2011 SMS Mt. Hood Oregon Summer Snowboard Camp.

Mt. Hood towards the end of July. Still with a good amount of snow. Thank you Timberline Mt. Hood and Windell's for great summer camp sessions.

Mt. Hood in June with the most snow I've ever seen this time of year.

Karen Kobayashi getting ready to ride.

Karen doing a lean air out of Windell's big 22ft halfpipe.

Multnomah Falls Oregon.

Josh Cohen with a nice frontside air out of the halfpipe.

Josh spinning a 180 grab in Windell's jump line.

Owen Barth with a sweet tail grab.

Harry Burt sliding the top of the pyramid.

Charlie Burt getting sideways on the picnic table.

Julia Marino sliding the table.

Karen board sliding.

Gideon Le Gros hitting the down tube with style.

Xander Raith with a frontside 360 nose bonk.

Owen Barth kick flipping up the euro gap in Windell's B.O.B.(Building Out Back).

Gideon getting upside down on the tramp.

Tamanawas Falls. Our 4th of July hike.

Owen chilling at the water fall. You can go behind the falling water which is cool.

Fire works from Hood River park.

Marian working on her frontside board slides.

Noelle Edwards with a nose press across the table.

Owen sliding the big tube.

JJ Thomas showing us how it's done in Windell's pipe.

Will Steller nailing a frontside board slide on the down rail.

The view from the top of Windell's during the Bonfire Pipe to Pipe contest with the Bag Jump in the back ground. Windell's also had the Pipe Bag Jump which was sweet.

Marian, Karen and Noelle getting ready for the finals in the Pipe to Pipe. Noelle Won the Am Women with Karen placing 3rd and Marian 4th.

Noelle kicking out a big backside air over one of the Windell's jumps.

Will Steller and Abby Lancour. Our KMS friends.

Marian airing out of the 22ft pipe with a mute grab.

Abby jumping with a nice backside air.

Eric Beauchemin SMS class of 2010 showing us how to flip with a skateboard into the foam pit.

Will with a 360 into the foam pit.

Checking out a baseball game in Seattle during one of our in between trips after visiting K2, Ride and Line. We also did some fun adventures to the OR coast to surf, an industry trip to Bondfire and to Hood River to check out all the outdoor activities.

Evan Werner with a frontside grab over jump 1.

Evan board sliding the down bar in one of Windell's jib lines.

Day 4 on the 5th Day

Two days ago we hung in for a full day in chilly winds that chased away the feint of heart. There was poor visibility and rain threatening but it cleared just as we hit the parking lot. It was chased out by a surprising wind. Sweitzer and Raith closed the joint as usual. Riding past all lift access and using the gaps in the cloudbank (that had returned) to keep flipping onto the deck and then working the alley-oop back rodeos when everyone else had left the mountain.
The next day the mountain was socked in and the lifts did not run. We went bowling in the am, cart racing in the afternoon and then some watched Pirates! of the.... while others skated the pre and post dinner hours. While my bowling is miserable my go-cart racing comes highly enthused. I will race again even though I did get back at Josh for beating me at Ping Pong...

Dave, Ross, Harry, Josh and Charlie. Not quite the order of finish...

It was a long day without riding and the camp really gets to feeling short when you lose that day in the middle. Lucky for us the weather today was stellar and the exceptionally smart snowboarder Randall Stacey who goes to Dartmouth was the only one who really got sunburned! Funny for us but it is great to see Randall and he is riding very strong in just one day. Randall will be joined by others, more recent SMS grad Hunter Wood, Serena Shaw and Chris Tierney at next weeks Project Gold Slope Camp out here. Surely they will connect with new Coach Eric Beauchemin over at HCSC and perhaps even Danny Davis who I was lucky enough to see this afternoon. These guys are always great to see and keep our youngsters motivated to reach similar heights. We pushed the halfpipe riding again for the morning and expanded to full laps for the afternoon. Highlights for me are watching Josh Cohen nearly get his first front nines after a great morning with the sevens, Owen B nearly get sev's after a few days of good fives and Marian Lobell nailing her first front five. We were so greedy for these full top(Windell's Park) to bottom (public park)

These shots may have cost us that final chair ride now that I think about it...

Mace, Sending it.

X. Back one off

laps that we pushed our luck just past perfect timing, making the final chairs on the bottom lift but not getting on the next/top. Ross brought Mason, Julia and Marian's bags but Xander, Benji and I hiked up to the Windells Park for that last hour of riding. Well worth it to see Xander  scrape out a back rodeo, half cab, front sev line and me to spin a couple front threes. When you get as many days as I've had it's the little things that add up- little jumps, little spins and little friends! Another great day to be up riding and see some serious work taken in as serious fun.

Good Morning Mt Hood

It's great to be back with the gang at work doing what they do best: snowboarding. It's our third morning of the session and the forecast is pretty gray and damp but that didn't stop us yesterday from having a great day.
 SMS riders Karen Kobayashi, Marian Lobell, Josh Cohen, Mason Geils, Scott Sweitzer, Xander Raith, Owen Barth want to welcome New Team riders Noelle Edwards, Charlie Burt, Mike Boylan and Julia Marino. We are also joined by Charlie's Brother Harry Burt, Xander'd Bro Benji and SMS freerider Gideon Le Gros. We enjoyed a nice and sunny day one lapping the top to bottom options to get used to riding and yesterday put in a more serious morning of hiking the Public Pipe and saw some great push in the progression as the snow was soft and forgiving to invite flips and spins all around. In the afternoon we did our public park laps as the top chair was having issues and we did not need to risk spending extra time on it!

Day one dryland was some good core and pushup practice followed by a two plus mile run on the Salmon river trail nearby. The cold leg soak helped to disperse the lactates and Charlie earned a "blizzard Shake from Ross for being first to swim across the icy river. More in depth updates will follow but Im off for the Hill. Enjoy yr day.

USSA Project Gold SBX Camp, Mt Hood OR. June 9th-17th 2011.

Mt. Hood with a ton of snow this summer. Also the Project Gold private high speed quad and start of the sbx course for the camp. What an amazing setup and great camp. All the SMS athletes rode hard, improved their technique and trained with US Team athletes.

Josh Cohen, Michael Perle and Karen Kobayashi. The SMS Project Gold SBX athletes.

Karen on the right racing down the track against a fellow Project Gold athlete.

Michael Perle in the black sweatshirt charging off the first feature. Jackie Hernandez SMS alumni in purple and Chris Mahaney in plaid.

Josh Cohen in yellow making a good move on the drop. Karen on the right flying over the feature as well.

The Project Gold SBX athletes and coaches. This was one of the best sbx training camp setups I've ever seen.

11 Out Of 13 Boys Tested tied or beat their Personal Best In Box Jumps per minute!

Strong Work. The two who did not excel beyond their previous best were one off their november scores. November testing is done after three full months of serious training so this has been a productive growth period in explosive strength endurance in a month and a half...very happy for you guys.

Springtime in VT. Sendoff.

After weeks of rain we have had two beautiful days of tropical rain forest-like weather. My yard smelled like carrots and lilac this morning and there is no place I would rather be. The winter is long and the spring flies by around here. The kids have been putting in three power workouts per week plus some plyometric and cardio work. The cardio is well disguised and well worth mention as we have had EPIC speedball and ultimate frisbee games. The ultimate is not textbook for you frisbee geeks but the kids run hard getting after the "bee". Speedball is a ton of fun. A cross between soccer, touch-football and ultimate type ball movement: I'm seriously thinking of starting the Southern Vermont Speedball League. This game gets your kid running. Some of our crew is golfing two days and others playing tennis or lacrosse two days per week but most or the snowboarders are skating three to four days and the action is hot.

Our boy JP's knee is healing well and he is getting his groove back slowly. O.B. is mixing the old and new school tricks. Hunty and Chip are going large and Pete Cerulo was killing the mini ramp while my camera was out tuesday.



This year has been a strong one for SMS. We are getting ready to send off some really incredible snowboarders in the next few days. Kyle Dorfman has only been here for two years but is an incredible athlete who has been top 5 at nationals in slope. Connor Hudson is a guy who rode in my crew for two full seasons and has been here for two more since then. Spencer Shaw was here before High School and came back to finish his last two high school years at SMS. He may have had the best halfpipe season of any High School Athlete in the country this year. Quite Possibly. He put himself on the US Team for next year. Hunter Wood is another guy who rode in my crew for two full years and has been here for two more. He has twice made late rounds in the US Open Slopestyle. Crushed the southern Vermont Series year after year. He has been invited to US Team Gold Camps for this summer and destroyed the Snowboarder Magazine "Launch" photo shoot of names you will soon know in snowboarding. These guys are all graduating High School tomorrow...

Chris T. This is my favorite carinthia shot still.

The Tierney family is also moving on. Chris Tierney has been here for four years, rode two years in that same group with Hudson and Wood (and Perle). He has himself a national Title, three kinds of doubles! His sisters Makayla and Meghan have been here three and two years apiece also and they too are constant National title contenders, consistent Southern Vermont Series Heroes.

Hunter Wood USOPEN 2009

Kyle Dorfman FS 7,visiting SMS '09

Mak T HCSC Summer '10

This past winter I had a development group that rivaled the one(s) mentioned above. The School is well stocked with strong young riders. Maybe even more than I've seen in my six seasons but this group that is moving on will be missed. They are what people see when they see SMS snowboarding over the past few years. We've been proud and lucky to have riders like this being our living banner. We will stand behind them on or off snow. We will be proud in the future when they are throwing down and standing out and people say (or don't) "didn't they ride with you guys...?". Thanks guys. It has been exceptionally special...It is humbling. You are doing great and we are looking forward to seeing you on the mountains for a long time. More than friends, you are Team and more than a Team, You are our friends.

Keep Charging PitBull

Spencer Shaw Back 7 USOPEN 2011

Peace, Congratulations!

Connor Hudson Mt Snow Pre season '10-11

SMS at ParkCity?!

SMS at Park City in the springtime? You betcha. Powers, Kirk and myself had the good fortune and support of Mr Kaltsas this past week to go out to Park City UT. and spend three days at the Center of Excellence. While there we attended the classroom component of the USSA/USASA 300 level coaches certification. It was both informative and a great reinforcement of the methods being applied by the staff here. Ian and Ross dismantled the skate bowl and I threw a few tricks on the trampolines as well as getting a great workout in at the Newpark Rec Center. It was cool to share my new Kettlebell teaching cues with Ross while Ian and some other coaches skated the PC Cement Park. We were probably all expecting sunny spring Utah days when we committed but the weather was anything but nice. Snowbird received three feet while we were there and PC was damp and chilly.
On our third day we attended the USSA Snowboard Sport Committee meetings and learned about preliminary contest schedules, new helmet legislation proposed rule changes as well as hearing all regional reports, the US Team report and a report by the Newest member of the USSA Board, Rider Rep Danny Kass. Sort of exciting.

Ross then headed to a fund raising event in Reno and let Ian and I go and accept The USSA Snowboard Club of the Year Award at the seasonal USSA Awards banquet. Quite an honor to be accepting an award on behalf of the SMS Snowboarding Community and even more so to be on a stage and at a banquet with so many Olympians and "lifers" in the snowsports world. As a coach, this is really a humbling pleasure and we are grateful to everyone who makes this thing roll.