I've been fascinated by the west and the west coast for as long as I can remember. Last summer, I was inspired to take my own odyssey to work at eNRG Kayaking in Portland, Oregon. I had no plans beyond having a sweet job kayaking... no idea where I'd stay, or what to expect, but I had a tent and a lot of optimism.

I was fortunate enough to develop a great relationship with owner Sam Drevo right off the bat, and ended up crashing in his office for most of the summer. The other instructors turned out to be awesome as well, and at the end of the summer I was pretty bummed to be leaving.

It should come as no surprise then, that I've returned to the place that sometimes feels more like home than the area I grew up in. But first... an account of my final days in the North-East...

Really, it's been an awful winter, at least in terms of facilitating high activity levels and overall enjoyment.  It didn't snow. Temperatures jumped from 50 degrees to -10 overnight. I was working 50 hours a week more often than not, just trying to make enough to pay for rent. The only good part about the weather was that I didn't feel like I was missing out on epic powder days all the time.

And then the northeast heard I was leaving.

Jay Peak got slammed with 2 feet of snow overnight, and I just happened to have a pass that weekend (Thanks for ditching me Cory).

But the thing about Jay Peak getting 2 feet of snow is that surrounding areas usually get at least some of that snow too, and my car was not making it up the access road on the spare. Fortunately, Kay offered to drive her car (affectionately known as Henry). Unfortunately, Henry uses all seasons, which is kind of like using flip-flops for an arctic multi-day expedition.

After an uneventful drive to Montgomery, things got a little steep, and Kay's car started getting less affectionately known as "The giant pile of german shit" as Subaru after Subaru swerved around the struggling vehicle. At the top of the first hill, Kay relinquished her seat as pilot willingly, while I slid in behind the wheel muttering about women drivers, gingers, and flatlanders.

While driving myself was less terrifying because I could at least feel responsible for my untimely death, I regretted getting behind the wheel immediately. I was as gripped then as I ever have been while kayaking. Maybe not as bad as SUPing, but definitely close. There was absolutely no traction, and bright lights kept popping up on the dash while the tires spun and the windshield fogged over from the heat of the engine. It seemed to take forever to reach the top of each hill, until finally, we made it past the last big one and just had a valley to cross before the home-stretch.

Oh yeah, that "valley" happens to be more of a ravine.

Like this, but going the other way. And steeper, definitely steeper...

I would let off the brakes long enough to reach 4 mph and then lightly tap them, and then slide for another 5 feet. So really, I got to go snowboarding before I even put the snowboard on my feet. Henry likes to shred too.

When we finally made it to the mountain, it was all worth it. There were times when I'd step out of my bindings in the woods because it was too deep to move and sink down to my chest. And it kept dumping all day. We didn't take many photos that day, but I did hook it up with the Gopro as you should have seen above...

On the way back, Desi drove, smack talking the road and only slipping off once. Which was rather remarkable since we had to take the back way home. And they don't make roads very straight in VT. It took us over 3 hours to make the normally 1.5 hour drive because some frenchy(canadian) bus driver decided to rally and park it sideways across the road.

The next day, Matt Ide, Taylor Krammen, and I rallied up (on bare roads) to Bolton Valley for some great blue-bird powder. Definitely in the top 5 days of resort skiing.

Monday, I headed home. Tuesday, I unpacked and repacked. And Wednesday I was Portland bound.

It was to be my first time flying alone, and it was going to be flawless. After we got my bag checked, I said goodbye to the parental unit (dad), and headed through TSA without a problem. The first flight went well, no turbulence and a cool climber to talk to on my way to O'hare.

At the end of my layover, while waiting at the correct gate, the passengers from the previous flight unloaded. The ticket-checker announced that we didn't have a pilot.

I thought they were joking. They were not.

Almost 2 hours later, I finally reached an agent at the customer service desk and sorted things out. They booked me a room at The Hilton, conveniently attached to the airport, and flew me out at 5AM the next day. To Denver.

As excited as I was to visit the mile high city, I didn't appreciate the time of day I arrived there, or the fact that I had flown a few hundred miles out of my way to visit. After a brief layover there, I hopped aboard my connection flight only to be surrounded by 2 rather large men who didn't seem to be interested in making conversation.

At least I didn't have to drive.

A few hours after I arrived in Portland, I was introduced to Erik Boomer just before he presented a slideshow of his Arctic Epic, a circumnavigation of Ellesmere Island. The dude's one of the adventurers of the year... no biggie.

The next day, Sam and I rallied to Sahalie Falls with a few others to set safety and potentially run the 78-footer. Boomer ended up being the only one to drop it, and Sam provided the perfect toss to keep him from swimming the gnarly rapid just below. Forge Motion Pictures was there filming with their RED Epics, a camera worth more than my debt from school. It was a good first full day in Oregon.

Saturday and Sunday were quickly consumed by the ENRG Guide Training program, which I co-led with Sam and a few bros from last summer. A SUP on the Lower Clackamas provided entertainment for all, and the next day marked my first day kayaking on a river in 2012 with a double header from Revenue Bridge to Dodge Park on the Sandy and a quick lap on Bull Run. Plus I got to train with the PMI Reach System, which pretty much everyone needs to check out.


Full days with bigger plans each day... It's gonna be a good one!

So I broke my promise, but let's be honest. I'm ok with it, and so are you.

After one of my longest fun-droughts ever, getting a flat tire, and working full time at a real job, I was pretty sure the apocalypse was actually just around the corner.

Despite these conditions, morale was high, and there was just enough snow to convince us to strap the skis and snowboard to our backs and begin hiking up. That's when we discovered we were way out of shape.

Fun-droughts will do that to you. At some point we started questioning whether the shredding would be worth the hike, and I think that's something we always do, but this time was way worse. We were hiking in t-shirts and still sweating, and the snow was crunchier than the girls in the Rubenstein School at UVM. Not a good sign...

Then again, maybe I was the only one focused enough on the snow to worry about the hiking.

After several breaks and much complaining, we reached the top, which isn't actually the top. An extra 5 minutes of hiking along the ridge followed before we finally switched over to descend mode. That's kind of like when Optimus Prime transforms, except less noisy, quickly, and not cool at all. After nearly descending into super dense spruce hell, we cut out into some open glades and had a generally fantastic time.

Since the slope was north facing, the snow was significantly less crunchy, and in some cases even powdery.

There was a heavy (if thin) base beneath the fluffy stuff that kept things covered well enough, and I didn't even fall. Well, not on my first lap. Stepping into the backcountry in uh, variable snow conditions is always a little sketchy, at least for me, since I'm not any of these people. I took a few diggers on the second lap, but nothing consequential.

After a long hike back to the top, we began hiking along the ridge towards our initial trail up, but soon realized we were very, very far away.

I'm not exactly sure how we did it, but things got very strange, very quickly

Taylor saved the day, spotting a nice cut line that we followed down straight to the cars. And by straight I mean traversing for a long ways and then kind of zig zagging for a while. The snow was super fast, crusty, and hard to carve into. There were also bare spots, which are not to be confused with bear spots.

"Guys, I spotted Bear Grylls and he's drinking his own.. Don't make eye contact!"

So overall, conditions weren't great, but I'm just glad I made it out this winter with some good friends.
(Even if my snowboard's base hates me for it)


Shred on my friends!