Torstein Horgmo – RadMania

The Mile High 2015: Snowboard Photography

MileHigh2015-Josh_Vagne-photo-Sean_Radich-0480 — All eyes, and lenses, on 15 year-old Aussie up-and-coming ripper, Josh Vagne during the foggy Mile High 2015.

The Mile High presented by Carlton Dry has become a highlight of the Australian winter, and it draws the best snowboarders in the world to Perisher’s terrain park. It’s not just the World Snowboard Tour International points rating of the contest that brings the best shred boys and girls to Jindabyne, but Perisher’s epic and inventive park built by master shaper, and good mate, Charles Beckinsale.

So many of the international pros I spoke to said how much they enjoyed the freestyle set-up at Perisher – easy access to the mountain, fast laps of the park on the T-bar or 8-seater chair, a fun halfpipe also in front valley and a fun park around the corner on the Leichardt T-bar. They all said that they enjoy their summers in Oz much more than New Zealand, and that Perisher has become “the new Snowpark”. High praise, indeed!

This year I was fortunate to spend two and a half weeks in Jindabyne, to compete in the Transfers Banked Slalom at Thredbo, have a bunch of days riding the resorts, and then working for The Mile High writing the press releases, running the website and taking photos. Unfortunately the weather rolled in for the four days that the contest was scheduled, literally putting a real dampener on proceedings. The competition finally ran on the Wednesday, but due to the misty fog, the last two jumps were excluded. It was a shame, as in the clear days earlier on in my stay, the riders were displaying some seriously mind-blowing riding and uber-inventive lines. But, a result was obtained, photos were sent out and video edits posted … and the all-important WST points were awarded to help set up a bunch of riders for the forthcoming northern comp season. Congrats to Jess Rich, who I shot with back in Tahoe a few years ago, for winning the women’s.

Click the link to read the write up from The Mile High presented by Carlton Dry 2015.

Click the images to open a gallery of some of my photos from my time in Perisher.

And scroll down for a wrap-up video edit of the event.

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Style master and snowboarding big boss, Torstein Horgmo, just lofting a tweaked frontside nose grab during fun laps through the Perisher pipe.

Scotty James just cruising through the Perisher pipe with a nice lil’ handplant.

Unknown rider with a solidly grabbed spin during the sunny couple of hours of the Sunday practice.

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Olympic silver medallist, Stale Sandbech, is one of the most stylish snowboarders in the world.

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Chas Guldemond always enjoys his time down under.

Stale Sandbech is just one of the many big dogs that has flocked to Perisher’s park.

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Max Parrot crippler off the side-hit pipe wall.

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Young US ripper, Kyle Mack is full of style.

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Max Parrot dropping a casual triple cork during the sunny Sunday practice for The Mile High.

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The big boss himself – Charles Beckinsale – just surveying his fine park-building work.

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Darcy Sharpe double-corking through the mist on the way to his win of The Mile High 2015.

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Jess Rich perfecting the backside 540 in practice that helped her win the 2015 Mile High.

ESPN put together a great little edit about the whole competition. Take a look here: http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=espn:13525680

And here is the official video:

I can’t wait for next year…

X Games 2015 Superpipe And Big Air Photo Gallery

Photos of the X Games 2015 Men’s and Women’s Superpipe and Big Air at Buttermilk Mountain, Aspen Snowmass, Colorado.

X Games 2015 Aspen Snowmass — What a view! Buttermilk Mountain’s 22-foot perfect superpipe, flanked by the slopestyle jumps on the left, and big air booter on the right.

The X Games is the self-described biggest and most important winter action sport competition … outside of the Olympics, of course. And after finally getting to experience my first X Games just a couple of weeks ago, and seeing the transformed Buttermilk mountain with it’s huge mounds of snow, lighting arrays and TV and spectator infrastructure, I’d tend to agree. The fact that so much is packed into such a small portion of the mountain is quite amazing. One chairlift accesses the SBX track up higher, the slopestyle course, superpipe and big air jump in front of the base lodge.

It was an awesome few days in Aspen, checking out the resorts by day, and the X Games craziness by night. The highlights were seeing Scotty James throw down and Torah Bright securing a bronze medal on the big stage. A shot or two from the trip should make it into Australian-NZ Snowboarding Magazine this season, so keep an eye out. If you ever get a chance to experience the X Games I couldn’t recommend it higher. Yeah, it’s very “Yee haw, ‘Merica rules!” with it’s Navy sponsorship, simplified narrative and questionable judging catering to ESPN audiences and the mainstream spectators (ie it certainly ain’t a core, cool event like the US Open or Stylewars in Oz), and it really does get frigidly cold outside at night. But the huge crowd, the TV razzle-dazzle, smooth running of a legitimately big event and the insane feats of snowboardery you get to witness more than make up for any negatives.

And in the meantime, enjoy these snaps.

Click on the photos below to open up the gallery and read the captions…

Scotty Lago spinning into the Colorado sunset.

Taylor Gold with a classic method.

This gives you an idea of how big the snowboarders go. The amplitude out of the pipe is just something that can’t be translated to TV. Massive.

Shaun White with his black on black on black method.

Scotty James styling it out with a Fakie Air To Regular to kick start his run.

Shaun was a little off his game after a year away from competitive snowboarding. He still went huge, but interestingly 5 feet less on his first hit than last year. And here you can see him reach, but miss, the double tail grab.

Iouri Podladtchikov was also looking lethal in all-black. Goofy-footed method into the inky darkness…

Danny Davis’ run was impressive for its amplitude, style and inventiveness. A worthy Gold Medal winner.

DD switch method = all kinds of awesome.

The “made-for-TV” Big Air didn’t give a great vantage point for the hundreds (thousands?) of punters or the photographers, as the jump mound was so big you couldn’t get a good view of the kicker or landing, even along the monster pipe wall. But Yuki Kadono was impressive all night.

Torstein Horgmo with his signature smooth style.

Yuki Kadono throwing some sort of ridiculousness.

Torstein looking to launch into the sky like the private jets waiting on Aspen’s runway in the left of the photo.

Torah Bright Bronze Medal at X Games 2015

Torah went so big on her second warm-up run that I cut off her tail. But it was too nice a shot to not post it.

Kelly Clark goes massive, but her style is doesn’t compare to Torah’s smooth, effortless riding. This boned frontside air was before she started the ballerina 1080’s on her first hit.

All eyes and lenses focussed on Torah’s money-maker … her famous McTwist, of course.

Chloe Kim was impressive – she went big, mixed up her run with much of it switch. At 14 she’s already an X Games gold medallist, and with some emphasis on style, she will be hard to beat.

And in case you missed it, take a look at Danny Davis’ gold-medal-winning run which he threw down on the last run of the night. Epic.

Snowboard Photography From 2014 Australian Slopestyle Tour

A few weeks ago the director of The Australian Slopestyle Tour called me up asking if I could help out with some media services for both The Mile High by Carlton Dry at Perisher and Stylewars at Falls Creek. He had me at hello …. beer!

It was great being back in the epicentre of the snow scene, with the best snowboarders and skiers in the world congregating on Jindabyne for their off-season, and our winter. Charles Beckinsale, had helped fashion an epic and inventive slopestyle course in Perisher’s Front Valley, and with all the big dawgs in town, the level of snowboarding (and skiing) was way beyond what has ever been witnessed in this land. I was primarily employed by Rich Hegarty to help write the press releases and add to social media, but of course I couldn’t be surrounded by all this snow-shredding awesomeness without giving my new-ish Canon EOS 1D Mk IV a work out.

Perisher’s slopestyle course is always a bit tricky to shoot, and I certainly took my best photos at the ol’ stomping ground of Falls Creek’s Ruined Castle terrain park during Stylewars. But it was a nice change to be able to act as a second shooter, alongside ANZ Snowboarding Magazine’s Alex Roberts, in order to cover all the action across the park. And it was a pleasant surprise to see The World Snowboard Tour use my shot of winner Kyle Mack for their news article.

A great two weeks filled with fun and friends … and quite a bit of that free Carlton Dry. It was so good to be back!

For a closer look, click on the photos to open them up in a gallery…