Skiing on the Stairs

So today, I was supposed to go ski the Great One with my friends Aaron, Thaddeus, and Ben. Our friend Curtiss had told us that it was rocky at the top, great in the middle and completely melted out in the bottom, so stopping was important. (Otherwise, you end up like the kid they air lifted off of it last week because he double e'd and ended up bouncing down the talus field...)

I love this ski, I was psyched. We all packed up last night, everything, batteries in transceivers, I even went to Sola and got everyone a peanut butter sandwich cookie for the summit. At 3:30 this morning, it was pouring. At Five this morning, the thunder was so loud it was shaking the house.

I was game for going up there in the rain and waiting for a weather window to do the ski in, but sliding over the slippery rocks and bushwhacking through the forrest in a huge thunderstorm... not so much.

So we canceled the trip. I was so bummed. But Aaron, who is an amazing professional photographer based here in Bozeman (and coming soon to Seattle!), had the idea for us to just go around town and play on the skis. Which would mean sacrificing a pair of skis for the photoshoot.

But this shoot is for VIO POV cameras, one of my sponsors, and they've been so very cool to me, I wanted to get them the best picture I could.

Aaron knew about this old parking garage that was just full of graphiti and old couches, so we took a bunch of pillows off the couches and stacked them at the bottom of the stairs, and I straightlined the stairs!

I kid you not. Today, I skied down a set of concrete stairs on to the cement floor of the parking garage, which was full of all manner of broken glass and trash and water. It was AWESOME FUN! And the pictures came out SO well, Aaron has an AMAZING eye for composition.

We sent them off to VIO, and the guys are happy with them, YAY! I think they probably came out better than shots on the Great One would have!

I was grateful to Alison Gannett's Rippin Chix camp for teaching me how to go straight, and John Faunce for teaching me how to slide a rail this year, between the two of them, I managed to stay on my feet the half dozen times I skied it! I was going so fast when I got to the floor of the garage, I skied about 1/2 way across the floor through the puddles on my bases.

So, yeah. I'm gonna need a base grind, by the way. :-) too much fun. Look for the full page ad in the November issue of 32 Degrees!