours of the morning.

The airport was a breeze, and we got quite a bit of fun attention, including a flight attendant who gave us free drink tickets, a chick who asked for a snapchat with us, and a 12ish looking girl with dreads wanting a pic with us.

When we landed, we headed to the rental car counter where an attendant asked if we were epic racing, uh ya, we’re epic racing, why else would we be wearing onesies through an airport at 8 am on a Saturday morning!

We got a sweet mini van with the doors frozen shut…after climbing through the back and then battling through it a bit more, we were on our way to Afton Alps with a weather forecast of a 1 degree high for the day.

We got straight to the hill, strapped on our snowblades (also thanks to Darren Freaky D Roge) and proceeded to go up the closest lift (which was close) to the parking lot.

I thought I had these snowblades down, and started cruising around, and then Hydle asked if I would grab his camera and film a shot of him blading. I did, got the shot, and then started to do some turns down the rest of the hill, where I quickly found a really steep patch of icy corduroy, totally wiped out flat back style, and slid down the hill for hundreds of yards, while Rhinehart and Hydle cheered me on and fist pumped my crash. It was hilarious although I did have a minor elbow injury, since I instinctively put my hands behind me to catch my fall, even though I now know thanks to Hydle that you should NEVER put your hands out when you fall…welp, learned that lesson the hard way! Oh and also, I kinda broke his camera since I was still holding it during my crash, and it was stuffed with snow when my crash was finished.

We went to Paul’s bar after that to regroup on my elbow injury, and take a look at the map to figure out where we needed to go.

After some lunch, we headed back out to get in a few more turns, and then finished up the day back at “Paul’s”

Since we had run into Adam – fellow epic racer – earlier in the day, and he happened to have brought a shot ski with him, we finished off the day with some rad green shot ski shots care of Jackie the awesome bartender, and then the guys finished up their edits while I periodically shouted out how much time we had left before we need to leave for the airport again tonight.

Another fun day of the #epicrace is in the books. Tonight we head to Detroit, and are gonna hit Brighton tomorrow! So Epic!

Heavenly – Operation Elevation Email to Todd Rudis

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Operation Elevation with Ashley Cooley, Greg Hydle and Chris Hansen

Aloha Todd Rudis!

I just wanted to send you a quick email and photo about how awesome operation elevation is at Heavenly!

It was my first time ever getting to ski the amazingly beautiful Heavenly yesterday … Although it was frigid cold, I couldn’t help but nearly freeze my hands off snapping photo after photo on this first day to heavenly adventure. The overlook on the way up the gondola is gorgeous, but the highlight of the day was definitely being selected to take part in your operation elevation experiment. Riding in “the beast” to the top of the mountain during sunset to experience all of what Heavenly really has to offer was a completely unexpected treat for Ashley and I. Chris Hansen killed it in giving us an awesome ride in “the beast” and I even turned him into a little photographer to help us document the adventure at the top!

I will have a complete write up and video of our experience available online soon as we progress our way around the world for Vail Resorts Epic Race. But I just wanted to reach out to you now and say thanks for the perfect ending to this Epic Day. Operation Elevation is the shit!

Check out this bad ass photo we snapped :)

UPDATE: September 1st, 2014 … unfortunately Todd still has yet to reply… WTF Vail.

Epic Race Mountain 07 – Canyons Resort

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Our alarms went off at 2 am. Yep. 2 am. Hydle was struggling a little bit to get up considering he went to bed I think around 12:30 – at least I went to bed around 9 pm so I was doing alright. It took us a bit to get the car loaded up and out of the house. Rhinehart was getting frustrated because he also woke up at 2 am, but we didn’t reach his house until 3:15 am!

Once we grabbed Rhinehart, we were rolling by about 3:30 am. Hydle drove the first leg with Rhinehart keeping him company while I slept some more! At around 7 am, Rhinehart took over driving, Hydle went to the backseat to sleep and I kept Rhinehart company.

We arrived at Canyons right at Hydle’s goal of 10 am. This beat the navigation time estimates by about an hour and half. 6 and a half hours to Canyons in Park City, Utah. Not bad!

We took a series of really fun photos and videos in front of the Canyons welcoming sign, and then went to the parking lot which has a people mover that gets you to the village from the lot.

There were only two lifts open for their opening day at Canyons, so we had plenty of time to play with the staff. Hydle and Rhinehart chatted it up with the lifties, and we took some fun Epic Mix photos at the top of the first lift.

There were also really only two runs open so there wasn’t a whole lot to do other than play around on the groomers a bit. The boys were good at making the most of it like always and played around through some of the soft side runs, and Rhinehart did his signature Daffy in the park a few times also.

After a some laps we headed to the Red Pine Lodge outdoor bar and hung out with some super fun staff in the sunshine. Hydle ordered the “Triple Epic Burger” and Rhinehart ordered the “Most epically epic gluten free burger” – we had a blast hanging at the bar, eating burgers and making videos.

Then we cruised down and had to go take some pics and videos at the orange bubble lift, and met some more fellow epic racers.

By now it was about 2 pm and we had to get on the road, considering we had to make it all the way to South Lake Tahoe! I drove the first leg while the guys sat and edited on their Iphones,

When we got to Elko, Nevada, Rhineharts video was ready to be uploaded, but we majorly struggled to find fast enough internet in Elko to even upload his video to Youtube. So after striking out a few tims, we ended up at a Verizon store where the guys finally got it to upload.

Hydle was impressed with Rhinehart’s edit from the day, and they reviewed and re-reviewed the video lots of times, and Hydle offered his feedback, and then started filming “directors cuts” of his edit which was hilarious for me to watch them interact with each other.

The drive was a total of 1,100 miles, which we did in one day. 3:30 am through 12 am. When we got to South Lake Tahoe, my good friend Dwyer – who has a place in South Lake – kept asking us if we wanted to swing by for a beer. At first we thought we couldn’t pull it off, considering the day we had, but somehow we all got a second wind and headed to his house.

Dwyer poured Rhinehart and I some nice red wine, gave Hydle a Coors Banquet, and we hung out checking out the work he’s done on his house, played a little “island pong,” ate some pizza and snacks, and then finally decided to head back to my place around 1:30 am….and then still somehow decided to get in my hot tub back at the house. Holy crap. What a gnarly long day, but totally fun and totally worth it! We slept in this morning, and now are heading to Kirkwood for everyone’s first time! Feels good to be home. SAFE!


Epic Race Mountain 06 – Beaver Creek

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Happy Thanksgiviiiiiing! This morning we got up and I made a yummy breakfast casserole with our leftover Mac n cheese from the night before that Hydle said “tastes like Christmas”

Our goal this morning was to get to Beaver Creek, knock out our photos and videos, and then get back on the road back to town for everyone’s respective Thanksgiving dinners. Hydles Mom gave us specific instructions to be back for dinner by 2 pm or the turkey goblins would get us!

When we got to Beaver Creek we got lucky by asking the parking attendant at the full parking garage if we could get in and he let us in and we got the most VIP spot in the garage!

Our first goal was to go directly to the brand new 2 day old escalator to get some footage taken for our videos – um, we had a lot of fun on the escalator! We were making all of the employees laugh because they couldn’t quite figure out why we were doing laps on the escalator with our skiis and poles in hand, and of course hilarious looks on our faces…we were cracking ourselves up in the meantime also.

After fun times on the escalator, we were eager to get on the slopes as it was probably the best day yet we’ve seen on the mountain so far – sunny, crisp, and the snow was surprisingly soft on top of nicely groomed groomers.

We rode the chair up with a fellow epic racer who is doing the race solo named Jason – and then took a couple epic mix pics with him.

After that we rode again all the way up, and cruised down to the Raptor downhill race course which was in full race mode, lots of people and racers in their speed suits at the top of the course. We grabbed a pic there and then headed down to take some more ridiculously sweet (probably our best yet) epic mix pics.

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We took some more footage cruising down some great runs, and by that point we all decided in order to make it back to Thanksgiving on time, we needed to head out. We totally wished we could have stayed but turkey goblins don’t wait for skiing!

Hydle said we made record time driving back to his house – 1:10 flat. And then he informed me that in order to make it to Thanksgiving on time, I would not be allowed to go inside the house to a) change out of my ski gear b) put on makeup. I was not excited about showing up to Thanksgiving where I was about to meet about 25 new people wearing stretchy ski thermal pants, ugg boots with ski socks, and an underlayer top with no makeup on. But we were on a time schedule, so we showed up to Thanksgiving in our ski gear – definitely a first for me on many levels!

We agreed with Rhinehart that in order to ski Canyons in Utah Friday and then Tahoe Saturday, we would need to get on the road by about 2 am.

So after a beautiful Thanksgiving meal with Hydle’s family (and Rhinehart said his was great also) we got back to Hydle’s house where I got ready for an early morning departure, and Hydle edited probably the best escalator video of all time. Epically early ass morning tomorrow, goodnight!!!


Epic Race – Corporate Never Takes a Vacation

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Today is our 5th day of competition, and unlike many others in this race, the corporate stud, Nabor Devin Rhinehart had to return back to his day job to remain in good standing with his company and boss while still staying sharp and competitive in the competition.

Some may wonder how in a race of this caliber our team could be taking a day off, or rather, a day to go back to the office, but since Vail Resorts has confirmed since day one of releasing the on mountain locations…

“Photo/Video Locations for Brides-Les-Bains will be announced on December 20th – a) posted to the website and b) available for pickup at the Brides-les-Bains tourist office that morning”

…this allows for a few days for the hard working life balanced competitors like Nabor Devin to maintain a successful career, grad school, and compete in the #epicrace! What. A. Badass.

So, Hydle and I took a day off for errands, chores, and logistics planning while Nabor Devin put in some solid hours at the office. I am sure he epic raced harder than anyone out there today. Work Hard. Play Harder.

Epic Race Mountain 04 – Eldora

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Day 4 started off with Nabor Ryan (Nabor Devin “Rhinehart”s Dad, who has so much personality he could be straight out of a movie) cooking us up some of the best gluten free pancakes and “links” that I could have ever imagined!

After our delicious breakfast, packing up, and a goodbye wave off from Nabor Ryan in the driveway, we were on our way to Eldora for the first time for all three of us! This is not significant for me being a California native, but it is significant for my two coloradoan teammates, considering it is actually one of the most accessible ski resorts from the Denver area!

After road tripping – with Miley Cyrus’s Bangerz album on repeat) through Central City (note: this town is worth revisiting, as it is a super cute gold rush era town with casinos and an adorable Main Street) and then taking some sweet team photos in front of the welcoming Eldora sign, we arrived!

Upon arrival, our first task was to take a photo by the Nordic center sign, where Hydle proceeded to spin some donuts in my car around Rhinehart…and then we were off to gearing up and getting on the mountain!

We parked three rows from the lift, and then cruised up a sweet two man chair called “Cannonball Lift” – dude, what is better than a resort that has a two man chair from the base camp! We also learned that Eldora has a lift that is the oldest lift in Colorado (unfortunately didn’t get to ride it as it was closed but I’d like to!)

We took some video footage and then rocked out a few super super fun, soft, groomer runs. My favorite mountains are the small local ones and we were having a blast at Eldora.

As is standard, I was ready to take a break before the guys, and headed to the Corona Bar to enjoy a delicious beer alone!

Once the guys showed up, we had a round of drinks and some lunch, and then headed back out for one more glory run and then skied back to the car!

After skiing, we drove through Nederland for some happiness and smiles, which we achieved in full ski gear while riding the famous Carousel of Happiness! The happiness level on the Carousel of Happiness was at all time highs, which kept us elated on the drive back to Golden!

As we were driving through Golden I asked Greg what his favorite restaurant was and he said “Sherpa House” without any hesitation right as we were driving right by it. Rhinehart quickly agreed and we called Lauren to see if she could meet up for dinner which she also agreed to.

We posted up in the corner and got lots of attention from the staff considering Hydle is a local Golden celebrity! We chowed down on the best chicken tikka masala and the guys edited their videos for the day, with plenty of laughs while reviewing the footage.

Super super fun day, we all loved Eldora and capping it off at the Carousel of Happiness and Sherpa House was a great way to finish off our 4th day of epic racing!

HYDLE – TSOIGDH

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In the history of HYDLE.com… this ridiculous “TSOIGDH” entry marks my 999th public blog post since May of 2009 – When I started this crazy world of blogging ideas, thoughts and Genius vs. Not Genius intermanents and social media successes or failures.

So for the sake of getting google credit for it…

“TSOIGDH” = TURNING SHIT ON IT’S GOD DAMN HEAD

Turning shit on it’s god damn head is going to be my 1 single inspiration for the next 999 blogpost entries. I can’t wait to open up my connection layer for all my loyal readers… so I can start finding out who you actually are.

Cheers to 999!

TSOIGDH

John Lynch – ABROAD

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[Vimeeeeeo]

Todays “sit down and watch” video is brought to you buy a traveling friend Katie Hilborn. While Katie is traveling and rocking out Phuket she is also sharing solid work from her friends.

Discussing the message of his new film, John Lynch states,

“It’s about how meeting fellow travelers can open up your world. I hope this movie encourages others to get off the tourist trail, throw away their itineraries, and get involved with something out of their comfort zone; stepping in to make a difference is much more rewarding than just being an observant tourist.”

On a personal level, he found satisfaction in the fact that he “did not just find a story to tell, but lived a story worth telling.”

[Press Release]
[Lynch Film]