Day 285

ultimate. this was the best mountain and snowboarding experience of my life.

the venue for day two of the adult ski competition was at the highest point of the mountain itself. that means that we had to traverse up past the highest lift and then hike for about an hour up to polar peak. there was a tiny path blazed by the narrow toes of the skiers' boots but for the thick snowboarder clogs, following these delicate steps turned out to be something close to an elephant trying to follow in the same footprint of a gazelle. there was really only white in front, white behind, and white underfoot with small don't look back. stop and breath, the air is thinner here. by the time i made it to the top i had only a base layer on and the sun was warm on the back of my head as if it were summer. from seven thousand feet there were no higher mountains in the vicinity. i could now see mountains behind the regular mountains that surround the town. the sun was bright and sky blue.

the competitors were riding a double black diamond slope from this special vantage. my only job was to handle a clipboard and highlighter at the starting gates and let people know when their turn was coming. at the end of the day, when the skiers had all taken their run, we rode down as well. intense.


there's a world wide contest in australia. the deadline for submitting a video application is less than a day away and after doing some shooting on top of the peak during some free time this afternoon, i came home ready to produce. still, i really hate talking into cameras floating at arm's length. the shots were worthless audio and personality wise. a few hours ago, finally and for the first time since hearing about the contest, i had some inspiration and reworked the footage into something all together different. internet is being horrible and i've been trying for over an hour to load the video onto the official site. my vimeo site accepted it no problems, however.

this last-second production was fun to do but i definitely tried to deviate as far as possible from the typical talking heads and shallowed reasons that i saw other applicants include in their videos. so i took away speech and added some edge. as of right now however, the video is still not successfully uploading on the contest site..

here's mine.

island reef job application from joe lieske on Vimeo.