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Going to Mt.Hood Oregon is always one of my favorite ski trips of my year. I have been going there every summer for almost 10 years now. It has been a crucial aspect for my training, but also has become one of the most fun trips I get to go on. The combination of warm temperatures, skiing in the middle of summer and the amazing park and pipe that timberline provides makes Hood one of the epicenters of the ski world.
I am a member of the US Ski Team for Halfpipe, but I grew up mainly competing and training slopestyle. Timberline is one of the few places where not only can you hit rails, jumps and halfpipe in a single run, but the snow is soft enough to still be able to ride the halfpipe on my park skis. Another part of Hood that I really enjoy is getting to camp instead of paying for lodging. Off to the side of the main drag from Government Camp to the mountain, there are a few dispersed camping sites. Ever since I was 16 and I got my driver's license, I have driven to Hood with not only my ski gear, but with full camping gear. These camping sites are no more than 5-10 minutes from the base of the resort, whereas driving from Government Camp can take as long as 20 minutes. Having the warmth during the day and the cool mountain air in the tent at night really creates a special atmosphere that is really second to none. Hood is also conveniently always in the summer which is super different from other trips we go on. Normally we travel to cold and wintery places for training and competing so we are limited in what we can do in our down time. In Hood every year I bring my bike, skateboard and more recently my golf clubs. Getting to come down from a day of skiing and go right down to Hood River and play 18 holes of golf can really only be done in Hood.
This last summer was super rad because over the last year I along with a fellow US Ski Team athlete Abi Hansen, have been shooting for a longer ski documentary. This has been super fun because I have never really gotten into the filming aspect of skiing, but it has always been something I have wanted to do. Our filmer for this project came out with us for this trip and we were able to produce a ton of awesome content. I put out a 3 minute edit from a short couple of weeks, along with tons of stuff for my social channels. I also got to meet David from Skards while I was there and learn a little about Skards. These are basically baseball cards but for skiers. I was immediately stoked because I was super into baseball growing up and always thought it would be cool to have something like that, but nothing like it existed for skiing. I was featured in the second summer pack that Skards released this summer, and was stoked to have awesome photos in the 2022 Spyder gear to include in that card photo.
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