Enjoy the ride

Tranny Finding

2010-02-21T19:37:00.004-07:00

After a long spell of bad weather we had a morning of sun here in Utah. A crew of us heading up to northern Utah to quiet zone in search of some fun skiing. I had a jump spot picked out from last season; however, due to a low snowpack the landing was filled with trees. There was a small opening though, so we stepped out a lip and did our best to land in snow instead of trees.

After a few hits each Kyler Cooley spotted a rather large rock-to-rock gap with a rather small landing. It went surprisingly well and we managed to find the short landing a few times each before a snowstorm rolled in.

The pictures are below, and forgive the sloppiness of the update as I'm in the midst of packing up for a trip to India. As of now I leave SLC tomorrow evening and will hopefully give some updates while on the road if technology allows...

Gasing up

Sorry ladies, still taken....

An easy double on a snowmobile...

Making the inrun, baskin in the sun

Small landing, not so small gap

First hit

Kyler out of focus, but the tree in the foreground looks great

It's that time again

2009-12-02T10:10:00.005-07:00

Greetings all...

After a busy summer and fall was celebrated with a trip to Nicaragua and Costa Rica with friend Kyler Cooley I've spent the past week getting rid of the rust at Park City. Even with the lack of natural snow they opened with an impressive early-season park. With three jumps, ranging from 25 to 40, and 15 plus jibs, Park City is setting the bar high for the coming months. I am yet to snap any pictures of their setup but here is a link to an edit from Rage Films' Pretty Good footage and some pictures from Central America.

View of San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua

Volcán Concepción, Isle de Ometepe

Home of the $2.00 breakfast in Nicaragua

View from future home in Nicaragua...

Monkeying around

The Alto getting it done in Costa Rica
Sunset in Nicaragua

Playa Samara, Costa Rica

Home sweet home

2009-04-09T13:50:00.004-06:00

I know its been a few weeks since I last gave an update on my whereabouts, but its been a hectic month to say the least. I returned to Utah a couple of weeks ago to close on a house expecting to sign a few papers and then return to wherever the snow was good. Lucky for me though, the snow came with me. Alta reported 169 inches (over 14 feet) in 14 days; Brighton and the surrounding backcountry were close behind.

With most of Rage's athletes busy elsewhere, my roommate Kyler Cooley and I got to work in our backyard. We spent a few days of the snowy stretch shredding Alta, making bottomless turns and choking down snow. Another two day storm we went to Brighton, hitting cliff after cliff, rock after rock. We snowmobiled the rest of the days, from Logan to the Uinta's, getting face shots on both our sleds and skis.

The storms seem to be winding down just in time for park shoots to start. The Canyons is kicking things off for us this year with a three day superpark. I hope you enjoy the pictures below (thanks Hennie, and bare with the quality, my camera broke) and more importantly hope you all had great season.

Jump time

2009-03-15T11:21:00.006-06:00

After a hectic trip to the west coast chasing snow I made a 10 hour stop at home and repacked my bags and headed to Idaho in search of more snow. AJ de Saint Phalle, Ian Cosco, Kyler Cooley, and I arrived to the trailhead mid-storm to find over a foot of snow. The snow didn't subside until the following evening, leaving us bottomless landings and incredibly fun snowmobiling.

We spent the next couple of days skiing powder and finding natural take-offs, waiting for blue skies. Once visibility improved, the four of us picked up our shovels and began shaping lips.

After all was said and done, we managed to hit our share of jumps, spending the majority of our digging hours on a gap (we named it the McCall Jump) that would have made Ostness proud. I hope the pictures do it justice, and I'll keep anyone who reads this updated on my whereabouts in the coming weeks.

Best chairlift ever!

Driving along in my automobile

2009-03-09T21:42:00.007-06:00

After a long weekend with my mom and brother in Salt Lake City I said my fond farewells, dropped them at the airport, and promptly began my journey to the west coast. After forecasts of two to four feet in Oregon's Cascade Mountain Range I was excited to get out of Utah. While it was great to take some runs with my family, get fed delicious food, and play tour guide for a few days, Utah's conditions made it a no-brainer to get as far away from crust layers and ice as possible.

After nearly 700 miles in my truck I made it to Oregon to find an updated forecast calling for just less than foot of snow over the next few days. We tried our luck the next day and ended up hitting a jibby rock hoping the snow would pile up.

Later that day I was back in my truck driving to California. While Tahoe was getting hammered with a storm that shut ski resorts down we tried our luck four hours to the west, and hit the jackpot. We landed in a zone in the middle of nowhere, battled no crews (other than a group of partying slednecks), and found both great terrain and snow conditions.

As the wind and sun began to affect the snow, some of our crew went back to Oregon, while Cosco, Kyler Cooley, and myself made our 13 hour drive to Northern Utah just in time for another 18-30 inch storm.

While I ended up behind the wheel of my car far more than usual, this past trip turned out to be pretty successful by the time it wrapped up. I think we all bagged a few shots for Rage's new movie (insert movie name here) and I'm hoping to get a few more bangers in the coming days. And to put a positive spin on the almost 2000 miles I drove in the past week or so Nica Dev will be seeing a few more trees donated to their efforts of improving life in Nicaragua. Prior to this trip the whole Rage crew had been doing a great job making conscious efforts to reduce all of our carbon footprints.

I'll keep you all updated on as this trip pans out, but until then, enjoy the pictures below. I hope you're all getting plenty of good snow in your neck of the woods and that Spring takes it's time getting here.

Is that Chug on his new XP? In both pictures!?

I just realized how much I played out that volcano in every single pictures background.

And I promised my brother I'd put a shot of him in one of these blog updates. He's almost grabbing, but by the end of the weekend he had 720 mutes on lock (his rail game could use a little work though...)

The snow finally showed up

2009-02-20T18:30:00.008-07:00

Its been a while since I've checked in with the Internet crowd, but the snow has taken a turn for the better here in Utah, allowing me to give an update with some adequate pictures and explanation.

As I was walking out my door to drive to Oregon February 6th I sent a last ditch phone call to Rage Films hoping to persuade them to send someone to Utah. Luckily it worked, and AJ de Saint Phalle packed his truck while I unloaded mine. After a few issues with heavy snow and his trailer tires, he showed up 16 hours later.

With my roommate still nursing a broken collar bone, AJ and I sledded around Utah's mountains looking for powder as building jumps isn't a whole lot of fun with two people. Mike Mertion showed up yesterday though so we pushed our pillow lines and powder turns to the back-burner and are busy building jumps in these last few sunny days before a few more storms hit Utah. I hope you enjoy the pictures and are getting plenty of good snow yourself.

And that's why Seo gets paid to take pictures and I dont. Shameless product plug...Thanks guys!

It's only funny because the hill was ten vertical feet, and he's actually good at sledding.

Just rediculous pillows everywhere, and the zone was huge.

And Mertion finally showed up and here's one of the jumps we built.

Middle of nowhere Idaho

2009-01-16T20:08:00.005-07:00

My roommate and I left Utah's unusually high avalanche danger to meet up with AJ Burton, Mike Mertion, and Rage Films' Dan Norkunas in a safer Idaho backcountry earlier this month. We spent the first couple of days exploring the deserted rolling terrain and wide-open bowls, scoping lines and jump spots, and remembering just how unreliable snowmobiles can be. Dan's sled drank a few gallons of anti-freeze before he fixed it, and my roommate, Kyler Cooley, couldn't come up with a solution to his snowmobile's antics and took off two days into the trip.

With the unlimited backcountry access virtually all to ourselves, we kept busy for the remainder of the trip. With no ski or snowboard crews, or even sledneckers (we saw fewer than 25 snowmobilers the entire trip) anywhere close to us, we split our time between jumps, jibs, and lines without the worry of anything getting tracked up.

Once the kinks were worked out this trip couldn't have turned out better. With endless terrain accessible from our lodge's parking lot, we saved both commuting hours and gasoline by not driving to trailheads to snowmobile. The lodge provided everything we needed, from snowmobile gas to dinner (with the exception of coffee and cell phone service ) to a helpful staff.

After our last day of skiing I caught a ride with Dan back to Utah just in time for a soccer game (we won 1-0) and woke up to Kyler itching to ski Park City. With pretty much everyone who is anyone training pipe for the upcoming X-games PCMR's big park was as deserted as Idaho's mountains. I'll be in Utah for another few days, but am hoping to get back at it and head back into the backcountry once the conditions improve. Enjoy the pictures below, and I apologize ahead of time as we are better skiers than photographers as you'll soon see.

Christmas comes early in Utah

2008-12-22T13:20:00.015-07:00

Christmas is still three days away, but Utahn's already have plenty to be thankful for. The snow is piling up on my ping-pong table almost as fast as it is in the Wasatch Mountains. There's been so much snow in the city Santa came down early to test some of Atomic's skis for his sleigh. Here he is blasting off my roof with a bag of toys. He wasn't thrilled with our cramped gas fireplace, lack of milk, and outdated advent calender, but he sure did love the Bentchetlers.

Jokes aside, the season is definitely in full swing here in Utah. Alta has a 62" base, and as a current storm is wrapping up another sizable one is set to hit us Christmas day (good thing Santa already stopped at my house).

Park City Mountain Resort has done a great job getting ample jibs and jumps built, with a ridiculously fun 5-pack jump line. If my roommate new how to take pictures I'd have a few action shots for this update, but his picture taking abilities are similar to those of a two year old. These are the last few jumps of the new park, with the superpipe slotted to open Tuesday.

I'm off to Alta tomorrow tomorrow to play in all the new snow, so I'm hopeful to get a few decent photos to make all you east coasters jealous (and yes, I realize there is a storm in New England).

On a different note, I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday season and that Santa finds his way to your place too.

Some extra Rage Films footage

2008-12-11T22:52:00.003-07:00

After much bantering I convinced Dan Norkunas at Rage Films to put together an edit from a bit of extra footage from this past season. Hope you all enjoy it and to anyone in the western part of the country, hope you guys are getting some of this much anticipated storm coming our way. Evryone needs it!

So until my roommate comes home and can teach me how to embed a video, click this link to enjoy a couple minutes of what winter should look like. It's slowly coming around here in Utah, as Park City has a small jump line and a lengthy jib line that is a blast, while Little Cottonwood and Big Cottonwood resorts have managed to open quite a bit of fun terrain. These next storms coming through should give me an excuse to give the new rockered skis a go.

Happy turkey day!

2008-11-27T19:25:00.006-07:00

Even with the closest member of my family about 2000 miles away I still managed my fair share of Thanksgiving dinners. The last pie is out of the oven, the coffee is brewing, and I'm too stuffed to change the channel (my roommate loves The Hills).

Tonight marks the end of lengthy Thanksgiving feasting for me. This past Sunday kicked off the start of it, with 20 or so friends eating the night away. Today my work provided all the turkey, cranberry sauce, stuffing, mashed potatoes, green beans, and sweets I could manage, and I just polished off another full plate of holiday tradition with my girlfriend, roommate, and cat.

On a different note, Park City Mountain Resort opens tomorrow,
so I'll finally sit on the my first chairlift of the season tomorrow morning. Hopefully it will look something like the picture to the right, but for some reason with the last snowfall being well over a week ago, I don't imagine it will be that deep, but I'm sure it will be fun either way.

Anyone living in SLC, hit me up if you're loooking to carpool; I'm always looking to take one less car off the road.

Hope everyone's Thanksgiving was filled with good food, friends, family, and more food.

The nitty gritty...

2008-11-25T19:00:00.004-07:00

Earlier this fall I went home to Connecticut where I took off to the beach for a few days with old high-school buddies. One drink led to another and soon enough politics found its way to the table. Arguing politics after a few drinks (let alone with friends) is generally a lost cause; just a fruitless process that does nothing but work everyone up. So I shouldn’t have been surprised to find myself isolated, my back against a wall, arguing my side to ears that weren’t listening.

The one argument I continually went back to was to give global warming the benefit of the doubt. Even if one doesn’t believe in it, why not side with safety by acting responsibly and treading lightly just in case global warming is indeed caused by human activity?

I am implementing this carbon offsetting project not to simply play it safe, but because I think global warming is a human-caused phenomenon that individuals can influence in a positive manner. There are plenty of ways to reduce greenhouse gases, and any individual, family, or corporation can take steps to reduce their carbon emissions.

While this project will not turn my ski season into a carbon neutral winter, it will significantly reduce my carbon footprint and ease my mind. Starting Friday, November 28th I will begin tracking miles driven and gasoline burned to calculate how many pounds of carbon dioxide my vehicle and snowmobile emit.

According to the United States’ Environmental Protection Agency 19.4 pounds of carbon dioxide is created from burning one gallon of gasoline. While that seems impossible as one gallon of gasoline weighs just over six pounds, read this for an explanation.

Bring trees into the picture and 19.4 pounds is no longer just an arbitrary number. Trees need hundreds, and many times thousands of pounds of carbon dioxide to survive, a key component in photosynthesis. Trees undergo a constant process of carbon sequestration (absorbing and storing carbon dioxide over their lifetime), with different species absorbing different amounts of carbon dioxide. Longer living and faster growing trees tend to absorb more carbon dioxide than a short tenured or slow growing tree.

According to Reforest the Tropics, a non-profit Costa Rican organization, a Central American hardwood tree would absorb an average of about 80 pounds of carbon dioxide annually, and has a lifespan of over 25 years. Differently put, 25 hardwood trees have the potential to sequester about 2000 pounds of carbon dioxide annually. I’ll save more math for a later post as if you’ve read this far, chance is you’re losing interest.

While tree planting or reforestation is just one of many ways to offset carbon emissions, I chose to use this method for various reasons. Nica Dev, the nature reserve I will be working with has planted over 95,000 indigenous trees since 2006, giving it great experience in managing its land and caring for the trees. Studies have also shown that planting trees in tropical regions of the world may actually help slow global warming. And trees can provide countless more uses than simply absorbing carbon dioxide. They provide shade, oxygen, economic opportunities, yield fruit, offer habitats for animals, and many more uses.

The ski season is about to kick off so I’ll do my best to get a few pictures of both my modes of transportation, and hopefully some action shots one of these days. Thanks for the interest, and hope your home mountain is opening soon.

Carbon nuetral: halfway there?

2008-11-23T12:40:00.000-07:00

It's about that time of year again, and for me that means significant travel for the next five to six months. For those who don't know me, my name is Dylan Natale and I do my best to put together a couple of movie segments each season (last year with Rage Films and Atomic Freeskiing/Kris Ostenss). To do so means hectic and sometimes obscure travelling to wherever the conditions are right.

While I jump at the opportunity to see new places, ski new terrain, and meet new people, there is a growing part of me that feels a sense of guilt in my lifestyle as well. With constant travel, many times in a full size truck towing a snowmobile, comes a large carbon footprint.

While some argue global warming is yet to be a factual truth, I can’t help but worry that frivolous carbon dioxide outputs (not excluding myself) will create milder, shorter, and drier winters in the years to come. I spend much of the winter traveling in search of unique terrain to ski, gaining access much of the time by snowmobile. I realize the conundrum I’ve created by snowmobiling so frequently yet still worrying about warming temperature trends and my personal carbon footprint.

However, during the summer months, I pride myself for my conservation efforts: I ride my bike, unplug electronics, shop locally, turn off my roommates lights, etc. etc. And for the past few years I justified my winter travels by my frugality come summer. But last May, during one of those agonizing stretches of flat, straight road I-80 offers through Nevada, I realized I could, and should, do more. The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to do something to offset all the miles I travel. What I came up with is a project that will offset the carbon emissions produced by my truck and snowmobile by implementing a tree planting program in a nature reserve in Nicaragua.

With ski areas opening here in Utah the project is about to kick off as I try to get my legs back under me. I will keep the updates coming as to both my whereabouts this season and to the success of the project, and probably a few random posts here and there.

Hope to see you out there,

Dylan