Living in Denver this season Monday-Thursday, living in Summit
County, CO Friday-Sunday, & skiing the CO Pass resorts as much as
possible, with trips back to Aspen thrown in the mix!
I hope to raise awareness about sustainability and work on projects to reduce the carbon footprint of the resorts that operate all over CO!
Powder snow skiing is not fun. It's Life. Fully Lived. Life lived in a blaze of reality!--Dolores LaChapelle.
Hey Everyone! If you have been reading you know I’m a huge Pretty Lights fan. I got my Snowball Music Festival tickets in Vail last month. I’m stoked! If you are in CO or even if you are not I would suggest checking out the Snowball. It’s going to be a party and March is our snowiest month, so you could get the best of both worlds Colorado style! Hope to see you all at Snowball. Peace….
I had the unique opportunity to catch Chris Blackett of Iclenatic Skis to get an exclusive look at their 2012 line of skis. I have to say they look incredible and I can’t wait to ski the Gypsy on a pow day!
Day 1 of SIA ’11 was a blast! Here is a quick video of Chris Davenport giving us the run down on his new line for Kastle in 2012. I’ll posting a lot more video & photos from yesterday later today. See you at the show!
I just got my hands on some great links to some sick new FREE music to help everyone get through SIA & X-Games. Whether you need new tunes to shred to, some motivation to get out of bed to get to the event you really want to get to at X, or make it to the booth for the all hands meeting at 9am after being out till 4am this will help.
Hey everyone! I’m sorry I fell off my usual blogging schedule. I hate to make excuses but sometimes you eat the bar and sometimes the bar eats you. Life has taken in me in a lot of random directions lately. I switched jobs which is always an intense process! I moved out of my old pad with my old college roommate, moved in with my girlfriend and we got a brand new Bernese puppy. She is raddest puppy ever but as you dog lovers know puppies are a lot work. I also, enrolled in a GMAT prep class at Veritas Prep. My two cents is that they are far and away the best GMAT prep program out there right now. If you are seriously considering going back to grad school and you want a great score on your GMAT I suggest looking into Veritas Prep. I have class every Tuesday and Thursday from 7pm until 10pm all of January and February and an insane amount of homework to boot. This has consumed a lot of my time as well. Don’t get me wrong I’ve still be out skiing as much as work and my GMAT prep allows for. It’s not quite last year where lived two feet from the lift on Aspen Highlands in apartment 420, no seriously my apartment number was actually 420. I’m doing the best I can to avoid to I-70 traffic by going up to my condo in Dillon, CO on Friday night and leaving Sunday night but it’s just not same as actually living in the greatest ski town in North America. Yes, I’m biased, shoot me.
Anyway, I’m warning you that I’m going to be pushing out a lot of posts in the next few days to catch up. I’ve been skiing the CO Pass mountains, but I’ve already made a trip to Aspen and a trip to Telluride. I hope to get down to Telluride a little later in the season so I hit a lot of the terrain that was still closed and you bet your bottom dollar I’ll be in Aspen at least two weekends a month. I miss it so much I can’t even put it in words. The #contentcrew at Aspen Ski Co. has not made it easy. List everyone. They have been capturing some amazing images this season that makes me so jealous every morning when I hop on Facebook and the first thing I see are their photos.
I can say now I’m settled into my new life and I will be blogging a lot more consistently. It may not be as frequent as last year because I’m not out as much but I should have a few posts a week. For example, this week will be a HUGE week for blogging. Tomorrow Wednesday 1/26 I have Snowboard Big Air in Denver, I missing today’s skier’s big air because of GMAT class, which is a bummer, but I at least I get to go to one day. Thursday and Friday I’ll be tweeting, shooting photos & video and blogging at SIA. I really stoked about this. There are also some after parties I’ll be hitting with great music, I.E. Z-Trip & Big Boi complements of Icelantic Boards! Saturday morning I’m headed up to the X-Games in Aspen. I’ll be doing all the same I said above at X-Games as well, so expect some killer content. Monday & Tuesday I’ll be taking a break and enjoying two days at my Alma Mater Aspen Highlands. I’m hoping for some fresh pow, but just spending four days back in Aspen will feel great. Stay tuned here, check my Twitter feed for the latest on SIA and X-Games. Until then I hope everyone is having a great season so far and I’ll see all of you in a few days! Peace….
I first heard about N3L Optics from a friend roaming Cherry Creek Mall. At first I thought a legit shop in Cherry Creek Mall, No Way! I went to see for myself. I was in the market for new goggles, so why not. I decided to shoot some video because he said they have all kinds of cool gadgets to test out goggles and sunglasses in different conditions. I was pleasantly greeted by the guy working in there (Chris as well). He was a real CO snowboarder, he knew what he was talking about. I told him although I thought the selection of sunglasses was amazing I was in the market for goggles. We headed over to the first piece of technology. It was an interactive touch screen to simulate different conditions. They had everything from water, to trails, to snow, and driving down the road. I opted for the snow option. Before I had even taken a look at some goggles I was able to choose the snow scene, choose a few different goggles (Oakely, Smith, VZ..etc..) and see how the lens would react to different terrain and lighting conditions. I tested all the goggles in flat light, bright light, in the trees, and in a steep bowl. It was amazing to see the difference between different goggles in different conditions. You may think, “hey that’s sort of gimmicky but it really wasn’t. It was a true to life representation of how the goggles react to different light.” Skiing CO as long as I have I encountered every single possible snow condition, it was nice to see the performance of the goggle before purchasing it and being disappointed in the performance when you maybe in adverse conditions that require a completely different goggle and now you are stuck!
We then grabbed a bunch of goggs off the wall to try on after looking at them on the touchscreen simulator. I like all the goggles I tried on but the Smith I/O’s were my favorite and the Oakley Splice came in a close second. I loved the view on the Smith’s and the lenses on the Oakley’s were Sick along with the splice technology around your nose. I ended up picking up both pairs. The great thing about these two is they also come with flat light lens I can change quickly. The Oakley’s don’t change quite as fast as the Smith’s but I fell in love with the Iridium lenses on the Oakley’s.
From here we checked out the Explorer Chamber. This “thing” was SICK! Similar to the touchscreen simulator it gave you multiple scenes to look at with goggles and sunglasses. I decided I couldn’t leave without trying on some sunglasses, I thought why not try them with the Explorer Chamber. It was cool to test out the goggles and see how they react to different landscapes but really the sunglasses ruled the Explorer Chamber. It allows you to test the sunglasses to see how they perform with polarized lenses. For me personally, this is a great test for backcountry touring where you are usually way too hot to wear goggles, mountain biking, and fly fishing. Seeing into the water with the polarized lenses is Huge! One last thing for cycling and or spring skiing at an area is the ability to simulate wind up to 30 mph to see how the sunglasses block the wind or not. I found this very helpful with cycling either road or mountain when you are either raging down a trail at Winter Park or down Lefthand Canyon from Ward you need to know how your eyes will be protected from the intense CO wind!
For the “Fashionistas” out there, N3L has an online photo both to try on multiple pairs of lifestyle sunglasses or performance and email a photo the computer takes of you to yourself or friends. This is great feature for anyone who can’t really decide what sunglasses to buy. I know I never buy sunglasses alone, but if I was alone I would shoot a friend whose opinion I trust a quick picture to get their feedback and instant opinion. If you have a smart phone on you, you can quick check your email and they can tell you look “Fly” or you look like the idiot in the corner of the bar with his sunglasses still on at 1:30am! For those of you Mac Addicts like me it’s basically like Photo Booth on your Mac.
Finally, N3L is all about making sure through great customer service and all their cool technology you walk out of there with exactly the right pair of sunglasses or goggles. They also do custom fitting and repair after the sale. I know I have broken my fair share of sunglasses, this is huge for me. One other great thing about this for performance sunglasses is they can heat up the glasses to adjust them to fit just right around your ears. Sometimes after a few months on the mountain bike my glasses get a little loose, it’s nice to know I can go back in and get them re-fitted at no extra charge. I have to say this store is top notch despite it’s fancy pants location, it’s legit! If you are looking for sunglasses or goggles and you really want a good fit and knowledgeable staff check out N3L Optics this holiday season! Below I have a video of some of my pics of the shop set to Pretty Lights, my Flickr album with all my pics, and two videos of my in store experience. Check them out. They really help to show how all the technology I mentioned above really works!
One last thing I have to give MAD PROPS to my roommate and long time friend Brett Rindt. He shot all the HD video and took all of the photos. He is very talented and you will be seeing more of Brett’s work this season. I also just picked up a Canon G12 (Merry Christmas to Me!) I’m heading up to Aspen this weekend to test out the goods back in my old stomping grounds of Highland Bowl. We’ll be shooting tons of photos and HD videos so be on the lookout for that. I hope everyone has a great holiday season and gets in some SICK POW wherever you live. Think Snow!
