Space Between Trees

After 7 consecutive seasons, Chris Kelley's Red Burton Toaster snowboard pants have finally been retired to the mud closet. The veteran Red pants had accompanied Mr. Kelley in 4 different locations including their rookie season('98-'99) at Mount Snow, Vermont. That season, Mr. Kelley recorded 50+ days on the hill, though not all those days saw the use of the Red Pants, as many starts were handled by the company uniform Black Pants. From there, Red Pants saw many days in the Catskills, primarily at Belleayre ski area and some days of backyard boarding during the 1999-2000 season. This was followed by Vail in 2001, where Red Pants saw the most appearances in one season and really their prime season. From there, Red pants returned to the northeast to see out the rest of their playing seasons, primarily in the harsh conditions of Jay Peak, VT. “(The Red Pants) were really starting to show there age this year at Jay,” Mr. Kelley said referring to their fourth returning seaso...

What's up, y'all. Uh...I mean...Chaz. I sure your the only person that looks at this site, so I'll just reference you directly. I just wanted to update the site with a link to a video that a buddy of mine (Shanon) edited and shot on our trip out to Vail a few years ago. He posted it on www.youtube.com today. It's pretty cool. Go there and rate it. http://www.youtube.com/?v=2kJcKMNU8kA

I have skipped a few weeks of updating, only because I haven’t been motivated. But I’m sitting at home today due to the pitiful conditions Jay has experienced the last few weekends. I tell ya, it’s depressing. Hopefully we will get some snow this upcoming week. A few weekends (Jan 7-8) ago, the skiing and riding were great. Jay might have gotten about 10” the prior week which freshened up the woods, especially after the bulletproof conditions over New Years weekend. On Saturday, the house did a great job of waking up early. For once, we were all out of there prior to 10am. Actually I think we made it onto the mountain at 9:30. I would like to do this more often as I felt like I had a better day than usual. As for the conditions, it was soft, especially in the trees. There was a fair amount of powder, mostly cut, but some stashes of freshies in Beaver Pond and Beyond Beaver. I was really feeling it in there. We probably took 3-4 runs in Beaver Pond, this included Nicky and JessB by the...

Yeah, it was that type of weekend. Lots of booze and lots of rowdiness. I was up at the house from Thursday through Monday. On Friday we may have ridden for approximately 2 hours. The conditionsl were rather rough. Icy slopes and no tree riding is not a common forecast at Jay Peak. But at least once a season there ice a northeast thaw that affects the mountain. Admittedly the thaw last year at the same time was worse. The base survived better this time and on Thursday night the mountain got a couple inches that saved Friday from being a total disaster. I actually enjoyed some of my runs. It was the first opportunity I had to really dial in my bindings and get a good feel for them. Also, I started getting a little looser around the mountain; finding little jumps on trails that I usually don't spend too much time on. Also, the new and improved Grom Park was openned. I pretty much sucked in it. But by the end of the weekend I was starting to feel more comfortable in the air. I even pu...