Dorokoma™ Power

A new saga begins. 2011/2012.

Sat-Nov/19

Drove up to Mammoth with Kos, leaving at 4AM or so.

Super clear blue sky all day long, but icy as shit in the afternoon once the winds picked up. Seth let us crash at his condo and led us to the hot springs down near the airport…I’ve been looking into camping near the hot springs on a snow trip, but with research I couldn’t really figure out where they were…so finally I know! Can’t wait to try doing that when it’s not so damn cold at night.

I think it was 18′F by the time the sun had gone down and we had gotten out. Drying off was scary D:

Sun-Nov/20

Woke up after a good night’s sleep to a glorious snow shower. Dropped about a foot by afternoon…so much of a contrast to the previous day.

Even though it was only shin-deep (not complaining!!), pow to start the season is always awesome

A topic I forgot to post…

A while ago at Bear, I ran into Jim, whom we have designated as the “wise-mountain sage”. I first ran into him 5 years ago since we’d always be at the top of fat kicker lines catching a breather. Back then, I was just starting to throw corked back360s with consistency and the occasional 540. He was practicing corked 720s. The year after, all I saw him do was 180s and shifty 180s. The next year, underflips. But it just all came together. I realized what unfolded. He was putting together the necessary abilities for destruction.

When I saw him most recently, he hit a line of 4 mid-sized (30~ft) kickers and hucked a rodeo540 on each and stomped clean. ALL FOUR DIFFERENT VARIANTS. Frontside, Backside, Switch Front, Switch Back. My mind was blown. I decided to upgrade his status to “wise-mountain ninja”. He then told me he just learned to throw chicane flips (kinda how I take off with my corked spins, cept he hucks it way harder and does a full front flip while rotating backside). Me? I used to only know BS 360s & 540s. Since then, I’ve learned how to 180/360 each way, but not on big jumps.

Thus, I realized that I suck. I’m learning backwards and not really progressing towards anything monstrous. Probably from all the injuries and fear of wrecking. Lost my balls. Getting old. But hey, who cares…rode pow almost all year, where wrecking is impossible Haven’t quite given up hope on inverts, but I’m definitely not expecting anything crazy soon.

My face is really sunburned. Not my worst goggle-tan, but it’s bad. Day 33 was knee-high pow at some points @ june, although J1 was really icy/crusty underneath. Day 34 was ultra blue-bird slightly slushy but not really sticky funnn.

Got back really late, near 2AM, then had to drive to VICTORVILLE for work (this whole week), waking up @ 5:30AM. And I slept like crap, probably got a good hour in. So tired.

So tired I don’t remember what I had plotted out for the day 34 post. So, I go to sleep now, luckily I’m reporting in at 10AM, but for a longer (10hr?) shift.

I wish last weekend would repeat itself endlessly.

Something like 9 feet dropped in the span of a week @ Mammoth. Unfortunately due to it being almost April, it was a tad warm so the powder was wet and sticky…typical heavy sierra snow I guess. This picture was shot on the morning of day 31. Usually I’m nearing 40 days by April….definitely behind my usual amount, but this year has been QUALITY. So much powder riding, I barely have a goggle-tan. Usually I look like a monkey by this time of the year.

I really need to start jotting things down or taking notes. I always have things written out in my head, especially during my car/train rides, then by the time I get around to typing, everything is gone.

This shot just about sums up Sunday’s BB conditions.

Peak-season is winding down, but the pow sure as hell isn’t!! Had virtually zero pow days in January & early Feb, but it’s all good cuz I was sick on half those weekends . The past two weekends have been SO awesome…making up for my ‘lack’ of riding days…I’m definitely hurting though, been cartwheeling through snow WAY more this season

I had all these points in my head that I wanted to write about, but now that it’s time, I can’t remember. Blargh. So I’ll just talk about random things from this past weekend. Rolled up to JM with the ol boardclub crew, most of whom I hadn’t seen in a year or two. So fun.

• You know the stairs at June’s chalet? How I always ass-slide down the handrail? Well, I finally ate it. Fell over the far side of the bar about 3/4 down the stairs and slammed my ass into the cheese-grating metal stairs. With a crowd of spectators laughing at me
• Tree runs *can* be dangerous when there’s much pow. I did a 180 butter and ran straight into an invisible tree stump. Speared in the ass yet again.
• Fresh, unpaved snow is SO much easier to drive through. I’ve been contemplating selling my STI and buying a Forester + new motorcycle, but it’s hard to beat being able to drive 70mph through 2 inches of fresh.
• The chalet cashier was giving me shit last week for using a broken credit card (cracked it in half). She gave me shit yesterday for using a $100 bill. She said I’m always causing problems. SHE HATES ME. I’M SORRY.
• My DC jacket from [SAMY]…has a freaking hidden facemask built into the back. SO BADASS. I didn’t know it was there all this time.
• It’s pretty badass seeing girls follow us through the J1 tree-line. Props to them, this is the 5th year I’ve had a pass to June and I’ve never seen a girl in those trees.
• Telescoping pole mount for the GoPro is definitely sick (borrowed Bunya’s). Ima try the suction cup on the nose sometime soon as well.

Anyhow, it’s barely March and I think more than half of my days have been riding pow…lucky with the weather I guess? Looking forward to the rest of the season

We ventured up to June and got some AMAZING shots…but unfortunately I left my gear pack in the motel on Saturday morning so we only had Sunday footage. But, it would have been pointless on Saturday, not to mention incredibly painful to carry around a fatass camera pack while rolling around in armpit deep powder.

The snow report said 3-4ft or something, so I figured it would be a powder wonderland. WRONG. POWDER NIGHTMARE. There was so much snow, the resort opened really late (8:45) due to avalanche control delays…but it was cool seeing the charges exploding in rapid succession. On top of that, there was so much powder on the normal runs that you couldn’t even go down the bowl unless you were following in the tracks of a skier. I was even on my eco-nico with a backset stance…but I guess even the skiers had trouble unless they were on some fat floaters with reverse-camber/sidecut. Saw guys digging for lost skis, skiers upsidedown, snowboarders buried to their shoulders, etc.

But yeah, it was like swimming in sand. So much pow it was painful, and this is coming from someone who rode 50 days last year. Sunday was amazing though once they groomed everything…we even went through some tree runs down J1 and got some gnarly footage…so much video footage I still need to edit. Oh and I got pulled over AGAIN for window-tint. Must get rid of that ASAP. Anyhow, I shall close this post with this amazing picture of Leon hiking through the pow.