Austria Part I

Aline Bock checking out our competition venue before our hike up

After leaving Utah, having a day to do my laundry and pack my bags, I found myself on an early flight to Munich with the ultimate destination being Austria. I am here in Austria to film a Salomon Freeski TV webisode, but since it worked out timing wise I left 2 days before the rest of the crew to participate in the Women's 2nd stop of the Freeride World Tour in Fieberbrunn. The competition venue was pretty cool, the women's field was loaded with tons of talent and I was excited to compete for the first time this season. Unfortunately I ended up crashing at the beginning of my run. The snowpack is very thin in Austria and my line accentuated the numerous amounts of rocks just lying beneath the powder. What a bummer! At least I can walk away and chalk it up as a learning experience. Congrats to Ane for laying down a solid run for the win!

View from the start

Later that afternoon the guys picked me up and I was headed to my next Austrian destination, St. Jakob in the Defereggental Valley. Since we definitely need some fresh snow in these parts to get after it, we have spent the last few days exploring and getting our bearings down in this valley. I can't wait for it to snow, which it is suppose to heavily at the end of the week- wahoo!, so we can take advantage of the great terrain offered. I'm with a really fun crew of Cody Townsend, Ben Mullin and Ian Coble, and I'm sure we'll find plenty of things to keep ourselves occupied with in the meantime. Like watching the Olympics live in the restaurants and bars here in St. Jakob, which is so cool. Last night we watched the men's Downhill: every single racer with no commercials and stupid 15 minute bios. Astoundingly we will get the optimum Olympic coverage going half way across the world!

Aline Bock, myself and Ane Enerud enjoying the sun by the judges tent while watching the men

St. Jakob in Defereggental, Austria

Cody and I hamming it up while checking out our surroundings our first day in the Defereggental Valley

Cody making a nice slasher, the snow was not ideal

Apres on the sundeck, very nice...

Ben Mullin, the cinematographer, and Ian Coble, the photographer eyeing the delicious plate of cheese and meats with a side of Schnapps

Julia Mancuso Going for Gold in the Olympics again...

The 2010 Winter Olympics are kicking off this weekend, how exciting?! In honor of Julia Mancuso, a friend who won gold in the last Olympics, I am posting a really cool Team Visa video edit of her. When Cody and I were in Maui this past November, Julia actually showed up for a week and we got to hang out with her a bit. After spending a month there I can completely understand why she heads to Hawaii to train in the off-season. Anyway, I wish Julia the best of luck at the games- Go Jules!

Skiing in Jan/Feb

It was a big congregation out at the Buttes in Tahoe after the big storm broke in late January. There was the TGR crew, a snowboard film crew in addition to me and my pals.

The last few weeks I've been doing lots of snowmobiling, skiing, searching for snow and a little bit of filming. This winter I am working on the female film ski project called "Say My Name" and have found myself in Utah for the past week to meet up with the crew. Utah is definitely hurting for snow this year and still has some pretty bad avalanche conditions, but we still managed to get some work done. It's a unique experience- rarely is there another female involved when doing a film or photo shoot. This week it was Lynsey Dyer and I in front of the cameras. It's been great fun! I'm heading to Austria in a few days but I can't wait to get back and really get after it for this project.

We found this hut in the middle of nowhere and decided to take a break from the cold. Next to me is Wiley Miller and Greg Lindsay

Lynsey Dyer skiing into an air, the zone we were skiing was really small due to the high avy conditions

Lynsey getting shacked in typical Utah pow

A History Lesson in Freeskiing

I absolutely love this new episode of Salomon Freeski TV. We all could use a little brushing up on our freeskiing history and remember our roots...