This past weekend, I joined the masses in heading up to Mt. High and Big Bear to finally get some snow shredding out of my system. Both resorts opened up their lifts to the public on Friday October 30th, the earliest in the season that I’ve ever been able to ride. So, two resorts in three days…I’m ridiculously sore. I need to start doing some squats or something.


First, let’s talk Mt. High. Mt. High was impressively open from top to bottom. It was kind of weird that the whole chair ride up to the top we were mostly looking at dirt but what’s that matter as long you have some snow to get to the bottom, right? They had jibs and features the whole way down, from flat boxes to roller coaster boxes, double barrel down rails, C-boxes, and even switched it up with some boxes placed as the take off for a jump. It was a good, long, fun run. It was so good that the recently eliminated Tiny Dancer aka Louie Vito himself decided to show up with his Dancing with The Stars partner, Chelsie Hightower. Guess it was time for him to show her the ropes for a change. Pretty much everyone had a goofy grin on their face, obviously stoked to finally be riding some snow in Southern California.

However…let me say that it was about 75 degrees out, seriously making me wonder how the hell I thought that it was a good idea to run thermals underneath my pants. I contemplated joining the group of little snow bunnies that were running around in their tank tops and push up bras it was so damn hot. Let me set the record straight, I’m not complaining. I know the majority of people would kill to have such weather in November but, c’mon now, snowboarding in that heat was just weird to me.

So on Sunday I was prepared for the scorching sun. I cruised up to Big Bear with a few friends sans jacket, goggles, and thermals. Bear only had Chair Five running this weekend. Still, the shortness of the run did not take away from the amount of fun that was taking place. I took a few laps with some of the guys from Knife Show Inc. including Mike Benson (who will be editing and filming for Bear's video this season) and the main face of their films, Casey Wrightsman. They were already shredding and filming, trying to get all the footage they could. And why wouldn't they? They had about half a dozen features set up including some flat boxes, a down barrel, a wall ride, a C box, and a flat-down box. It was easy to get a ton of laps in this park with the lift line moving pretty quickly and chair five not being too long of a lift. It was definitely still insanely warm but every one had their sunglasses on, their zinc rubbed in, and their flannels flapping in the wind.

Even though every muscle in my body is aching and it takes me a minute to sit down and get from point A to point B, it’s just a reminder that I was actually riding this weekend. Hopefully the snow will start dumping and the temperatures will start dropping so that So Cal’s favorite resorts can open up the rest of their slopes! Keep praying for snow!

For proof that this all actually went down, check out the photo album!