Snowfix : skiing & snowboarding video podcast

Say hello to the first Snowfix baby!

Some of you had suspected it and yes it’s true - Jools gave birth to a beautiful baby girl this week and little ‘Ace’ is already sounding a lot like her father…

1st - Oneill / Isenseven

2nd - Oakley Tigers

3rd - Onboard

4th - Protest Team

5th - Meth-Heads

6th - Team Burton

7th - The Seeker

8th - Chamonix 9000 Vertical Feet

9th - Oakley Snowboard

10th - Grenade Team

11th - Dalikfodda

12th - Whitelines

13th - The Strangers

14th - Lift Op Productions

15th - The Milky Boots Kids

16th - LMP

17th - Whitespace Crew

1st - Team Norway:

2nd - Team Europe:

3rd - Team Canada:

4th - Team America:

5th - Team Sweden:

6th - Team Down Under:

7th - Team USA:

Time for the mid-episode extra! This week we have got Team USA’s entry to the Jon Olsson Super Session.

It is hilarious and we wouldn’t be surprised if they release this for real. They are certainly milking it, check out the site they made for the song: http://www.myfriendisapro.com/

TEAM USA - My Friend is a Pro (Album Version) from Mike Thomas on Vimeo.

They don’t make them like this anymore! Every shot gets better and better!

Shane McConkey

Excerpt from ESPN.com

Decorated big mountain skier and BASE jumper Shane McConkey was killed on 26th March in a ski-BASE accident in the Italian Dolomites.

A member of the Red Bull Air Force and pioneer of the ski-BASE-ing phenomenon, McConkey experienced problems in the air after launching off a cliff with the expectation of deploying his parachute canopy and then gliding down to the ground—as he had done successfully some 700-plus times before.

“He did a double backflip off the jump and he has these releasable bindings so they come off in the air and then he flies off in his wing suit,” filmmaker Scott Gaffney, a longtime close friend of McConkey’s, told ESPN Action Sports in an interview this afternoon via phone.

“But one ski did not come off. And when that happens the drag on the skis causes you to flip over, so the skis go over your head. So he was struggling with the one ski. Then he also got into a bad spin. So he may have never even pulled his pilot chute. And that’s coming from JT Holmes, who Shane was with in Italy and who reviewed the footage of the accident. So the combination of the ski, the spin and the pilot chute, apparently. Because you can’t throw the pilot chute like that; if you throw it while you’re upside down and it wraps around the ski, you’re done.”

McConkey was filming with Matchstick Productions and Red Bull at the time, according to Gaffney, who said McConkey apparently died on impact with snow on the ground below the cliff. Gaffney was not clear about the size of the cliff. “But it had to be a sizable cliff, at least 400 feet, for him to be planning on flying his wing suit away from it,” Gaffney said.

McConkey, 39, of Olympic Valley, Calif., is survived by his wife, Sherry, and their 3½-year-old daughter, Ayla.

Graeme Murray/Red Bull Photofiles
This afternoon Gaffney was at home in Squaw Valley, Calif., with his brother, Robb, also a close friend of McConkey’s, reeling from the news. “With what Shane does,” said Scott, “it’s a call you always picture getting at some point, but you realistically don’t ever expect it to happen.”

Added Robb Gaffney, “Shane’s been a part of our lives for quite a while now. I’m just sitting at Scott’s house processing the whole thing. The texts and calls are coming in, and you can really even feel it in the air in Squaw right now. I’m thinking about Sherry and his little girl. But in this area people have always loved Shane, so Sherry and Ayla, they’re going to have an immense amount of support around them. That’s one thing for sure; that’s Shane’s legacy.”

Watch Shane in our favourite segment, acting as everyone’s hero, Bond!

Design Comp

One of our viewers, Daichi Ishikawa, has entered the Faction Skis Design Competition and here at Snowfix Towers we have decided that he has definitely created the best entry.

Check them all out here.

If you agree with us, and we are sure you will, send your vote to: designcomp@factionskis.com

GET VOTING!

More Snowboarding >>

Thanks to Stu from Reel Fun Media!

We havn’t seen much of Candide recently so we thought we would see what he has been up to, in short POWDER!

Check out next season’s designs direct from both the ISPO in Munich and the SIA in Las Vegas.

(Photographs by Susanne Van Oudenaarde)

32

APO

ARMADA

ATOMIC

BATALEON

BERN

BURTON

DAINESE

DAKINE

DALBELLO

DYNASTAR

ELAN

ELECTRIC

FACTION

FLOW

FORTITUDE

HEAD

K2

LIBERTY

LINE

MOMENT

NEFF

NORDICA

OAKLEY

O’NEILL

PROTEC

RIDE

ROME

ROSSIGNOL

ROXY

SALOMON

SCOTT

SPY

SURFACE

It’s been dumping here in the UK for a change, and the country is coming to a standstill… How have you been making the most of the snow? Send us your photos to snowfix@negativegravity.co.uk to appear on the site and the feedback for the next episode and there could be a prize in it for really impressive photos…

Here are some of the pics received so far:

From Ben Woodley at Primrose Hill:

2/2/2009 UK Snow - Ben Woodley

From Lucy McLean in Brockwell Park, Brixton

From Hannah Cesek in Brighton:

A mixture of tiredness and anxiety seemed to be the general feeling in the group this evening….well until Fraser introduced the ‘fire bomb’, the replacement to the ‘Jaeger-bomb’ (well attempted), instead of Jagarmeister it was a cinnamon based spirit which tasted a bit like Atomic Fireballs, remember those! And with the Red Bull combination it really was a good alternative! Thanks Fraser! Oh and thank you to Red Bull for hooking us up with a free delivery for the 16 hour road trip!So after a few drinking games, time lapse’s and showering we were ready to hit Whistler Village! Well so we thought, it turned out Maggot, although 22 yrs old had lost his wallet the weekend before and had no ID. No ID would mean no entry for Kyle as his lack of facial hair wasn’t making him a convincing 22 yr old! This we could obviously not let happen so began weighing up our options. We could either submit the Guestlist and chat to the manager to explain the situation, hope the doorman didn’t ask or was there an option 3???

Watch the podcast to find out how we got Kyle into Garfinkels!(AKA Garf’s). A truly genius plan and one we think could catch on when stuck in this situation and in a ski resort of course!! However you do have to be at the legal age of consumption to try this, which out here is 21!Prior our party in Garf’s was the premiere of The Pirates new ski movie “Overseas” ( http://www.pirate-movie-production.com/movies) but it was good and had everyone glued to the screen…. Or the bar. By 11pm the place was slammed with people and we thought is was about time to give out the Tour T-Shirts and JW Seasonnaire florescent pants! Tim and Nick went on stage with the DJ to announce the tour and more importantly dish out the free stash. Within minutes girls had switched underwear and guys….wore them….. on their heads??? Must have been the Firebombs……it was great to see the T-shirts being worn though and Tim and Nick were a little shocked at the reaction when Girls…and guys were hounding them for anything they had, offering them anything in return…(‘obviously’ a nightmare for them both) Which again you can wait to see exactly what, in the Podcast! An awesome first party though to get the tour off the ground and a great way to finish our last night in Whistler! Great crowd and we hope to be back next season! Fraser, Maggot, Lucy, Caitlin and friends we hope you are not feeling to bad today

Just the two words Heli-ski says it all, this has so far been the high light for the tour and its going to be pretty hard to beat!

So without given too much away so not to ruin the forthcoming Podcast, the JWTeam, Mike
Douglas (a living ski legend and true testament to a dedicated seasonnaire click here), our Three Whistler Seasonnaires, Kyle aka ‘maggot’, Fraser and Jeremy, not forgetting the two mountain guides arrived at the Whistler Heli-port at 0800 hrs.

If you are wandering why Carl is called ‘Maggot’… His older brother is called ‘fly’ so unfortunately it was inevitable. After our mountain briefing, avalanche awareness, transceiver tuition (the beacon that saves us if we did cause an avalanche!) we regrouped to prepare for take-off. Hearts were racing, adrenaline pumping, only Mike had done this before and the other 9 of us couldn’t wait to lose our heli-virginity! Tim, Charlie, Nick and Jools had a chat with Mike about his best drop-off’s whilst we waited for extraction….good times! At 0900 hrs, Tim ‘top gun’ the Pilot dropped in after deploying zee Germans… So that was it, the time had come and we all ran in for the pick-up, the seasonnaires all ready in their jump suits.

Ultimately without giving too much away we had 2 heli-drops, lunch and another drop off in the freshest, untracked dry white powder any of us had ever seen. The second drop off was far from what we could imagine, a mountain peak no bigger than a car park space awaited us and one hell of a view! The pilot truly was hot shit! Drew (one of the camera - men) was slightly unnerved when the Ski Guide shoved him under the belly of the chopper to shoot it taking off! Heads down, a shit load of noise and the chopper took off leaving us on top of a mountain with a panoramic view of Whistler!

Carl, Fraser and Jeremy built a kicker at one snow lip for some great shots, nailing some great tricks. Anyway it was all over too quickly and before we knew it we were back at Fraser’s place of work, the Long Horn Saloon for some Apres-Ski. In Whistler, it seems Nacho’s, LOTS of cheese and Jugs of Beer is how it’s done. Not good for our already ever increasing fatty diet! We are all going to be HUGE when we get back!

You want to hear more about this and what we saw, its all on the podcast coming soon

Day one in Whistler went swimmingly well!

We met up with Mike Douglas and got the lowdown on all things Whistler.

Chatting to Mike D

Next we met up with some Whistler locals and checked out the early state of the Blackcomb park.

Frazer

Jeremy

Here is my pityful effort

Tim Kick

We finished with some classic Whistler apres - Winter Ale and Nachos!

Booze

Nachos

Then we had an early night getting ready for a massively exciting trip tomorrow, watch this space….

So after arriving in Vancouver and managing to get our cameramen through the strict Canadian customs (which included them being grilled on when their non-existent criminal history) we jumped in our gangster SUVs.

SUV