($element) ) { return $element; } } } ?> .'" />'; if ( !empty( $thumbnail_html ) ) { $ajax_nonce = wp_create_nonce( "set_post_thumbnail-$post_ID" ); $content = sprintf($set_thumbnail_link, $thumbnail_html); $content .= '

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Quick Winter Teaser

Well I jacked-up my main computer with a virus that makes Adolf Hitler seem like an adorable little kitten. Therefore I have been slacking on an insane scale with my website updates.

We have had some really nice days skiing in the last month or so (finally!) and here are a few quick ones to hold you over until I can get my ass in gear and get around 1,000 photos (about 5GB’s) uploaded and processed.

Deep turns at Montezuma by Trent (March 6th, 2010):

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Jim Donovan taking a nice smooth entry (March 6th, 2010):

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Caitlin cruising some nice turns (March 28th, 2010: ):

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Beautiful Montezuma during a late afternoon windstorm (March 28th, 2010):

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Well that’s it for the moment and more will be on the way.

If you are following from a feed here is the permalink: http://andylibrande.com/news/2010/03/quick-winter-teaser/

RIP 2005-2010

RIP 2005-2010

There has not been a single piece of equipment that has ever defined my outdoor experience as my last snowboard did. Throughout my life I have always viewed all outdoor gear as a good tool, a piece of equipment that assists in outdoor explorations, and I have only focused on using high-quality tools that will last. Over the past five years of adventures I have been through an enormous amount of snow gear; four jackets, three pairs of snowboard pants, two snow backpacks, two pairs of boots, and countless base layers, goggles, and gloves. However I have only had one snowboard.

Almost five years ago I purchased the Palmer Honeycomb snowboard. At that point in my life I had just started to really experience snowboarding and this snowboard helped propel me into the rider that I am today. From the deep powder days in Jackson Hole, to the glorious backcountry days throughout the Rocky Mountains, to the backyard kickers in friends yards, to the aggressive big mountain lines in remote areas, this board has been the single piece of equipment to carry me through it all.

For almost five years and well over 120 days of riding, this board had stood the test of time. Everything I threw at this board it withheld. Numerous deep core-shots were easily fixed, the sidewalls were strong as ever, and outside of some minor wear and tear it never slowed-down.

Based on the incredibly solid build of the board I always thought that I would have it forever. Therefore it was only fitting that the last day of my board was on the first bottomless inbounds powder day of a very dismal season. Much better for the legacy to abruptly end then slowly fad into memory as the backup board. Abruptly it did end as I misgauged a pillow and dug the tip which catapulted me forward into the deep snow. Unharmed, I stood and took my first turn and immediately fell and noticed that the entire front end of the board had snapped in two. This was the end of the legacy, and as I spent the next hour making my way down to the base area, I could not feel anything but joy as I reminisced about all the good times this board had brought me and helped define my life.

Hopefully I will cross paths with another board of this caliber, however at this moment I am grateful that this piece of equipment lasted as long as it did.

Thank you Palmer for making a quality board and I leave all of you with a few of the moments that defined me over the past five seasons.

(pics of broken board will be posted shortly)


Grettings from Snowy Colorado

Happy Holidays and here is to the hope that this snow becomes strong for another awesome season. Thanks to everyone for the adventures over the past year and look forward to the crazy stuff that we will come-up with in 2010!

Just enjoying the snow as much as possible:

20091115-dsc_0054

Zuma in the Summer?

Where: Montezuma, Colorado

When: 8/29/09-8/30/09

Who: Trent, Tweak, Scott, Duncan, Evan, Caitlin (as the sole female), Ellie the dog, and myself.

An overnight car-camping trip in the Deer Creek Valley was an opportunity to see the valley when it is not covered in snow. Overall a really crazy thing to see how different it looks in the Summer and the Winter. Some of the amazing things I thought was how much snow fills into the valley (7-10 ft), how much water is in the valley (huge beaver dams), how lush the slopes that we ski are, and how much I don’t like Scott Miller (I kid…).

Another major goal was to work on our base-camp area since it has fallen into disrepair this past winter. We built a great firepit that should be way better then the weak set-up we had last year and then helped reinforce a major wind-block as to better protect one part of the base-camp area.

Besides that we caused a lot of havoc:

Fireworks over Zuma:

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The Beaver Dams:

Deer Creek Valley Montezuma Colorado

The hardest part about crossing the Beaver Dams is making sure you don’t spill your beer. Trent was successful at that but still managed to get wet:

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Evan attempting to look cool:

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Zuma in the Morning (Left to Right: Steeps, Washout, Cone 1, Cone2, Cone 3):

Deer Creek Valley Montezuma Colorado

Baby Chute and Big Chute w/o Snow (mtn goats were wandering around the top earlier):

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Ellie the Water Dog:

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Click on the Snow Category to the right to see other adventures at Zuma.

Random Updates

Hey Everyone,

A few things have been added to my website that I wanted to share with you. The easy one is that I finally got around to posting a photo album on facebook for the 2009 Winter Season; go see it here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2097098&id=20202675

Secondly I have been working on some new pages (look above) for Useful Links as well as a Climbing Map.

The Useful Links holds a ton of awesome links and one of the best things is that I have included 20+ links to some of the best action sports photographers out there (located at the bottom of the page). This could easily distract you for days…

The Climbing Map is a map of all the areas I have visited in a nice visual location. Go to that page to get more details, meanwhile I have included the scaled-down version here:
View Climbing Areas Around Denver in a larger map

Zuma 2.22.09

Note: Undergoing some changes to the site, if you notice anything wacky please leave a comment or send me a note.

Date: Feb 22nd, 2009

So the day after skiing with Tim Spano and crew we went back to Zuma for a little more action. While the snow was not the greatest we still sent some pretty sick lines.

Evan put down a line in the Washout area that is one of the steepest lines possible at Zuma. When looking at the slides #19-22, the duration of time is less then a second and the speed generated from that initial turn was pretty insane to watch. I was standing out on a cliff point and apparently need to re-shoot the line to give a better perspective of the sheer size of the line. The last slide (#27) shows most of the line and the three turns over 700-800 ft of vert.
Enjoy the slides:

Click here for larger photos: http://andylibrande.com/slideshows/Zuma_2.22.09/index.html

Special Edition of Zuma

Date of Action: February 21st, 2009

Location: Deer Creek Valley, Montezuma, Colorado

Culprits: Myself, Trent, Tweak, Scott, Tim, Sabrina

The long lost Tim Spano meandered his way back on an apparent epic journey back to the land of the free, hot-dogs, PBR, and of course snow. Finally got to spend some time skiing Zuma with him and his gf Sabrina which turned out to be a pretty good day on a couple of fresh inches.

Anyways here is a collection of the photos from that day in easy to use slideshow format!!! Let me know what you think of the format via the comments (or if you are lucky enough to socially interact with me you could tell me at that time as well), I have also included a few of the better photos for download at the bottom as well.

Thanks to Sabrina for taking good photos while I was skiing!!!!

Bigger size located out here: http://andylibrande.com/slideshows/Zuma_2.21.09/index.html

Time for Some Snow

Winter has been treating Colorado well lately, you know 60 degree temps in Denver while it continues to snow in the high-country…can’t really complain.

Finally had a chance to get out there and ski Montezuma again (been 8 months!!!) and luckily for us the mountain gods were kind enough to give us perfect snow, amazing weather, and some damn-fine lines.

Date: January 17th, 2009

Location: Deer Creek Valley, Montezuma, Colorado

Crew: Trent, Evan, Matt, and myself

Trent dropping into the Steeps (2nd line of the day):

Trent Dropping into the Steeps

Evan on the first line of the day (approx time 9:30 am):

Myself (lookers left) and Matt (right) eyeing our respective virgin lines:

Trent dropping in via “Baby Notch”, him and Evan both had to crawl into the chute to hit this line:

Evan did essentially the same line and Trent took some video of it.

Check out the VIDEO here: http://www.bcbhc.com/albums/Jan182009/BabyNotch_Evan_1172009.wmv

Tweak slaying a bad-ass line:

Myself getting some easy pow turns on the first run of the day:

Reflections on Zuma:

Reflections

Check out more photos in the gallery thing:

No More Blue Balls- Zuma 4/13/08

Location: Deer Creek Valley, Montezuma

Date: 4/13/2008; the day the majority of the resorts closed in Colorado

Crew: Trent Cook, Evan O’Connell, Scott Miller, Duncan Maxwell, Tweak (aka Matt Holden), and Myself

After having to deal with less then ideal weather conditions for the previous 3-4 weeks we had one day of just pure beauty. With relatively new snow all over the hills we tore it up as we explored numerous lines across all of the faces that were skiable; each of us did at least seven runs (over 42 lines for you math geniuses out there!!!) and literally skied til exhaustion.

The first run of the day happened at 9:15am and the last one happened at 4:00pm, and the result is as shown below:

Check out the picture gallery for the top 25 pics from the day: http://andylibrande.com/pictures/photos/album37

Scott launching:
Montezuma Colorado Skiing

Tweak cruising through:

Montezuma skiing

Click the following for more action:

Duncan taking quite the fall off of a natural kicker (I am going to put this sequence into a video as it is damn funny):

The crew at the end of the day watching a view other lines:

That’s just a few of the pics the rest can be found at the gallery listed above. I have a bunch more things coming including some additional video action that should be straight crazy.

Peace.

The One Picture Teaser

Yep. That was Sunday April 13th. The day the resorts closed.

You are only getting one pic for now…(mainly ‘cuz I have 500+ that I need to edit down).

Scott launching off a cornice between cone 2 and 3 in Zuma:

Hopefully this quells the masses. More to come…

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