Fresh out of college, neither of us had jobs lined up, so we bought a van. We plan on seeing as much of America as we can, while living out of the van until at least next spring. We don't have a set plan and we're not on a strict schedule. We're just going with the flow. The Do You Tour represents living life the way you want to and doing the things you want to do. Do you, do you?
To all of our friends and followers, thank you for coming along for the ride. It’s been 8 days now since we landed back home on Long Island and I’ve had a lot of time to reflect on our travels. We plan on blogging through the end of this week to recap the trip and talk about some of the adventures. Although we’ve posted this picture before, I thought it was worth posting again for all those who haven’t seen it. Our tiny silhouettes enjoying some dinner in front of a Pacific Coast Highway sunset. Thanks again to the photographers who stopped to take this one, it’s one of my favorites. Stay tuned through the week for the rest of the trip recap.
Two weeks ago I took a few days off of teaching to work the US Grand Prix at Mammoth. All I had to do was sideslip the transition of the half pipe on my skis to clean it out. When I wasn’t slipping the pipe I had a front row seat on the left wall. I positioned myself over where Louis Vito and Luke Mitrani were taking there first hit and got some cool pictures of them airing straight over my head. The view of the pipe comp was awesome and we were also on top of the hill overlooking the slopestyle course. We saw, 17yr old Torin Yater-Wallace, throw the first ever switch 1800 on skis which is 5 spins taking off and landing backwards. It was the first time I got to see a competition first hand, and I got paid to do it. It was cool to see how difficult and how large the top pros go in the pipe and park…… The guy in yellow is Luke Mitrani throwing a Michaelchuck flip and in red is Louis Vito throwing most tweeked out Roast Beef grab about 15ft above the lip.
Hey everybody, I figured it’s time to give you an update on our situation now 196 days into our trip. The latest DoYouTour news is that I broke my wrist a couple days ago at the skatepark in town, and will be in a cast until we get home. Obviously not the best thing to happen at this stage of the trip but I’ll make the best of it. Our plan as of right now is to leave Mammoth around the second week in April and be back in New York sometime in May. The broken wrist may influence this elaborate timeline but it’s too early to know for sure. In the meantime, I’ll be focusing on becoming more ambidextrous. Being sidelined is gonna give me a lot more time to write about our Mammoth experience, and I’ve got a bunch of things to share. Stay posted for more updates over the next couple weeks.
So far we have had very few powder days in Mammoth, they say it’s one of the worse seasons in history. The few powder days that we have had have been epic though. I took the camera out for a few laps on chair 22 and 25 and tried to capture some of the good snow. More to come.
On Dec. 17th I was lucky enough to participate in the Mammoth Mountain Night of Lights. For those of you that don’t know what the Night of Lights is, it is basically Mammoth’s kick off party to start the busy part of the season. The night starts off with a light show, followed by a concert, followed by big parties at the local bars. About 5-7000 people gathered that the bottom of Canyon Lodge and the roof of Canyon to see the light and firework portion the the night. The light show started off with 10 snow cats in the formation of a Christmas tree, with green and red lights. Snowmobiles covered in lights then weaved through the cats, while the torches of the giant M were lit. The giant M was made of of about 70 ski instructors, including myself. We skied down with our torches in formation while moving to the music, with some of the top skiers on the mountain weaving through us. The light show continued with the cats, snowmobiles, and instructors skiing and moving around this huge slope overlooking the massive crown at Canyon, all carrying flares, with fireworks going off straight over our heads. The firework show continued for about 15 mins after we finished skiing and it was some of the best fireworks I have ever seen. I thought it would be a cool to get a video on my helmet camera of the action from right on the slope. I let it run for most of the show and I later clipped out some of the highlights for this video. The night was an awesome time and skiing in the pitch black down to the slope before the show was wild. If you haven’t seen the Night of Lights in person, I suggest making your way to Mammoth next December to check it out.—- Bart
