I live in a small town that goes by the name Hakuba. It is located at the base of the North Alps. Our peaks are up to 3000m tall and the weather requires a lot of patience to truly get the most out of the surroundings. As a photographer the weather and location of the seaside mountains can be a blessing- but it can also be very frustrating... especially if you’re working with timelines and budgets.
In Japan, most film and photo crews head straight towards the North Island of Hokkaido. With consideration to the cost of travel and the people paying the tab obviously looking for marketable results- it is easy to see why most crews go with the same proven formula. I can’t blame them as it has one of the most reliable snow falls on earth and in overwhelming amounts. Packaged with culture and novelty it is an easy trip to accomplish success. Sadly the more money spent- the less the words “unique” and “adventure” stand a chance of making its way into the story line. READ ON HERE
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Japanese Adventures
I recently embarked on my first trip to Japan, and while I'd love to do a write up right now about how simply amazing Japan is, Ian Millar from F-Stop Bags, just did an amazing write up on the Salomon team's recent film session in Hakuba Japan. Read the tease and click the end link to read on.
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
An Escape
aWith the most exciting thing going on in Tahoe being watching three skydivers air into the snowless Squaw Valley, it was time for Elyse and I to go find some snow. Problem was, it wasn't snowing anywhere but Alaska. The problem solver though was the fact that Elyse's parents live at the foot of Alyeska ski resort in Girdwood Alaska. Time to escape to AK.
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If you like the Smith goggles in the post (because I sure do) make sure to check'em out at www.backcountry.com
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| Can you spot JT, Jesse and Charles? |
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| Time to hit the road...to the airport that is. No way we were driving to AK. |
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| From a snowless Tahoe to a Winter Wonderland. |
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| Elyse and I were stoked to see the snow. |
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| The one day of sun. The sun is in fact so low at this time of year that where we are standing received only about 5 minutes of direct sunlight. We soaked it in. |
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| Tenderfoot Ridge, AK. |
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| Powder caught by the lens of Charlie Renfro |
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| A little night skiing in AK |
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| Good night. |
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Sunday, October 30, 2011
Arcade
Oh hello there, nice to see you again, it's been too long. After developing a decently regular habit of posting, suddenly a few new projects have taken their course and robbed this site of its precious content. What projects you may ask, well one in particular is called Arcade and its a company a couple friends and I started.
It's been interesting starting a company. I've learned more than I ever planned to, become competent in a business language that was Greek to me until a few months ago and ultimately have jumped head first into a mad world I thought I understood, but didn't comprehend. I can't wait to see how it all turns out.
It's been interesting starting a company. I've learned more than I ever planned to, become competent in a business language that was Greek to me until a few months ago and ultimately have jumped head first into a mad world I thought I understood, but didn't comprehend. I can't wait to see how it all turns out.
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Saturday, July 16, 2011
Attack of La Niña
If you haven't seen it, you'll be that much older when you do.
Attack of La Niña Trailer HD from MSP Films on Vimeo.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Last week on my last day of shooting with MSP in Terrace, BC, I sent one of the larger cliffs I've ever sent, in the middle of one of the cooler lines I've ever laid eyes on. The run was going great until the moment I left the ground and started sailing over the final big exit cliff.
Suddenly I realized that the trajectory, slope angle and rock face was far different than what my 20 minutes of scoping had told me. The cliff stuck out nearly 30 feet, the take-off was at least 45 degrees steep and the angle of the take off sent me right into a point of rocks sticking far out into my planned landing. The seconds before impact I realized I was going to land on rocks and time slowed down to a primordial pace. I landed feet first onto a tall pillar of rock spotted with a dusting of snow. Upon impact I crumpled, buckled and somehow shot outwards past the next set of rocks into soft snow. Fortunately not a single piece of my body hit the rocks in the milliseconds of impact. I tomahawked for a solid 50 feet after hitting the snow and when I stopped I immediately heard the panicked screams into the radio asking if I was alright. I struggled to find my radio, stood up and waved to everyone that I was indeed alright. I didn't feel a thing in fact. Then the adrenaline started to subside and I realized my left knee was in a world of pain. It didn't feel horrible, didn't feel shattered, felt somewhat stable but still hurt like hell. I hiked up, grabbed on of my two missing skis and skied down to our guide Yvan with one ski. The other ski has been sacrificed to the mountain gods. Immediately the fear of a devastating knee injury began to plague my brain. I flew directly to the hospital and as the heli ride lingered on I welled up fearing the worst, embarrassed by the accident and worried about the future.
(The ending line. If you look closely you can see my bomb hole and me down low. My bomb hole in the snow is directly below the rocks I landed on)
As the initial pain began to subside and the X-rays came in negative my spirits began to lift again. Now, a week later and after 34 hours of driving back home, aided by my beautiful and gracious fiancee who flew up to Vancouver to drive me the rest of the way home, I'm back in Tahoe and have a fresh set of MRI's.
Today I just got back from the reading with surprisingly positive news. Here's the tick list: Tibial plateau fracture, 2nd to 3rd degree MCL tear, strained LCL, a partially torn meniscus and some serious bone bruising. Considering the force of the impact, I am super lucky. It could have been a career ending injury, fuck it could have been even worse than that. So to be left with an injury that might not even need surgery, I can easily say I'm stoked.
Now, it's on to healing and coming back strong. It's a healthy dose of motivation and I can't wait to be in Physical Therapy, on the bike, in the gym and getting prepared for this coming Winter.
Suddenly I realized that the trajectory, slope angle and rock face was far different than what my 20 minutes of scoping had told me. The cliff stuck out nearly 30 feet, the take-off was at least 45 degrees steep and the angle of the take off sent me right into a point of rocks sticking far out into my planned landing. The seconds before impact I realized I was going to land on rocks and time slowed down to a primordial pace. I landed feet first onto a tall pillar of rock spotted with a dusting of snow. Upon impact I crumpled, buckled and somehow shot outwards past the next set of rocks into soft snow. Fortunately not a single piece of my body hit the rocks in the milliseconds of impact. I tomahawked for a solid 50 feet after hitting the snow and when I stopped I immediately heard the panicked screams into the radio asking if I was alright. I struggled to find my radio, stood up and waved to everyone that I was indeed alright. I didn't feel a thing in fact. Then the adrenaline started to subside and I realized my left knee was in a world of pain. It didn't feel horrible, didn't feel shattered, felt somewhat stable but still hurt like hell. I hiked up, grabbed on of my two missing skis and skied down to our guide Yvan with one ski. The other ski has been sacrificed to the mountain gods. Immediately the fear of a devastating knee injury began to plague my brain. I flew directly to the hospital and as the heli ride lingered on I welled up fearing the worst, embarrassed by the accident and worried about the future.
(The ending line. If you look closely you can see my bomb hole and me down low. My bomb hole in the snow is directly below the rocks I landed on)
As the initial pain began to subside and the X-rays came in negative my spirits began to lift again. Now, a week later and after 34 hours of driving back home, aided by my beautiful and gracious fiancee who flew up to Vancouver to drive me the rest of the way home, I'm back in Tahoe and have a fresh set of MRI's.
Today I just got back from the reading with surprisingly positive news. Here's the tick list: Tibial plateau fracture, 2nd to 3rd degree MCL tear, strained LCL, a partially torn meniscus and some serious bone bruising. Considering the force of the impact, I am super lucky. It could have been a career ending injury, fuck it could have been even worse than that. So to be left with an injury that might not even need surgery, I can easily say I'm stoked.
Now, it's on to healing and coming back strong. It's a healthy dose of motivation and I can't wait to be in Physical Therapy, on the bike, in the gym and getting prepared for this coming Winter.
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Arcade/High-Fives Skinny-Ski-A-Thon Fundraiser
Skis with sub 80mm waists are about as relevant to me as a map is to a goose. They're just not really needed anymore. But alas, I have found an exception; to have a shit ton of fun while raising money for one of the best charity foundations in sports. So without further adieu, I'd like to announce the Arcade/High-Fives Foundations "Skinny Ski-A-Thon" on March 28th.
What I'm hoping to do is to reach out to the community of skiers, friends and partners to pledge a quarter, a dollar, two dollars or hell even ten dollars per run that I will ski on 215cm Downhill boards while riding KT-22 at Squaw on March 28th. This isn't like your typical 5k walk pledge, this is going to be a hell of a physical challenge. Lapping KT-22, on giant, heavy, skinny, DH skis from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm will be a serious test of endurance. So I'm hoping you out there can back my challenge by pledging your support.
If you are interested in pledging, get in contact with me by commenting below, emailing me at codytownsend at gmail dot com, facebooking, tweeting or any other of the thousands of ways to reach out on the interwebs.
Thanks a ton my friends.
What I'm hoping to do is to reach out to the community of skiers, friends and partners to pledge a quarter, a dollar, two dollars or hell even ten dollars per run that I will ski on 215cm Downhill boards while riding KT-22 at Squaw on March 28th. This isn't like your typical 5k walk pledge, this is going to be a hell of a physical challenge. Lapping KT-22, on giant, heavy, skinny, DH skis from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm will be a serious test of endurance. So I'm hoping you out there can back my challenge by pledging your support.
If you are interested in pledging, get in contact with me by commenting below, emailing me at codytownsend at gmail dot com, facebooking, tweeting or any other of the thousands of ways to reach out on the interwebs.
Thanks a ton my friends.
Friday, February 4, 2011
Selkirk Wilderness Skiing: Powder in and around my mouth
January in interior BC serves up more powder that Pablo Escobar at a Lindsey Lohan party. So much so that just like the former addiction, film companies have become addicted to the waist deep cold smoke that blankets the region year after year.
This year I was fortunate enough to be invited on my first cat skiing trip with MSP for their first film trip of the year. Sitting here pondering about those past two weeks I realize I don't have much more to say. There wasn't any drama of getting gnarly, any major hangups or extreme challenges, just a plethora of powder flying up in and around my mouth for 14 days straight.
So again, like plenty of posts before, I'll let the pictures do the talking.
(Side Note: I realized the camera didn't come out much during the pounding snow fall we encountered for 12 of the 14 days there. So most shots are from the 2 days of sun we did have. Whoops.)
Photographer Adam Clark and I bolted high up to the peaks really early in the morning on day one. Ended up being one of the most beautiful sunrises I've ever witnessed.
Yup. Still gorgeous.
Lonely skis.
Then it started snowing.
Ingrid Backstrom getting barreled.
Callum Pettit popping 3's of poppers.
Ingrid Backstrom and her honey Adam Clark mimicking Henrik Windstedt's and I's closing scene in last year's Matchstick movie...but in a far more heterosexual way.
This year I was fortunate enough to be invited on my first cat skiing trip with MSP for their first film trip of the year. Sitting here pondering about those past two weeks I realize I don't have much more to say. There wasn't any drama of getting gnarly, any major hangups or extreme challenges, just a plethora of powder flying up in and around my mouth for 14 days straight.
So again, like plenty of posts before, I'll let the pictures do the talking.
(Side Note: I realized the camera didn't come out much during the pounding snow fall we encountered for 12 of the 14 days there. So most shots are from the 2 days of sun we did have. Whoops.)
Photographer Adam Clark and I bolted high up to the peaks really early in the morning on day one. Ended up being one of the most beautiful sunrises I've ever witnessed.
Yup. Still gorgeous.
Lonely skis.
Then it started snowing.
Ingrid Backstrom getting barreled.
Callum Pettit popping 3's of poppers.
Ingrid Backstrom and her honey Adam Clark mimicking Henrik Windstedt's and I's closing scene in last year's Matchstick movie...but in a far more heterosexual way.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Monday, January 3, 2011
The Battle for Alaska: So much drama I just got bitch slapped by a soap opera.
So last season I filmed with MSP up in Alaska for their flick The Way I See It. The movie portrays a happy-go-lucky crew having the time of their lives in the best of possible conditions.
But the truth is that Henrik and I were fighting for a spot on the Salomon team so we were forced to mercilessly battle it out to win the praises of our team manager and keep getting paid our hefty 4 digit salaries. So here's how it really went down between us.
But the truth is that Henrik and I were fighting for a spot on the Salomon team so we were forced to mercilessly battle it out to win the praises of our team manager and keep getting paid our hefty 4 digit salaries. So here's how it really went down between us.
Sunday, November 7, 2010
The Ultimate Summer Man Trip
This summer my plans stood strangely void of skiing. But for every South American turn I missed, I made it up with fishy tales and one hell of a road trip.
In early August, the misses decided to head down to the snowy southern Andes for some extracurricular filming and guiding. Upon learning that I was most likely not joining her, I decided to plan a bachelor trip of Manwich proportions. Fishing, camping, driving, rafting, hiking, backpacking, drinking and growing mustaches were on the agenda. Man stuff.
The man trip started off with a day on the Truckee River with the lady actually. I think she brought me some dandy luck because the first fish of the day ended up being one of my best wild rainbows I've ever caught on the Truckee.
Beautiful twenty inch fish.
Then it was off to South Lake Tahoe to meet up with 8 other of my buddies for a backpacking trip into Desolation Wilderness. Waiting for the Echo Lake Water Taxi.
After the taxi and a quick and easy hour and a half of hiking we arrived to the pock marked Aloha lake. The bleached white granite spotting the azure water was like a impressionist painting laid out by nature.
Our mascot "Mosquito" chilling his ass off.
If there is snow, we're gonna slide on it dammit!
A glorious Sierra sunset
The Bone Tree
The next morning we left the valleys and footslogged our way up Dick's Pass.
Floral arrangements that would make FTD jealous.
Who would of thought a dude would have so many pictures of flowers on his blog.
Okay, back to the manliness. A proud moment on "Dicks Pass".
And eastward we went.
Rolling down the Velma Lakes granite spillover.
A typical Tahoe backcountry sighting.
Smooth granite to sleep on and whiskey to sip on under starry skies. Doesn't get much better than that.
But alas it was time to depart Tahoe and head for the majesty that is Montana.
Frightened Barn was startled to see me.
Soon I arrives 50 miles away from the nearest town to a trailhead high up in Glacier National Park to get ready for a hike down to the river.
The route to the Upper Middle Fork of the Flathead River.
Time to jump into the duckies provided by Glacier Raft Co. and row our boats gently down the stream.
After one day of fishing that was so action packed I didn't even have time to take out my camera, Outside Hilary and Outside Shane cooked up some Cordon Blue worthy Kebabs and we spent a night out under the Montana stars
The next morning we day hiked it up an alpine valley high above the river valley below.
This would be a scary place to stand in winter. Avy path from hell.
We got the sticks ready
And soon started laying into these guys.
Some of the brightest, most colorful cutthroats I've ever seen. The cut marks were nearly glowing they were so bright.
Pretty fish.
Buenas Noches desde Montana...
In early August, the misses decided to head down to the snowy southern Andes for some extracurricular filming and guiding. Upon learning that I was most likely not joining her, I decided to plan a bachelor trip of Manwich proportions. Fishing, camping, driving, rafting, hiking, backpacking, drinking and growing mustaches were on the agenda. Man stuff.
The man trip started off with a day on the Truckee River with the lady actually. I think she brought me some dandy luck because the first fish of the day ended up being one of my best wild rainbows I've ever caught on the Truckee.
Beautiful twenty inch fish.
Then it was off to South Lake Tahoe to meet up with 8 other of my buddies for a backpacking trip into Desolation Wilderness. Waiting for the Echo Lake Water Taxi.
After the taxi and a quick and easy hour and a half of hiking we arrived to the pock marked Aloha lake. The bleached white granite spotting the azure water was like a impressionist painting laid out by nature.
Our mascot "Mosquito" chilling his ass off.
If there is snow, we're gonna slide on it dammit!
A glorious Sierra sunset
The Bone Tree
The next morning we left the valleys and footslogged our way up Dick's Pass.
Floral arrangements that would make FTD jealous.
Who would of thought a dude would have so many pictures of flowers on his blog.
Okay, back to the manliness. A proud moment on "Dicks Pass".
And eastward we went.
Rolling down the Velma Lakes granite spillover.
A typical Tahoe backcountry sighting.
Smooth granite to sleep on and whiskey to sip on under starry skies. Doesn't get much better than that.
But alas it was time to depart Tahoe and head for the majesty that is Montana.
Frightened Barn was startled to see me.
Soon I arrives 50 miles away from the nearest town to a trailhead high up in Glacier National Park to get ready for a hike down to the river.
The route to the Upper Middle Fork of the Flathead River.
Time to jump into the duckies provided by Glacier Raft Co. and row our boats gently down the stream.
After one day of fishing that was so action packed I didn't even have time to take out my camera, Outside Hilary and Outside Shane cooked up some Cordon Blue worthy Kebabs and we spent a night out under the Montana stars
The next morning we day hiked it up an alpine valley high above the river valley below.
This would be a scary place to stand in winter. Avy path from hell.
We got the sticks ready
And soon started laying into these guys.
Some of the brightest, most colorful cutthroats I've ever seen. The cut marks were nearly glowing they were so bright.
Pretty fish.
Buenas Noches desde Montana...
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