Mt. Hood OR - The Best Place On Earth. Ever.

I wanted to save this post for last because Mt. Hood is a place I have never been but have ALWAYS wanted to go. Ever since I discovered there was such thing as glacier boarding (I was 16 years old and moved to Whistler for the summer) I have wanted to go to camp at Mt. Hood. Almost 10 years later and I'm still yet to visit Oregon mountains. I did however drive nearby the mountain at sunset and take some pictures, not enough. There are a number of snowboard camp on Timblerline but two that stand out in particular are High Cascade Snowboard Camp (HCSC) and Windells. I plan to visit these camps for the last session this summer which is the first week of August. I can't wait! The campers all stay in a small town called Government Camp where they can skate, play dodgeball and other activities. My most favourite hotdog stand of all time, Cobra Dogs is right there for your wiener eating pleasures. There are a number of pros who ride these camps and have full sessions dedicated to them so the kids have a chance to ride with the pros and hang out with them off hill.

Blake Payne. Nice face. See that tiny hump in the back, that's Mt Hood!

High Cascade

Photo taken from www.highcascade.com

HCSC skate park. Photo taken from www.espen.go.com

The Wien stand. Photo from www.highcascade.com

Filmed by: Rob Balding, Skylar Brent, Matt Roberge, Harry Hagan, and Sean Lucey

Edited by: Rob Balding

Windells

Photo taken from www.snowboardermag.com

Windells skate park. Photo taken from www.snowboardermag.com

Windells is in full force this summer with one of the longest and largest parks to date. The diggers are keeping everything fresh and the coaches are teaching kids new moves all day long. Summer is here.

Filmed by: Alexandra Erickson, Jake Strassman, Tyler Malay, Ian Post, Will Start, & Ian Macy.
Additional Filming: Riley Erickson, Pat Raichur
Edited by: Tyler Malay & Alexandra Erickson & Ian Macy.

Land of Euro - Switzerland and France

Europe is Beautiful and so are its mountains. I've been fortunate enough to be able to visit Switzerland for the Burton European Open in January, but I have never been there for summer riding. It's hard to say what it is all about, as I am used to hearing about the North American and New Zealand spots, but I do know that Switzerland and France are the spots to go when you want to do some summer boarding in Europe.Two places in Switzerland you should know: Saas-Fee opens its glacier July 4th for summer and fall riding, which is known to be the place most teams and pros go for late summer/fall training and Zermatt is open all year round. Both places have a park and halfpipe as well as open runs for those of you who are not into park.

Saas Fee Halfpipe

Saas Fee kicker

Nike 6.0 at Saas Fee

More European glaciers are in France: Les Deux Alps, Tinges, and Val D'isere, where many summer camps are offered and water flows like wine. Les Deux Alps has 2 halfpipes and a terrain park which are easily accessed by a cable car. Tinges has been the host of Winter European X-Games for the past two years and offers beginner parks but no halfpipe. Val D'isere is the easiest glacier to get to with a bus running to the bottom of the glacier lift. All of these glaciers are a great place to spend your summer snowboard vacation or maybe ever training for that matter.

Duex Alps

Duex Alps terrain park

This is kind of embarrassing but here's a video from my first trip to Switzerland for Burton European Open in January 2009:


This info found at WorldSnowboardGuide.com

Is this possible? - Indoor Snowboarding

Indoor snowboarding is such a strange concept to me, but for some people it's all they have. Take for example a place like Dubai, where they have a good economy, and the coldest it ever gets is 19 degrees Celsius (66 F) in January. Hence the indoor ski resort. I'll never get a chance to go, simply because I probably can't afford it, but just this past weekend I met my friends sister Sarah who had just got back from a trip to Dubai. Sarah didn't go to Dubai to snowboard but since Ontario had such a terrible winter season this year, she figured what the heck, she'll go snowboarding one day of 2012.  A full day pass at Ski Dubai is 300 Dirhams (equal to $84.25 CDN) and this includes a jacket, trousers, disposable socks, helmet, and your skis/boots/poles or snowboard and boots, not bad.
Dubai is not the only country with indoor ski hills, 17 countries have built indoor ski hills either for summer training or just because the country doesn't have mountains or doesn't even get snow.
Indoor ski hills are built with a climate controlled environment and maintained with artificial snow from a snow gun to provide year-round skiing and snowboarding. The largest dome is SnowWorld in Landgraaf, Netherlands which was built in 2001 where the first indoor FIS World Cup was held in 2003. There are now over 40 snow domes located all over the world, for some good ol' summer boarding.

Welcome to this strange thing we call a ski resort

Just like normal, except there's a roof

Sarah got to wear a pretty sweet outfit

I think I see a park to the left....?

Below is Dutch rider Charlotte Van Gils at her home indoor ski hill in the Netherlands. This is where she learned to ride and it's crazy to think that somewhere as small as this can produce such talent. Charlotte kills it if you haven't heard and she's been traveling all over to compete on the real stuff.

Charlotte Van Gils at her home "mountain" in Holland

 Other indoor ski hills:

• UK
  SNO!zone Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire 
• SNO!zone Castleford, West Yorkshire
  SNO!zone Braehead, Glasgow
  Tamworth Snowdome, Staffordshire
  Chill Factor^e, Trafford Park, Manchester
  The Snow Centre, Hemel Hempstead
  SnOasis, Great Blakenham
  Wycombe SnowDome, High Wycombe
  Swansea
• Australia
  Coffs Harbour, NSW
• Belgium
  Snow Valley
  Skibaan Casablanca, 's-Gravenwezel
  Ice Mountain, Komen
  Snow Games, Antwerp
• China
  Qiaobo Ice & Snow World, Beijing
  Shanghai Yinqixing Indoor Snow Centre
  Dubai
  Ski Dubai, Mall of the Emirates, Dubai
  
• France
  Snowhall, Amnéville-les-Thermes
• Finland
  Kymppi Arena, Kylpyla Hotelli Vesileppis, Leppavirta
• Germany
  Jever Skihalle Neuss, Dusseldorf
  Alpin Center am Tetraeder, Bottrop
  Snow Funpark, Wittenburg
  Snow Dome Bispingen, Hamburg
  Snowtropolis, Horlitz
  Japan
  SSAWS dome
  Big Air Fukoaka, Fukuoka
  Kamui Snowboard Park, Baraki
  Coolval Tokyo, Tokyo
  Snova Kobe Free-ku, Kobe
  Snowva Hiroshima Boarders Arena, Hiroshima
  Seibuen Yuenchi Snowboard Park, Seitama
• Lithuania
  SNORAS Snow Arena, Druskininkai municipality
  Malaysia
  Lido Boulevard, Jahor area
• Netherlands
  Snow Village, Biddinhuizen
  Montana Snowcentre, Valkenswaard
  Uithof, Den Haag
  Ski Dome, Ruchpen
  SnowWorld, Zoetermeer 
• SnowWorld, Landgraa
• Snowplanet, Spaarnwoude
• New Zealand
  Snowplanet, Auckland
  Singapore
  Snow City, Singapore
• Spain
  Madrid Snowdome, Madrid
• South Africa
  Snowfun, Cape Town
• United States
  Barlow County, Georgia
  Las Vegas

Norway - So Beautiful

Scandinavia is on the top of my list of places to visit in my lifetime. There are many reasons for that, and one of them (but not priority) is the summer glacier. I know this glacier isn't as big or well established as the Blackcomb glacier or Mt. Hood (featured in a future post), but it has potential and amazing sunsets. Norway has been a great platform for companies to shoot ads or film video parts, and part of the reason for that is the sunsets and the landscape, not to mention the occasional view of the Northern Lights. The glacier where people can ride is Folgefonna which is a collective term for the 3 glaciers in Hardanger, Norway. Included on this glacier are a few summer camps (Folgefonna Snowboard & Ski Camp and What! Summer Camp) as well as custom jumps and features for special photo shoots. Folgefonna glacier stays open for the months of June and July and have sunlight from 4:00am until 10:30pm. Although snowboarding is a good reason to go to Norway, the country is more well known for many other things, such as the Northern Lights, and the fjords just to name a couple. Norwegian culture is much different from North America, more colourful and way more extravagant, maybe even elegant. Cost is much higher, but so is quality.  

Photo from: http://snowboarding.transworld.net/1000076041/photos/folgafonna-norway-update/

Photo: Frode Sandbach from: http://snowboarding.transworld.net/1000076041/photos/folgafonna-norway-update/

The glacier Photo from: quitealrightproductions.com

Norwegian Fjords - Photo: fjordtravel.no

Northern Lights, Photo: http://mistsofavalon.heavenforum.org

Video from channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/evilmoofin?feature=plcp

Kiwi Land - New Zealand

I've been looking forward to this post, mostly because New Zealand has been my favourite place to travel in the summer for the last 6 years. Mind you I haven't gone to too many places. The entire country of New Zealand has mountains, on the North Island and the South Island including the famous Snow Park where the likes of Shaun White and Travis Rice go to ride and film. I've been three times for the purpose of summer boarding and contests, the Burton New Zealand Open in particular. Other contests include but are not limited to the Billabong SnowStock and Winter Games NZ. One of the great things about NZ is it's landscape. Everyone knows The Lord Of The Rings series was filmed there, but so was King Kong, because NZ seems to have every landscape imaginable (I've even seen sand dunes). Not only is it a good place to snowboard, but the surf is amazing along with skate parks and other activities like bungee jumping, sky diving and boating. Needless to say, I love New Zealand!

Spencer O'Brien and Darrah Reid McLean on the backside of Snow Park

Me, riding at Snow Park

Regular traffic jam

Haast Beach on the east coast of South Island. North Is. west coast if where you can find the surfing

This is around where they filmed King Kong

Road to The Remarkables, kinda sketchy

MUST TRY: Curry In A Hurry, Wanaka alleyway, you probably imagine the lamb curry is pretty good

Me on a tree. The only tree on this mountain

Jordie Karlinski lookin at stuff

Jamie Anderson, wins the Burton NZ Open 2009

Mark Sollars, starfish

So insignificant, Simon and Nick

Lake Wanaka

Bunch of chicks winning a bunch of money: Possum Torr, Jamie Anderson, Charlotte Van Gils

All NZ Ski Resorts:

The Remarkables
Broken River
Cardrona Alpine Resort
Coronet Peak
Craigieburn Valley Ski Area
Fox Peak
Hammer Springs Ski Area
Manganui Ski Area
Methven - Mt Hutt South Island
Mount Cheeseman
Mount Dobson
Mt Hutt
Mt Olympus
Mt Ruapehu
Mt. Lyford
Rainbow Ski Area
Roundhill Ski Area
Snow Park NZ
Temple Basin
Treble Cone
Tukino
Waiorau Snow Farm  
1. Wanaka Winter Resort

The White Album: Shaun White at Snow Park, NZ

Chile

Another place I have never been but have heard so much about. Similar to the landscape of Argentina, it is not a place to go to ride park (although it is available), but more of a place to ride powder. A 2006 snowboard movie "Follow Me Around" featured a segment in Chile where the crew got stuck in Valle Nevado (http://www.vallenevado.com/en/) and rode amazing powder around the resort. Aside from the snow and beautiful mountains, the sunsets look amazing too! Much like Argentina, Chile's season goes from June until August and provides resort riding as well as heli-boarding and catskiing.

Photo: www.thisischile.cl

Photo: www.thehighlow.com

Photo: www.chileanski.com

Check out Mack Dawg's "Follow Me Around" Chile part:



Other resorts in Chile:

• Antillanca
• Antuco
• Cerro Mirador
• Chapa Verde
• Corralco
• El Colorado
• El Fraile
• La Parva
• Lagunillas
• Las Araucarias
• Portillo
• Ski Pucón
• Termas de Chillán
• Valle Nevado

Party Hard in Whistler

This is a place I am familiar with. Canada's mountain province, British Columbia is one of the most beautiful places I've ever been, let alone been able to live. Whistler is a place where you can snowboard almost all year because of the elevation for Whistler Mountain is at 5,020 feet and Blackcomb at 5,280 feet. Blackcomb is where the summer glacier riding is open from June until mid August with a number of different camps including: Camp Of Champions, Momentum Ski Camp, Whistler Summer Camp, Shred Camp and Pro-Ride. I've always been lucky enough to ride at Camp of Champions for the past 5 years where there are 4, one week long sessions with invited pro riders and coaches for the campers to learn from and hang out with. www.campofchampions.com 
On top of the great mountains and camp, Whistler has an amazing apres life. Poachable pools at numerous hotels, a number of lakes with volleyball, swimming, boating, wakeboarding and more as well as mountain biking, bike trails, kids zones with games and rides and so much more. It is a very active town, and once the sun goes down, there is at least one bar that has "specials" for 7 nights a week of parties, if you can handle it.

Three chairlifts and a bus ride to the top

Whistler summer is beautiful

My brother Tim and I, it's normal seeing people carrying a snowboard in the summer here

EH

This is Camp Of Champions on the Blackcomb glacier

Campers and I hiking

The weather isn't always that nice, but you can still hike a box

Me, Joe Gaynor photo

Me, Nick Dubeau photo

Matt Belzile @ Camp Of Champions Summer 2011
 http://www.youtube.com/user/campofchampions