Idaho Mountain Bluebird

After what seemed like an entire week of gray skies and misty fog in the mountains, the clouds parted and I awoke to the sun shining in through my window.  I knew that it was going to be an awesome day.  The crew decided to go up to a spot we call the "C Bowl."  We had cracked the trail into the zone with the sleds a week earlier, in a foot deep of fresh snow.  It took us all day and was some of the hardest riding I have ever done.  But since the trail was there we cruised up to the spot and found shade still on the face.  So we decided to venture up into some of the higher peaks and play around and eat lunch.  We later came back and ripped the C bowl to shreds.  It was an amazing day of bluebird skies, and good snow with the whole place to ourselves.

 

On top of the world

Lunch time, while Tristan fixes his sled

 The pull cord was toast

My sled

Lunch, mmmmmm

Pre-Shred

  

Choose a line

Martin Campbell

Max Ostermiller

Max sending it deep

Max charging

Max still charging

Max, yup, you guessed it... charging

Martin Campbell

Martin off the point

Martin Campbell, BS 720 Mute 

  

Post-Shred

Webisode 2- "4 Hours"

This segment was filmed in about four hours with the Underground Crew in the Idaho backcountry.

The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

Recently broken down sleds resulted in us towing out some buddies out to a common snowmobile zone.  With a large crew of 10 it was a mission to get everyone out there.  Once there we found that Brundage had dropped a cat down the traditional snowmobile route.  What ensued was a gnarly session of some gnarly vertical and lines that we hadn't really thought about before.  Everyday my eyes open to new possibilities and new potential places to shred.  That's the good part.  On the way home we were stacked up going down the trail and Tj ended up running into Tristan who was in front of him. (BAD)  Tj avoided his sled but ended up catching his pinky finger on Tristan's board rack and the collision resulted in Tj having a severely broken finger as well as Tristan having a broken rack.  (UGLY) This all happened about 3 miles, from the cars, which I guess is a lucky thing.  You never know, in the backcountry a good day can go really bad, really fast.

 

Ian McLaren sending it off the main cliffs

Seth opting for the channel gap

I want to hit that

Cam dropping the shoulder, while Seth looks on from above

 

Cam Holt

Lower Rock

Dylan Holt 

 Cam Holt

 

Cam off the finger

Off the rock, sick double line 

 

Ian in the chute

Tj Wilcomb airing down

Brundage Webisode 1

Check out the first webisode of many that will be dropping on the website.  This is footage of Dylan and Cam Holt riding at Brundage Mtn during the holidays.

Backwoods Vacation

So far this year a UGCrew member TJ Wilcomb has been missing in action.  However, he just got his snowmobile back from the shop and was more motivated than any other member of our crew to go out and do something.  With foggy gray skies and a chance of snow over the weekend a plan was hatched that would take us into the depths of Idaho's backcountry getaways, Secesh Meadows.  Friends of our family let us stay at their place right on the river.  The cabin is very quaint and primitive, however, it was a welcome respite from television, phones, and electricity in general.  We got to the cabin after about and hour of hauling our gear with snowmobiles up through the pass.  Once at the cabin we started the fire and started pre-gaming before we made our way down the valley to Burgdorf hot springs.  We were worried that we wouldn't be able to drink in the pool, as we have been yelled at before.  But the new managers were totally cool and let us party in the pool.  After about two hours, 14 beers and many cannonballs and backflips later, we left the pool and headed back to the cabin.  Dinner was awesome,  Martin brought elk steaks and we had those with a can of chili and hash-browns.  After dinner we drank ourselves to sleep all the while telling stories.  We awoke in the morning to find that Tj had a severely sprained finger, possibly broken, from jamming it into the bottom of the pool while doing backhand-springs.  We packed up, cleaned up and made our way home fighting a headache that felt like it was going to split me in half.  Word to the wise, if you are going to drink a half rack of beer in a hot spring, make sure you drink a bunch of water before going to bed.  (Special Thanks to the Fereday's)

The Cabin

 

Awesome stove

Burgdorf 

This is what it all was for, Burgdorf hot springs

Relax

Martin next to the fireplace

Hungover

Coffee and Motrin please

Breakfast with the UGC

Can of chili the night before = opening the window in the morning

Dropping In 5

On a recent blue bird day, the crew headed out to one of our epic zones and proceeded to ride 3 feet of fresh deep pow.  A giant storm had brought about a foot of new snow to the mountains and the next day when the storm peeled off the mountains and marched eastward, we were left with blue skies and awesome conditions.  Once we got to the zone and started the session the crew was in a frantic powder fury, doubling up as fast as possible to ride as many lines as possible.  In the midst of this powder frenzy I was able to snap a couple photos for your enjoyment.

 

Base Camp, Saddle Up

I'm going to go off that cliff and then through the chute.

Get E'r Done

Ian at the top ready to drop

Killing It

Martin and Andy.  (The sled pictured here is no longer with us, RIP "Big Mallard")

Andy Crosby

Martin Campbell uses whiteroom technology

Max Ostermiller sending it

GTS'n ALL DAY, EVERY DAY