I got home from work around 8 focused solely on making dinner, drinking a beer and calling it a night in preparation for getting up super early to make the trek to Mount Washington. I’d been up there a number of years ago during the summer, and knew to expect a short but steep trip uphill to the lunch rocks. I was braced for getting up early, shooting down some human rocket fuel energy drinks and getting after it, but when the first thing out of Adam’s mouth when he saw me was “You all packed? We’re leaving at midnight!”, my head started spinning a bit………..

Midnight……….. That’s in three hours! @#$%&*!!!!!!

So I went to bed hunting some beauty sleep, knowing I was going to wake up in all sorts of ugly. Without even enough time to roll over and start snoring, Craig from CS Films is attacking the door with a vengeance, and next thing I know I’m stuffing half charged batteries into my camera pack, basically falling down the stairs, out the door, and into the car. Fast forward three hours of three dudes in a mid-sized car, and we arrived at Pinkham Notch – just in time to wake the sleeping MacMahoooon. Everybody was more beat than was expected at that point, so a quick shred-nap in the car was in order.

We got up and started gearing up not long after that. Tweak the Alpine Trekkers, test the lights, radios, beacons, fill the water bottles…. game on! Adam and Chris zipped up the skin in no time flat, and beat the entourage (Craig and yours truly) to HoJo’s hut by a good margin. From there, we made like a herd of turtles, headed up, and after a short stint of n00b involving me blowing up a trekker and sliding ass-over-teakettle backwards, we made it to the base of the ravine.

Adam and Chris went to work scouting their line and prepping their plan of attack, and settled on a steep, sun-drenched face which seemed to have a solid cover of spring snow on it. In the meantime, Craig and I went to work calling the play by play of the terrifyingly un-prepared people hiking up, and later tumbling down the headwall. Granted the avalanche danger was rated low for the day, but when two girls arrived with round saucers, we knew the junk show was coming in full force.

After watching the crew hike up their first line, and commenting on the gathering crowd at the base (who hikes Tucks with a 5 foot pirate flag?!?!), it was showtime. Adam got the first turns, which looked buttery smooth and funneled out right into the valley below to hoots and hollers. Chris was right behind, with much the same results – steep, fast, spring skiing.

Chris and Adam ate a quick lunch and then set off for a second line, which turned out somewhere in the mediocre range. Between the beginnings of wet-slide sluff-alanches and the growing number of tourists in the ravine, things were starting to get a bit hairy. Combine that with a weather front moving in, and Adam getting stuck in 60mph winds at the top of the headwall for about twenty minutes, we decided to call it a day. Making our way down, I managed to shralp my way around an pair of exploded sledding saucers, and the very angry blonde girl and boyfriend that were formerly attached to them. It seems that saucers are not a good method of transit down the ski trail out of Tucks – note to self.

We made out way down to Moat’s brewpub, where the hot item seems to be the “Family Dinner”. Combine a platter of chicken, pork, brisket, ribs, potatoes, beans and all the rest of the trimmings with good, cheap beer, and you have the perfect apres-shred feast of fools. Somehow over the course of dinner we managed to translate the waitress’s name from Kristen to Katatatatataatatatatata, which became the running joke for the rest of the drive home.

All in all, a good shred mission to the biggest peak on this side of the country!

I felt a lot smarter after listening to the story. I in fact only understood part of it. Long story short, this is how I define gnar:

Adam getting after it somewhere at Jay. Nice, fluffy, deepness.

I was having camera issues all day, focus not working right, batteries crapping out on me, and then the ultimate kicker: a terrible grinding noise from the mirror box. Phone call to Canon in the morning, but it doesn’t look good…… the Mark II N is definitely down for the count with a failed shutter/mirror. And best yet my backup 30D is also down for the count! AHHHHH! I might be shooting with a picture frame made of my fingers for the next bit!

Fun morning, not bad for a workday AM. Out the door at 430am, hiking Stowe an hour later, sideways snowing whiteout, cars all over I-89, yeah. That’s my roommate Adam getting after it in the photos, making things look steezy as always. Super super grey morning, super noisy photo….. whatever. It was fun. Hopefully next time we get up there it’ll be sunny in the morning and I won’t have to go 1000iso, haha!

Note for 2010: expect the blog to be functional again, and to have my site done. It’s a resolution!

Really busy. I’ve been traveling quite a bit, shooting a variety of images for my senior project, while also holding down a full college schedule (minus the art history class…… oops.) I’ve met a bunch of new friends in my travels, skiied a bunch, shot a bunch, and now it’s totally crunch time where I have to edit like a madman and finish what I started.

Anyway, we had an assignment to create a self-promotion podcast for a class I’m currently in. Not knowing anything about making video, or podcasts, or…… anything like that, I set out to learn a little bit about Final Cut. Having seen an incredible presentation by Chase Jarvis in which he rallied through thousands of images very quickly, I set out to learn enough about Final Cut to be able to imitate the concept. Although mine is nowhere near as polished, given the 15 hours (all nighter, woo!) I had to learn and complete it, I think it turned out quite well. There are a variety of things that aren’t perfect, but I learned quite a few things while making it that I’ll do quite differently next time I work in moving media.

Without further ado:

The Midwinter Report

]]> http://ianrayphotography.com/blog/2009/02/17/learning-things/feed/ 0 http://ianrayphotography.com/blog/2008/12/05/early-season-mt-snow/ http://ianrayphotography.com/blog/2008/12/05/early-season-mt-snow/#comments Fri, 05 Dec 2008 05:19:05 +0000 bangor http://ianrayphotography.com/blog/?p=21 Got up to Mt. Snow Last weekend to do some shooting with the boys from home. I met up with Evan Grott, Mike Konderwich, and Tom Seymour to get some shredding and some shooting done. The new all-park Carinthia looks like it’s going to shape up to be a great addition to the east coast park scene!

Evan Grott – Tail 3

We took a couple runs through the park, grabbing some shots as we went. It was a typical greybird day in VT, so the light wasn’t really on point and we resorted to the mini-strobes. Worked out pretty well, good way to get back into the shooting mindset. After a run or two of shooting we decided we were collectively totally out of shape, so we took a couple cruisers without the cameras and bonked our way around the mountain. Following the on hill debauchery, and a mean session of Shaun White Snowboarding on the new big screen TV in the lodge, we hit the road to do some portraits in the woods:

Tom Seymour, Mike Konderwich, Evan Grott

Mike Konderwich

Overall it was a pretty successful trip! The next morning I threw the Subaru back on the highway and rallied back to Rochester for classes, rounding out over 1,000 miles in 3 days for the holiday break!