The Big jump 09

• September
• 23

3:12 pm snowboarding

Vaughan Brookfield[senior photographer for nzsnowboard mag ] and the Remarkables came together with the idea of building a jump around 90-100 feet for an evening shoot . Last Saturday was the day that I hit the jump and the day my season ended . I was getting towed into it by a snowmobile at 60 mph /100kph ,the take off was just under 20 feet high /7 metres and the jump was roughly 30 metres /99 feet to the knuckle . The sun was going down and still no one had hit it , after talking to myself for 5 minutes as ya do when motivation isn’t coming from anywhere else i decided i was willing and able . As i approached the take-off on my first hit i was thinking i’d do a backside 360 .As i flew toward the knuckle i thought i might clip the edge but then flew another 10-15 feet and rotated a backside 540 .I stomped it. I felt relaxed for the first time in 24 hours ,as i’d been playing that moment over in my head the day before and all night. The next hit i rode off the lip and did a backside 720 mellon grab and stomped it ,this was the shot i was looking for ,well one of them anyway. The next hit i did a frontside 540 and due to the setup turn i landed pretty close to the top but scraped in for another landing . As i got towed up to the takeoff i thought i should have a break and let someone else have a hit , No one there wanted to though ,Jordan Rehrer the other rider who was going to hit the jump had gone down to the base building to wax his snowboard and hadn’t got back yet. I went and checked the footage and talked to a few people , hyna , vaughan , jeremy and bugs were all saying it looked sik but i was slowing down and that i was close to the knuckle on my last hit. As the sun went down a little more ,with the thought of my speed dropping in the back of my mind i got towed back to the top of the run-in .I can’t remember if i mentioned to the driver that i wanted to go 65 mph or not.
I got towed in once again , i remember feeling pretty relaxed and that i was going to do a frontside 7 , as i left the kicker i remember feeling my stomach sink as i realized i wasn’t going fast enough. I spun frontside 650 and saw the knuckle approach from behind . That’s all i remember ……

What happened next i still haven’t seen , but im told i bounced off my back and into the landing , slid to the bottom of the 100 metre landing on my face and stopped.

Until next time…….I’m looking forward to it