Ian Millar - March 9th

March 9

An interesting day. Last night someone else made my days plan with out letting me know. So I woke early to meet a crew of North American ski shreds who I was going to be doing a big ski tour with. Of course they made there plans over drinks and when we showed it was a bunch of dudes on laptops and not even close to being ready. After an hour of lagging I busted out of there solo.

The whole episode reminded me of what i don't like in pro photography. When organized media trips have too many heads and every one lags around changing the plan a hundred times over. I wasn't the photographer on this shoot and really had no reason to be there other than a friend bringing me there to tag along.

I left and headed up to the Happo-One back country where to my surprise the snow was good. I rode a line called 'the mix'. It was my first time on this particular line. I met a fireman from Kobe named Kochi, who was also doing a solo ride.

Yesterday I was watching this video on VBS.TV and in it Billy Rohan mentions how he only ever wanted to skate for Zoo York. It is a very cool video of course but I just thought was funny to see this older Japanese man sporting this coat...

It snowing now and the forecast looks promising. So hopefully some deep pow pictures to come.

-Ian

<- March 7th

Ian Millar - March 7th

March 7

Desperate for some snowboard love. I headed on a hike with my friend and owner of HPL Nick Kowal with hopes of decent snow. The conditions have been really bad since it rained at over 2000 meters the previous day. What Nick and I found was the nastiest wind I have seen in ages. I was literally blown out of the skin track on to my side as ice balls lifted from the earth and made high speed comfort with my face. As much as it wasn't cool I love being in extreme conditions. So it was fun.

I tried to take an image of Nick getting blown around as the wind and snow blew at ridiculous angles. What I got was a lesson in preparation and wind. I was also in this wind and as I took my glove off to open my bag- my hand nearly froze. The picture blew and my hand was in absolute pain from the wind chill. My bag filled with snow and my camera covered it self in snow with in seconds. It took about 5 minutes to get the feeling back in my hand.

The following day was also very bad but some times you just gotta get out.

-Ian

<- March 6th // March 9th ->