Granite AK Photo Shoot.

Friday was another fun day full of photo taking, hats, cold, and great company. Met up with Bri, CEO and creator of Granite AK, in the afternoon, after taking Noe to class. After a quick little chat at the river house, we moved on to our first destination. We hit up a couple Totem Poles on the UAS campus since I had to go back and pick Noe up from class. Shot a bit there at the two poles we knew of, and moved to Auke Lake. Auke Lake originally was not on our list of locations, but the lighting was right and I had a shot in mind. A few minutes there and we moved on to our last outdoor location of the day. Not sure what the place is called, but there is an old run-down shed that I drive by almost everyday. It sits in a large field, backdropped by beautiful mountains, and if you can get the angle right, the Mendenhall Glacier.

Here are a few teasers from the shoot. You'll have to check out Granite's website to see more.

www.granitegoodness.com

Bri and Noe at The Shed

Noe and Bri at UAS

Bri at Auke Lake

Snowboarding: Day 2.

Im about a week behind on this, and I apologize for that. On Wednesday, November 10th, Myself, Noe, Spenser, and Bri made a trek out to Eaglecrest for some hiking, and snowboarding.

The morning began, for me, at 7a.m. Once my alarm went off I got dressed and drove to The Grind. After I ordered and received my two Raspberry Redbull spritzers I headed back home. Delivered Noe her spritzer and cooked myself some breakfast. After breakfast we started gearing up and packing the car. We left the house about 9a.m. and Noe, Spenser, and myself met up with Bri of Granite AK in the EC parking lot. We began our hike sometime near 9:45a.m. and it started pretty mellow. Well, honestly the whole hike was pretty mellow in comparison to what I am used to hiking to snowboard. The first few hundred yards was just wet ground, not much snow until we got a little past the Black Bear chairlift. Once we hit snow we were very optimistic. There was not much at first, but it was good snow. It was wet, but not the really heavy wet that we all are not fond of. About two hours of hiking we made it to the Eagles Nest which sits at the top of the Ptarmigan chair. There we ate lunch and planned out where we were going to drop in. Spenser had a "secret spot" he wanted to take us to where he had been earlier in the week. After a little more hiking and tree climbing/dodging we were above our lines and preparing to drop. We were all very anxious, even more so because Spenser had mentioned how there was close to another foot since he was last there. Spenser dropped, then Bri, Noe, then myself. After our first run, Spenser, Bri, and myself all found something we wanted to hit, so we hiked up a little again. Hit our little hits and continued on. The ladies made their trek down the road a bit and Spenser and I hiked back to the Nest where we left our bags. The two of us hiked up a little more and made our drop down below the lift a little and cut over to meet up with the girls on the road. The snow was awesome, the company was awesome, having another day to ride was awesome. The only thing the day was lacking was visibility, but even with the low clouds/fog/whatever it was, we all had a great time.

For more photos and a short video edit of the trip, you can check out Spenser's blog here.

Eagle Crest trail map

Spenser and Bri gearing up for the hike

Quick portrait of Spenser

Noe ready for the hike up

Chair 100 of the Black Bear

Bri and Spenser on the hike up

Noe almost to the top

The Eagles Nest

Bri doing her post-hike stretching

The group of us eating lunch and stretching inside the Eagles Nest

Snowboarding: Day 1.

On friday I made a trip out to Turnagain pass with a big ol' crew. The day started out with a phone call from Chris Gadomski at about 6:15 a.m. need-less-to-say I promptly set my alarm for 15 minutes longer. Chris showed up at my house close to 7a.m. then we loaded up his truck and began our trek back to his house. We met up with more of the crew there, including Gabe Gibbs, Kendal Pastor, Colton Lowe, and Jett Selman. About 8a.m. we met with the rest of the crew at the southside rendezvous and headed south. Reached our final destination about 9:30a.m. and after a quick safety meeting we began our hike. Now I will be honest, this was the hardest hike I've been on to go snowboarding. Not sure if it was because it was my first trip of the season or if it really was that intense but regardless, it was kinda rough. The weather was almost white out so visibility pretty much sucked so I did not really have a chance to shoot. It did feel good to get out and strap in, got a few turns down and am loving all my new gear.

Some highlight shots of the trip.

Chris Gadomski ordering his 6a.m. coffee

The crew unloading for the hike

The crew hiking up

Jeremy Rumfield rests while Kendal Pastor films a little of our break

Final saftey meeting before dropping in

Russel gets a Method on a little pillow Kendal found

Ken Hayes with an Indy

Movember!

I've donated my face to a good cause. For all of November I will not shave my mustache. This is to raise donations for The Prostate Cancer foundation as well as LiveSTRONG. I am also doing a few promotions for this including; any donation over $10 will receive a free 11"x14" print of mine of the donators choice. On top of that I will donate 70% of what I make from print sales the whole month. The selection of photos that are available for print can be found on my flickr page. If you would like to donate you can do so by clicking here.

Memorial Day Weekend

This last weekend was Memorial Day Weekend, but of course you don't need me to tell you that. Noelani and I made our way South to "The Hole In The Wall" which is a Harrington Family camp site located near the Anchor River in Anchor Point Alaska. We arrived Saturday afternoon and stayed until Monday morning. Overall it was a wonderful trip, with great weather and better company. Sunday we went on a small hike at Happy Valley Falls which was an awesome site. Nothing too eventful happened really, and I didn't shoot as much as I had wanted. Below are a few of the shots I did take.

Robert, Brittany, and Sierra near Happy Valley Falls

Noelani and Warren "Buddy" at Happy Valley Falls

Eric Baxter at "The Hole In The Wall" with dinner

Warren "Buddy" Baxter

and of course, Happy Valley Falls.

Ghost Chili Pepper Challenge, featuring David Boots.

The other day there was a challenge thrown up onto facebook for The Anchor Pub's 6 Ghost Chili wings. Once I saw the post, I had one man in mind, my good friend David Boots. When I asked him without question, he was ready. We headed down to the Anchor to get in started, on the way there we got word that David Blome had just finished the wings! Boots now had a challenger. It was on.

If you are not familiar with the challenge, you have to eat six chicken wings in five minutes. First they cover the wings in their habanero sauce, then each wing gets six drops of the special ghost chili sauce. They throw the wings in a bag, shake em up, and there it is!

We arrived at The Anchor and met up with Bobby who was sponsoring the wing challenge for the day. Blome had finished his about twenty minutes prior and you could still see he was feeling it. The wings come out, Boots gets the run down, puts on the gloves, and dives in. After the first wing, his only complaint was the actual temperature of the wings, as they just had been out of the oven. Boots finished the wings, no problem, in two minutes and twenty eight seconds beating his opponent Blome by half his time! Only problem here....Boots has to now wait another two minutes and thirty two seconds before he can take a drink. With a full glass of milk sitting in front of him, mocking him, Boots sweats it out, what I can only assume felt like a lifetime, and dives into that glass of milk.

In the end, the two Davids got free wings, free t-shirt, and hours, maybe days of pain. For us on-lookers and witnesses, we were provided with great entertainment and I, great pictures. The pictures I will now share.

Props to Dave Blome for getting it done also! We didn't get there in time to get photos of him getting at it, but he finished the challenge with one second to spare!

On an unrelated note, my website is up and almost running at 100%. Feel free to check it outand shoot me an email or something. Let me know how you like it.

David Boots talking to the bartender about what he's getting himself into.

The wings arrive.

Gloves on, timer out. Game on.

One down, working on number two.

Almost done.

Finished. The face says it all.

Two and a half minutes until he can drink that milk.

Sweet Relief.

Ready for more.

Ice cream to mellow the burn.

This mouth is on fire.

We tried to walk to Skinny Raven after. Not a good idea.

Hope Trip #1

Saturday a group of friends made our way out to Hope Alaska to our friend Ian's families cabin. We were blessed with a great drive, honestly probably one of the best I've had in a long time. It was a true Alaskan experience. We had weather that was all over the place, but when we arrived to our destination it was beautiful! We started a fire, chatted for a bit, then began the festivities. Mainly beer pong, sauna, and running through the woods in boxers trying to find Grant who decided he would rather sleep in the forest. Oh, I should probably mention that he won 9 games of beer pong straight (most of which where down to last cup) and 3 of those were him playing by himself. He was toasted.

Next day we all got up (except Grant), dressed, and geared up for an awesome lunch at Tito's, courtesy of Ian. After lunch we packed up the guns and ammo and headed to the shooting pit. Shot a good 150 rounds of 12 gauge and close to 200 rounds of .40 and .45 then packed up to head home. It was a short trip, but a lot of fun. The crew this time included myself, David Boots, Ian Markis, Rebecca Huerta (Beckie), Grant Oney, and Sara Belarde. Below are a couple of my favorite shots.

David Boots

Ian Markis

Turnagain Pass

Jay Kuzma and crew came by and picked me up around 10:30 a.m. this morning and we made our way South. The drive was pretty nice until about Bird Creek and it started raining. We could see breaks of sun above the low level clouds so we kept moving. Once we hit the Girdwood turn off, the rain turned into snow. We were now, even more stoked. Once we got to the turn-off for Tin Can, it was snowing a little bit. We got geared up and began the hike to a kicker Jay had built a few weeks prior.

When we got there the snow was coming down pretty hard and the visibility was pretty limited. Regardless of the poor visibilty, the snow was amazing, so we built up the kicker a bit more. I found my angle and it was only a matter of minutes before the first rider shouted "dropping!".

Overall it was a fun sesh, and a tiring day. I got to try out my new snowshoes and had a blast with that. Got to ride with some great people. Today was a good day.

The view out of town, heading South.

Parking at Tin Can.

Noah Gotthardt getting gnarly.

Kuzma steezin' it out.

Kolby Saetre getting fresh!

Phaze One

So the other day I was asked by employees of Zaks Boardroom to come to their new skatepark and shoot some photos for a flyer. I was stoked. I've been wanting to check out the park, and getting the opportunity to shoot for it was awesome. This is Anchorage Alaska's only indoor skatepark, and they did it proper.

The park is kinda small, but they way they are working around that is wonderful. They are doing 2 hour sessions on weekends. You have to call or stop by the shop to make reservations, and each session only allows 10 skaters at a time. Now, 2 hours might not seem like a lot, but if you're like me, and out of shape, 20 minutes is all you need!

Very well constructed, fast flow, helmets required, under 18 years old needs parental consent.

Phaze One skatepark.

Slackin...

So its been awhile since I've posted anything, I've been pretty lazy actually. Plus I worked a bit during the holidays, and I hate the holidays, so I've just been slumin around....if Im not shooting.

On the bright side, I have been shooting a lot lately, so I've been feeling rather productive. I'll probably do two posts today, but for now, I'll just show a couple of my favorite shots from the last few weeks.

Some fairly good news, for me at least. Im finally making my way to Southeast Alaska for a much needed snowboard trip. I am very excited about this, I've been talking about doing it for about 4 years now. In about 12 days I will be in Juneau Alaska. I will be meeting up with the Webbers from Cordova and shredding with them, and just taking in JNU life.

Matt Wild - Nosepress

Logan Imlach

Jay Kuzma - Tailpress

Review of the Goomba stomping

Kolby Saetre - Overcrook