In anticipation of the up coming ski season here is a little edit from last season at Alta Ski Area!

I came to Norway for the first time last summer on a BASE jumping trip with friends Jesse Hall and Suzann Graham.  It has been less than one year and I find myself back in Norway, half way through a five-week trip with friends Jesse Hall, Neil Amonson and Marshall Miller.  Our adventure begins in the same place as last year, the small town of Lysebotn.  Here we set up camp for daily hikes to the Kjerag cliffs, the site of a Heli Boogie and ProBASE World Tour Track Race.  We arrived a few days early to get some jumping in before the main event kicked off; it had been about a year since any of us had jumped a cliff that size.

The Heli Boogie was a whirlwind of parachutes, jumping, packing, and more people than I could have imagined.  There is something surreal about taking a three-minute helicopter ride to the top of a 3000-foot cliff that any other day would take a car shuttle and one and a half hour hike to get to.  The first day I did the fewest jumps of our group at four and this was still twice what you normally get hiking.  I have never seen so many BASE jumpers at one time; it was great!  There where friendly faces everywhere you looked.

Along with the Heli Boogie was the ProBASE World Tour tracking competition.  This was the first tracking race ever held, and everyone involved was super stoked on the event and excited to see how it would all turn out.  Being newer to the sport I was a little hesitant to enter a competition but wanted to keep an open mind about it.  After a few jumps with my brand new Phoenix Fly Tracking suit I was feeling pretty good and decided to compete.  I figure at least I would see where I stacked up against some of the best.  The competition was a blast and every one was supper supportive and just happy to be there.  I was able to learn a lot about how the suit flies and the range it can perform in.  I ended the competition in Fifth place, way better than I could have imagined.  Jesse and Neil also competed and ended up in First and Third place!  Not bad for a few Americans who only get to jump terminal cliffs for a few weeks a year.

The following day we all slept late then packed our things and hit the road.  Our next stop was Voss for Extreme Sports Week.  We pulled into town around midnight; which in the Norwegian summer feels more like 7pm.  We heard that there where other jumpers and camping at the skydiving drop zone so we headed that way.  The camping was in a forest that looked as though it might be inhabited by trolls, but a beggar can’t be a chooser so we found the flattest spots we could and pitched our tents.  The Extreme Sports week had promise to be a great week with big cliff jumps and just about every extreme sport you could imagine.  Turns out Mother Nature had something completely different in mind for that particular week.  The clouds followed us into town and parked themselves right over Voss, dumping out more rain than I have ever seen.  Even the locals who are used to the rain said they had never seen anything like it, the rivers where flooding the banks left and right.  Some of the events like Kayaking and downhill mountain biking where able to go on as planed but most events got postponed or canceled, even a rafting race was canceled due to the river being dangerously high.  So Extreme Sports Week turned into extreme party week, which also went along nicely with the nightly concerts.  The weather did eventually break on the last day of the festival and we where able to get some jumping in.  Luckily for us it was the scheduled day for the BASE jumping demo day, and they had a helicopter!  So it was a mini heli boogie with tons of spectators and an amazing cliff to jump from, letting us almost forget the week of rain.

We are now heading North to the Romsdal Valley with hopes of clear weather and lots more jumping.  Having never been I am excited to jump some of the cliffs that I have seen in so many videos.

Here is the final edit of the Rosneft ski commercial that I did stunt double work for.  Test your self and your eyes and see if you can tell myself from Jesse Hall and Hannah Whitney from Suzanne Graham.  We all look like Doublemint twins but there are some slight differences.  Check out my previous post for more details on the January trip.

This is some behind the scenes footage that might help with the who’s who game.

So last week I was asked to be a stunt double, or a back up stunt double to be exact, in the making of a commercial for the 2014 Sochi Olympics.  The shoot was in Silverton Colorado which has been on my list of places to ski for a while, so I didn’t want to let the opportunity pass by.  All of this came about very last-minute but after a few days of calling around I was able to get all my shifts covered at work, got my bags packed and headed south.  My girlfriend Hannah Whitney and I were scheduled to be the back ups to our friends Jesse Hall and Suzanne Graham who were the main stunt doubles.  We were planning on just hanging out in town and touring on the pass, keeping ready in case we were needed to fill in for Jesse or Suz.

To our surprise and delight upon showing up the film crew found that they could piece together a full two sets of wardrobe and we were told to be ready to leave the hotel bright and early the following morning. Saying that we were excited about the news of skiing Silverton Mountain would be an understatement.  The following morning was an early start followed by a lot of waiting for the clouds to lift.  With the sun starting to poke through the thinning clouds we heard the sound of a helicopter firing up its engine, followed by the news that we would be on the first load!  HOLY CRAP!!!!  Did I just hear them right?  I get to go heli skiing!  The next three days were filled with awesome rides in the helicopter, amazing terrain, great snow and a lot of very fun people to hang out with.  We did every thing from jumping off cliffs and chasing each other with chest mount POV cameras, to trying to hold hands and spin in circles (in the powder), which was probably one of the strangest thing I never imagined I’d find myself doing!  The highlight of the trip though was getting to ski Dome Couloir.  Hannah and I skied it one after the other while a Cineflex helicopter filmed us from across the valley.  There wasn’t any new snow but it was great wind buff, and we ripped it top to bottom.

We were at the mountain each day from sun up to sun down and still somehow found the energy to go out each night.  We usually had just enough time at the hotel to grab a quick shower before heading out for some pre-dinner rum drinks.  If you ever find yourself in Silverton I highly recommend checking out the Montanya Distillery, or the Rum Bar as it is known around town.  They have the most amazing cocktail menu, so you can’t go wrong with any of their drinks.  The dinners were amazing and dangerous at the same time…I found myself uncomfortably full after most of them. 

To top off the trip on the way out of Colorado we stopped off in Ouray to soak in the hot springs, then hit Telluride for an early dinner, and ended up in Moab Utah for the night.  We woke up in the morning, packed up the car and went out searching for more adventures, specifically with B.A.S.E. Jumping in mind.  After a short drive we arrived at a beautiful 400 foot sand stone cliff named Tombstone that had a thin dusting of snow around it and set out to jump it.  The contrast of the red sandstone and the white snow made for some stunning views on the hike up as well as during the jump.  Jesse, Suz, and I had great jumps while Hannah took photos from below.  After the morning excitement we headed back into town for some food and then got back on the road.  All said and done we where back home in Salt Lake City by early Sunday evening.  Not too bad for a week’s adventures!

Our Haunted Hotel

Half way down Tombstone