drewtabke.com

Three recent stories highlighting what a poor climate exists in our country for the support of small companies:

Monster Energy Drink (Hansen’s Beverage Company) threatens small Vermont brewery with legal action over their “Vermonster” beer. (link)

Warren Miller Entertainment threatens Level 1 Productions with legal action over the use of Warren Miller. (link)

Scott USA threatens ON3P Skis with legal action. (link)

Its kind of like this.

I cast my ballot yesterday here in Seattle. Some really cool things going down. Early in the ballot counting Ref 71 (Everything But Marriage) looks like it will pas. Pete Holmes defeated the anti-nightlife, anti-fun incumbent Tom Carr for city attorney. And Liberal Seattleite hero Mike McGinn is leading the mayoral race by only 900 votes, so anything can happen.

Read more at www.thestranger.com or www.seattletimes.com

Davide, Liz and I went up on Mt. Baker two weeks ago to snowboard. Liz rode with us for one afternoon before descending sola. Davide and I camped to attempt to summit the following day. We made good progress up the Coleman glacier before finding that high-winds had turned the mountain above 9,000′ to brown glacier ice. A fun run and a jog down the trail back to car had us enjoying a sunny beach in Bellingham in no time.

Liz and Drew ascend to Heliotrope Ridge.

Pure, volcano, snowboarding.

"Like, whoa man." See, I do snowboard.

Davide with the Coleman Glacier Headwall springing up out of his head.

I skied well till I ate it.

A failed attempt on Rainier with Tyler Sterling. We still skied 8,000′ vertical of damn good snow.

http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/showthread.php?t=158018

A write up about line choices and venues on the 2009 Freeride World Tour

http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/showthread.php?t=159178

A report on an AMAZING day of skiing at Zermatt, Switzerland.

http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/showthread.php?t=159261

A likely first descent on the Canada/US border.

http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/showthread.php?t=160087

Some of the steepest skiing I’ve ever done. Mt. Shuksan’s northwest couloir.

http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/showthread.php?t=160482

The Nissan Freeride de Tignes was a couple weeks ago. I skied a really good line up top, and then clipped some peppery rocks near the bottom, stupidly tumbling and dislocating my shoulder. I was sitting at the bottom feeling sorry for myself as I watched Adrien Coirier (FRA) take the worst crash I’ve ever seen. I stopped feeling sorry for myself. I thought my friend was going to die, and memories of Neal Valiton flashed through my head. Neal did die, in a freeride competition on this same mountain two years ago.

Luckily it turns out Adrien was OK. Two lungs filled with blood. 5 broken vertibrae (but no spinal damage). 4 broken ribs. Broken scapula. Just two weeks later when I visited him at his parent’s house in Landry near Les Arcs, France he was mobile and talkative. Though skinny; he lost 10kg in 10 days after the accident since he couldn’t eat with all the morphine intake.

Adrien is an inspiration. He is fearless. Where seeing his fall and his injuries shake my confidence in my continued participation in the sport, I see in his eyes only another challenge to overcome (this was his first year back after a year off due to knee injury) and the intense desire to once again be standing confidently on top of another challenging mountain.

The Grande Baume

My line. I crashed lower.

Adrien’s line. Yellow is the fall.

In the hospital.

A real skier.

On Tuesday I skied Mt. Rainier from the summit with friends Hannah and Dan. Check it out, it was rad! We drove up to Paradise at sunset on Monday, and after a few hours of light sleep we started the climb around midnight. We climbed through the night and took a short warming, eating, hydrating, foot care, napping rest at 11,000 ft. as the sun rose at 730AM. We then slowly worked our way to the top in increasing winds that felt like about 60-70mph at the summit, 14,410 ft., at 1PM.

Then we skied down via our climbing route, the Fuhrer Finger. Its an amazing run! No traversing or mediocre skiing, just straight fall-line turns for thousands of feet. When we arrived on the Nisqually Glacier, our friend Amar skied up to congratulate us. He had been watching us climb through his camera’s zoom lens from the Muir Snowfiel. Since the snow was in such good condition, we skied well below Paradise (and our cars) to the bridge that crosses the Nisqually River. Dan and I hung out and relived the 10,500′ vertical ski descent while Hannah and Amar hitchhiked back up to retrieve the autos. Pretty much the coolest run I’ve ever skied. Photos by Dan and Amar.

Finally some light on the eastern horizon.

Amar’s photo of us climbing, taken from literally miles away. Dan and I are seen as two dots, Hannah is behind us, down and to the right.

It was pretty breezy, but luckily not too cold. Mt. St. Helens in the distance.

Skiing down the Fuhrer Finger.

Right where we bumped into Amar. The Finger is directly above Hannah’s head.

The end.

I just got back from Krasnaya Polyana, Russia where I competed in the first stop of the 2009 FWT. I skied quite poorly, and landed a backflip on my face, placing myself firmly in 14th place. Oh well. It was a great trip anyway. My lawyer Davide “Marq” De Masi has been in Val Desire, France all winter, and he was able to fly over and meet me in Russia. He took some really good pictures, which I will now use without his permission.