Me and my brother used to live in a smaller place so everybody used to snowboard in the exact same spot. That’s awesome snowboarding with your buddies because it gives off such a good vibe and makes you progress alot faster. But my brother and i just wanted to get away from all of it to find some fresh powder and not get snaked everywhere you go. so we woke up one morning, packed a lunch, filled up the ski-doo’s and two extra gas cans, strapped our snowboards onto the ski-doo’s and just took off straight into the backcountry no idea where we were going at all just trying to get lost looking for new zones. We ended up finding a couple pillow lines, one nice drop and a built ourselves a sick little kicker that went through a buch of trees to a F-in awesome tranny. So after it was all said and done, we had criss-crossed all over the place went up hills and down the backsides and now it was getting dark so we had to pack it up and get outta there, but when we went to go home, we didnt have a clue where we were to and our track were covered because it was snowing a bit all day. we were driving randomly for about two hours, had already stopped to fill the ski-doos up again withe the jerry cans, when my sled crapped out on me, she was only running on one cylinder, so we took the tow straps,siphoned my gas into his sled and took off agin, fter about another hour we came across a trail which we had no idea where it went to, so we just followed it until we ended up actually coming out ontop of the hill that me and all of our friends used to snowboard on, i was so freakin releived man. when we looked down on the hill, our buddies were still there, so we said screw it, we strapped in and had a sick night sesh with the guys

Last season, at Kirkwood, a storm had just dumped about 5-6 feet of powder. Yes, I typed “feet” not “inches”, not a typo. It was still snowing during my first run in the morning and the lines between groomed run and the non-groomed was undistinquishable. I saw a little bump in the snow and went for some air and landed perfectly, except the powdery snow was now chest high and my board and legs were stuck in the snow, 4 feet below. I wasn’t exactly lost, but there was NOBODY around on a snowy early weekday morning on the slopes.

I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to get out of this by myself and was hoping somebody would pass by. Nobody came around until more than 10 minuntes later and all they said was they couldn’t help me because they’d get stuck too, and disappeared. Didn’t even offered to get help from ski patrol, a-holes… Realizing that I have to get myself out of this now, I remembered seeing some TV show about how to get out of quicksand. So I did the “lean back and lie on my back” technique and wiggled my feet and butt to get my board up to the surface. Good thing it was my first run and I had strength in my legs. A few minutes later, I got my board to the surface and unstrapped it and used it as an anchor as I climbed commando style to the harder groomed run. It felt like every little move determined whether I’d live or die that day. It must have been about 15 minutes of crawling before I hit solid ground, but it felt like a lifetime. Some skiier came by after I was on “safe” ground and said he saw the whole thing and told me to take a long break before trying to go down the mountain. Dude, thanks for watching me fight for my life, a little help would have been nice. Anyways, I live to tell the story and to try to win the Pioneer head unit. I know, it’s supposed to be a story about being lost. I wasn’t exactly loss, I knew where I was and where I need to go. I just didn’t know how I was going to get there…

soo the funny thing is that my story actually involves a GPS…
this summer my church went to New Orleans to help with the clean up for hurricane katrina. we rented two of these huge vans to drive everyone around and we got two GPS units with them so we could navigate the confusing maze of streets in New Orleans. as the week progressed we had to go to this one building every day and for some reason the GPS took us a different way every single day. we just kinda shrugged it off cuz at least it was getting us to the right place. well one evening we were about half an hour away from the house we were staying in and on our way home. so we r driving and the GPS is telling us to go another strange direction but we just went with it cuz every other time it eventually lead us to the right place. about ten minutes later we end up underneath the highway in some sort of police compound and lots of state owned vehicles! so we turn around and head a different direction. at this point we kinda freakin out cuz now we r in a really super ghetto part of New Orleans in the middle of the night. next thing u know we stop at a dead end and the GPS promts us to turn right and board the ferry. we look to our right and there was a ferry station but it wasnt meant for cars. our one youth leader gets out of the car and starts screaming and running around in circles cuz the GPS just told us to get out, leave the vans behind, and board a freakin ferry!!! thankfully a police officer drove by and asked why we were in the dead end next to the abandoned ferry station and we explained ourselves and got a police escort back to our house which turned out was like five mins away. i have come to the conclusion that garmin GPSs suck! pioneers r way better :p

Haha, Washington Irving, you should definitely win;)

ok… me and some buddies went up to Dakin colorado, weave explored quite a bit of it so we wanted to try something new, we took my jeep and hucked a wild 90 degree turn into some back road, and we drove and we drove, and we smoked then drove alot slower, eventually we came across some wiered coffin looking thing stuck out in the middle of some clearing in the forest, my friends went to go check it out while i took a leak. they came back and said it looked like some dude was living in it, then we heard some rustling in the trees in front of the car, everyone got that look and we focused all of our senses on that one spot, some really large dark figure was slowly moving towards us, after all of us shit our pants we got into the safety of the car, still watching this… thing.. slowly we could see more and more, it was some dude with a beard that must have been 5ft long, hair that was longer, animal skins for clothes a walking stick in one hand, and a 3ft blade in the other, but the look on his face was the worst part, he looked like all the human had left him, that the only thing left was pure wild, pure nature, he raised his blade and started to yell, the loudest i have ever heard a man yell, and he started walking towards us… and by this time all of us where yelling at one another, mostly at me to “GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE DUDE!” so i threw my jeep into reverse and went as fast as i could trying to drive on a road that was about 2ft to small for my car, while trying to keep this maniac away from us. we drove for about 5 min of complete adrenaline pumping moments tell the man gave up and stopped, we kept driving until we came to a large enough opening to turn around, when we finally where out of there we all looked at each other, and my friend said, “Holy fucking shit dude, did that really just happen.” And that my friends is my most insane story to tell you all.

Well, it was a foggy gloomy day and i was boarding in the great state of Oregon on Mt. hood. me and some pals went up the magic mile and from the top traversed riders right out to some pretty interesting terrain. i couldn’t tell where the sky and snow met so it was kind of like snowboarding with two eye patches on. thought i saw a nice wind lip to make a heal side powder turn in… but what i saw ended up being an elusive mt. hood vortex. got scooped up and spat out somewhere near mt. baker washington. i boarded down to the town of glacier that sat beneath the mountain and realized i had no map, and cell phone service was totally shot as well. took the next year of my life to get back to my car in the timberline parking lot, sure could have used that navigator thing back then…

Growing up in France and having a dad as an avid fruit-booter, I was fortunate enough to go skiing at various ski resorts in the French Alps. A favorite place that we frequented was La Meige/La Grave; a burly, rugged mountain famous for its un-groomed pistes. Being a 12 year-old little go-getter, the mountain showed me its gnarliness in many forms. When I followed the traverse line, I almost soiled myself looking down a 200 foot crevice. When I wanted its powder, I dropped my snowboard and tomahawked down the face. When the upper mountain wasn’t closed due to decapitating wind speeds, I went up there; but only to get altitude sickness and water thrown in my face by the locals. Nevertheless I always came back for more and this time bringing a friend with me to have someone to ride my “favorite” mountain with. To begin our tour we started by building a jump with which we proceed to catch massive airs on. Although these airs were only but a mere 4 feet off the ground, we were pretty juiced considering our age and height. Regardless of being young teens we were actually sending it so huge that we started to hear the huge-wall-of-ice-glacier creaking and cracking above us. Whether or not our huge stomps were triggering the unstableness of the ice, I may never know. Skeptical of the safety of our location below the ice, we escaped before any tragedy could incur. In the urgency of our departure we failed to set our bearings for the remainder of the descent, and unfortunately the coordinates of our following position did not match the route to destination mid-mountain-gondola. Failing to navigate properly lead us on an obligated journey to reach the village far, far below. In a life or death situation, instincts took effect and adrenaline fueled my body to continue on, and make decisions. We learned a lot about snowboarding on this extreme journey, gully-ridin’, bombing the flats, threadin’ the trees, pointin’ the chutes… We never rode like this before, and especially not down 1.33 vertical miles. Neither we nor the mountain intended for us to go down that way, or that far, but our snowboarding survival skills helped us to ride that mountain. I was proud to have accomplished such a run at my age, and after such a long, exhausting, and life-threatening experience; we realized that we needed to get safe. The ganjola ride back up to the top was a nice long one, and the spaghetti-Bolognese was the best that I had ever had. Being lost wasn’t so bad, especially when you’re twelve and it’s a good chance to sneak away from pops!
Mikey B

A school group stood in the cold waiting for me…

As a rep for a ski/board company I was in charge of about 40/50 kids each week with their teachers who were usually a blast but often enough miserable bastards. Me and my bud decided to hike up and hit the the fresh powder on the otherside of the mountain (he assured me you could board right around to resort). We set off at about 12 and had to be back by 3….LOADS of time! After the powder flattened out it was apparent we were in the middle of no where with no track back. We ended up hiking for about 3 hours following a stupid river we thought led back to resort.

We arrived back a hour late to meet my school group which needless to say were pissed off. After I explaind my little adventure they were forgiving but didnt let the fact i got lost up there go. Ripped the s*** out of i think would be the correct term.

Now as it turns out i have a pretty good wildernes skills and managed to find civilisation this time but I’m also pretty adept at getting myself lost…

This little event doesnt just apply to my board, it’s just my life in general, left or right….i’ll go left…..DAMN….should have gone right…!

Alright so check it out it was the biggest blizzard weve had in a while like we hardly ever get bigg storms so it was snowing for like 2 days straight none stop its like 12 noon i get a call dude you wanna go to big boulder hell ya i wanna go to big boulder right so we get together 2 cars full of people and keep in mind this mountain is maybe an hour away maybe more which isnt bad.. When you can see! haha so we make it to the highway oh and were in cars by the way grand am with bald tires and a little white cavalier were bookin down the highway by booking i mean like 55, 60 but it was snowing out so i mean come on. WE get to the allentown exit im looking at it as we drive by “hey dude where are you going” MY friend: “to big boulder you dumbass” Me:” we just passed the exit” There was hardley anyone on the highway besides truck drivers so we drove down the side on the wrong side of the road really slow back to the exit. We get off the exit around 4ish 5ish we were in allentown i think we pullover at the gas station. My friend: “so who knows how to get to big boulder?” Me:” dude why would you invite us if you didnt know how to get there.” We ended up getting more lost and sleeping in our cars in a school parking lot. We found out the next day but i felt like shit from sleeping on somebodies leg and i had to take a massive SHIT!