The Daddy

This bastard you see behind the camera is pretty much known for one thing, organizing the SHIT of the skateboard missions.  I've know Kevin "Daddy" O'dell for 12 years and it's been pretty much the same thing since 2001.  Phone rings, "we are skating" or "this is what we are doing today".

When it's 50 degrees in February

When you're watching a session go down and it's warm out, what do you do?  Of course you take off your shoes and shirt.

When everyones watching

BS tail with everyone watch you.  My angle makes the rail look small but it's actually pretty long.  I just showed up to the session very late so this was the only possible decent angle.

Sunday Funday

Yesterday I got the call that the guys were rolling up from Richmond to skate.

Boarder Patrol

One of the cool features about Zermatt is you can cross the Switzerland boarder and ride into Italy for the day.  That's IF the Italian side is open.  Most of the time while we were the winds exceeded 50mph with -20F temperatures and extreme low visibility.

Italian / Swiss boarder


Gondola to hell

That's right, more Zermatt

I have several video / photo projects coming up rapidly and will consume most of my time until about July so until those start, I'll keep posting pics of the snow paradise I was just at.

Early AM sunrise through the clouds at Zermatt, Switzerland

This was literally taken under the Matterhorn.  I didn't have my wide lens that day so I pointed my 70-200mm just south facing Italy.  

Zermatt at night

We only had 2 semi clear nights while in Zermatt, Switzerland.  One being this image from a time-lapse I shot and the other was while we were out drinking.  I've seen some AMAZING night shots from Zermatt prior to going but now that I've been there I know the images weren't taken from the village but the upper elevations during the summer.  The dots you see on upper ridges in the image are gondola stations.  I don't know what the large star is, maybe Mars or Mercury.  The overall timelapse that I shot actually shows the groomers grooming the slopes over a 3 hour period.

Zermatt gondola timelapse

Here's 1 of 300 stills of a time-lapse from my porch last week in Zermatt, Switzerland.

Matterhorn Timelapse

The weather wasn't the greatest for timelapses while in Zermatt, plus I was busy riding most of my time there.  Here is a still from my favorite timelapse I shot.  

Home

After 9 days of riding some of the best conditions we've ever had the pleasure of touching, the trip is finally complete.

Visp train station- Visp Switzerland


Zurich Airport- Zurich Switzerland

Peak transportation

Either you wait in line for an hour for a gondola or you ride a tee bar up 2 miles up to the peak.  

In Italy

After most of the trip of Italy being closed due to extremely high winds it finally opened up.  You have to love the "BUT" in this.  BUT the temps were down at -27C which translates to -16F.  That doesn't include the wind chill.  These are the coldest temps I've had the pleasure of dealing with in my 31 years on this planet, how about you?  We finally got to the bottom in Italy and found a quiet Italian restaurant.  I call this the lunch of many thoughts.  Joey (on left) is thinking "why are we even here"  Kurt (front right) is listening to Will talk about something related to grease, Justin is thinking "mmm this Italian coffee american style is very delicious" and Jeff (center) knows he's the genius of the industry.

Blue Bird Skies at Zermatt

Today we had our 3rd blue bird sky day of the trip.  It was still extremely windy at the peak but 1/2 mile down it was good to go!!  I brought out the 70-200mm today.  I was very impressed with her first time out shooting snowboarding.

Random shots from Zermatt

Since we couldn't see anything today while riding we shot a few on the groomed slopes and YES, I actually got a shot, THANKS JOEY!!  It's been years since I got any snowboarding pics.

Extremely gnarlyness

40-60 mph winds, snow, -6 F degrees up at the peak of Switzerland and Italy.




One of our lines a few days ago

Cloudy down days

Yesterday we had a killer day in the back country with our guide Christian.  Everyone pushed themselves to the limits and after 2 days of riding about 45,000 vertical feet, a break is needed.  What do we do when in Switzerland and bored, we do some curling.  Easiest Olympic sport EVER.

Kurt Sending it

I'm the John Stockton of curling.  Assisting all day

YES, my team won.  DUH, WINNING

Zermatt Randoms

This little guy is the Swiss super hero

This guy is the ultimate taxi in Zermatt

Swiss Cheese style updates

For the past 10 months I've been trying to set up a trip to Zermatt, Switzerland or as most know it as "The matterhorn".  We arrived yesterday afternoon with cloud covered conditions.  I shot a few timelapses right from the balcony that aren't really what I'm looking to do.  Today we got to ride this massive mountain with bluebird skies and fresh powder on the ground.  Here are a few images I took today in the past 24 hours.  We are taking a back country guide out tomorrow.  I'll upload a few others tomorrow or Tuesday night.