August 4
One of the biggest things out of Big Bear, Zak’s super smooth style and technical expertise makes him a sizable threat in rail heavy events. Recently taking his talent out of bounds, it’s only a matter of time before Hale begins dropping hammers while dropping cliffs.
Stance: Regular
Home Mountain: Bear
Board: Burton Love 152
Binding: Burton Exiles
Boot: Burton Freestyle
Outerwear: Analog
Goggle: Dragon
May 21, 2013
SNOWBOARDER Magazine and Monster Energy are partnering with Mammoth Mountain, California for an event like no other. On Saturday, May 26th, sixteen of the best rail riders on the planet are set to assemble below Mammoth’s Main Park for the West Coast Invitational Game of S.N.O.W. World Championships. Starting with eight head-to-head battles, the sixteen [...]
May 13, 2013
Mark Ass Mondays went to Superpark 17 and Lucas Magoon went off on the jib features at Mt. Bachelor with his signature style and interesting tricks. While there, Magoon met up with Lane Knaack, Luke Haddock, Niko Cioffi, Jacob Krugmire, Johnny O'Connor, Jonah Owen, Zak Hale, Ethan Deiss, Riley Nckerson, Spencer Schubert, and Tommy Gesme.
April 30, 2013
To say that Grenade Games was a whirlwind of a weekend would be an understatement. Seven events, musical performances that included headliners NOFX, a litany of talented riders, free-flowing beverages, and a grip of the original Grenerds combined to create a massive celebration of snowboarding and good times. The sun was out, both the jumps [...]
April 7, 2013
words: Mary Walsh Under Groundhog Day-esque bluebird conditions, snowboarding’s youngest contingent arrived at day three of The Launch presented by Volcom and took to the Bear Mountain park with a passion reserved only for people too young to get into Murray’s karaoke (a spot that readily serves late night cosmopolitans FYI). Over the past six [...]
February 1, 2013
As of late, legendary rider Peter Line has been taking that same wealth of creativity that shaped modern snowboarding and applying it to his photographic endeavors. The result is shockingly compelling imagery. This video documents the making of Peter’s “Biting Cold: Après with the Undead” photoshoot, featured in the February 2013 issue of SNOWBOARDER Magazine.
December 4, 2012
Season 2 of Lick the Cat is live! In one of the most anticipated videos of the preseason, Taxwood, the Kotsenburgs, Siebert, Bilodeau and crew are back with irreverent edits and insane snowboarding all tied together and chronicled on camera. Check out this video now and keep checking back for more Cat Licking.
November 17, 2012
Words: T-Bird Photos: Blotto
I remember the first rail jam that really stoked me out. It was in Buffalo, New York, hosted by Red Bull, and consisted of the best rail riders in the world at the time. I also remember the image of Scotty Arnold locked into a perfect front board on a down bar because it hung on my wall as a testament to how a front board should be done at that time. That event was revolutionary for me. I couldn’t believe what the riders were doing on some of the most progressive features the streets had ever seen. Looking back on it now, that contest was indeed incredible and the tricks done in it have definitely progressed exponentially in the past decade or so, but after watching the 2012 Burton Rail Days in Japan go down last night at Roppongi Hills in downtown Tokyo I now realize that in the realm of rail jams, everything has changed for the better.
Last night, thousands of people packed into Roppongi Hills Plaza in Tokyo to witness a spectacle of urban snowboarding that I have rarely seen related in a contest setting. Headed up by Chris Castaneda of Snow Park Technologies, the setup was gargantuan. Featuring three different drop-in points of entry, the eighteen invited riders had the option of a simple down bar on the far rider’s left, a down creeper just to the right of that, and a wooden rail closeout to flat (though many riders opted to start gapping from that to the down bar). Next to that was a picnic table angled upward and a hitching post log to the far rider’s right, and just to the left of the hitching post was a big wooden Burton pole with a flag on top that that the riders could bonk if they felt like getting some airtime. It really was insane seeing this massive feature plopped square in the middle of downtown Tokyo, but it spoke to the fact that gone are the days when a single barrel down bar would consist of a world class street venue.
The pouring rain didn’t slow down the competitors down one bit, nor did it stop the crowd from cramming in shoulder-to-shoulder. Eighteen of the world’s most talented freestylers flew from all over the world to try their hand on the course and hoping to win the $15,000 cash prize. The list included Jonah Owen, Dominik Wagner, Ludwig Lejkner, Ethan Deiss, Brandon Hobush, Yuma Abe, Benny Urban, Alex Tank, Neils Schack, Marc Swoboda, Forest Bailey, Jamie Nicholls, Zak Hale, Dylan Alito, Jesse Augustina, Wojtek Pawlusiak, Takahiro Ishida, and Mark Sollors and they battled it out in a forty-five minute jam to narrow the finals down to six riders.
The tricks that you now see in any given rail jam is incredible in the sense that a proper back lip would once win one of these contests but now it’s merely a warm-up trick, and at the Burton Rail Days, it got really tech really fast. With the legendary Jeremy Jones sitting atop the course in the judges’ booth, there was no denying that Burton not only stepped it up with the setup, but they also legitimized the judging even more. Regardless, a few riders took to the hitching post with Andrechts, tail taps, nose bonks and myriad flips while Jamie Nicholls tailtap revert 450d the Burton flag a few times. The picnic table setup saw the likes of Marc Swoboda going inverted off the end and Wojtek Pawlusiak buttering on and off. The star of the show however, was definitely the looker’s right rail setup. With multiple options, the riders went after it every way possible. Ludwig Lejkner’s back lips were ridiculous. Brandon Hobush went front three to fifty while Jamie Nicholls took a cue to step it up and did the same trick but switch. Local Tokyo ripper Yuma Abe was the first to drop down from the wooden closeout to the down bar and the crowd went apeshit. Jonah Owen–no stranger to landing flat– took it to the bottom of the closeout with a flurry of front threes. Ethan Deiss handled the creeper and half Cabbed on to the down bar to switch tailpress. Dominik Wagner and Benny Urban impressed me quite a bit as everything they do is very properly executed. Smooth, clean, and landed solidly. Keep an eye out for those two. Zak Hale rode super well also with a few nosepress back 180s and front blunts with heaps of style, and Dylan Alito couldn’t quite seem to put it together in the qualifiers to move on to the finals but he still put on a quite a show for the crowd.
When the forty-five minute qualifier was over, it was Jamie Nicholls, last year’s winner, who qualified in the top spot with Forest Bailey in second place (Editor’s Note: Forest’s last trick in qualifiers broke his snowboard so he borrowed Neils Schat’s stick and rode it in the finals). Rounding out the rest of the finals field was Brandon Hobush, Jonah Owen, Dominik Wagner, and Zak Hale. It was a good mix of Euros and Americans and when the finas started the format changed. Each rider would be given three runs and their best score counted. Period. Plain and simple. Jonah Owen fell on his first two runs but on his third attempt he put down a 50-50 on the closeout to front three stale, landing deep in the flats. As the first rider to drop in the third and final runs, Jonah sat, waiting for the rest of the riders to try and bump him out. Brandon Hobush went all out on his last hit to try and get podium with a switch back 270 attempting to bring it back to regs. Hobush had it in the bag but something happened upon landing that made him slide it out and stay in fourth. There were two riders left. In his second run, on a borrowed board, Forest Bailey had stomped the shit out of a 50-50 on the wooden closeout to drop down front lip on the down bar. It was the cleanest and biggest trick of the night and as Jamie Nicholls dropped in, all he was thinking about was knocking Forest out of the number one position. Jamie also took to the wooden closeout with a 50-50 but then shocked the spectators when he went for a frontside 270, dropping down to the metal down bar. Unfortunately, Jamie couldn’t pull it and he stayed in second place, giving Forest Bailey his first Burton Rail Days win and $15,000 cash.
The finals was a nail biter, and although I’m not really one for the whole contest drama thing, it worked on me. Burton and Mini worked together to bring the people of Tokyp a thrilling and progressive event and I applaud them for that. The riding was incredible, the judging was on point, and the vibe was insane. Like I said, gone are the days when a single barrel down bar will be the deciding factor in figuring out who’s the best, and the reason is that urban snowboarders aren’t just riding rails anymore. Their ability has allowed them to branch out and find options and nowadays you need a course that’s designed to give them more options than features. That’s what made the 2012 Burton Rail Days so exciting to watch and that’s what will make it more important in the snowboarding landscape for years to come. Sionara, Tokyo. See you next year.
2012 Burton Rail Days Presented by Mini Results:
1. Forest Bailey $15,000
2. Jamie Nicholls $8,000
3. Jonah Owen $4,000
4. Brandon Hobush $2,000
November 7, 2012
Rider: Zak Hale Photo: Mike Yoshida
October 3, 2012
Lib Tech’s Downtown Throwdown – Fueled by Monster returns to the streets of Seattle and San Francisco! New features, amazing riders, over $25K in prize money and still totally FREE…it’s gonna be BANANAS!
September 24, 2012
The setup at Bear Mountain's Hot Dawgz & Hand Rails keeps getting crazier and crazier. This video is proof that the riding does too. Check out our full photo gallery and recap from the event here.
Results:
Men:
Jonah Owen $10,000
Jaeger Bailey $3,000
Ian Sams $1,000
Women:
Desiree Melancon
September 22, 2012
How cool would one movie be that included Scott Stevens, Jussi Oksanen, Joe Sexton, Durell Williams, Scott Vine, Mikkel Bang, Spencer Schubert, Daniel Brown, Zak Hale, Dylan Alito, Mark McMorris, Ethan Deiss, Brandon Hobush, Lauri Heiskari, Tim Eddy, Erik Leon, Dave Downing, Jonah Owen, and Hans Mindnich on the marquee? Not as cool as Bear Mountain's "Feature Factory" because it features all of the riders listed above as well as Chris Bradshaw and Lucas Magoon! Lucky for you, we are giving you the first chance to see the movie in it's entirety exclusively here on snowboardermag.com.
September 21, 2012
Some of the best rail riders in the world are on their way up to Bear Mountain, California as we speak, ready to take it to one of the best Hot Dawgz & Hand Rails setups we've ever seen. In the build-up to our coverage of HD&HR, we've compiled bios of all the participants that you'll be seeing this weekend. Riders like Spencer Schubert, Erik Leon, Scotty Vine, Nial Romanek, Jaeger Bailey, Tyler Flanagan, Nick Visconti, Ted Borland, San Taxwood, Dylan Thompson, Ryan Paul, Brandon Hobush, Johnny Brady and more will be sessioning Bear on Saturday. Be sure to tune in to snowboardermag.com for our exclusive three-hour webcast starting at 1:30pm. For now, take a minute to introduce yourselves to the contenders because there's $10,000 on the line and it's anyone's game.
August 28, 2012
How cool would one movie be that included Scott Stevens, Jussi Oksanen, Joe Sexton, Durell Williams, Scott Vine, Mikkel Bang, Spencer Schubert, Daniel Brown, Zak Hale, Dylan Alito, Mark McMorris, Ethan Deiss, Brandon Hobush, Lauri Heiskari, Tim Eddy, Erik Leon, Dave Downing, Jonah Owen, and Hans Mindnich on the marquee? Not as cool as Bear Mountain's Feature Factory because it features all of the riders listed above as well as Chris Bradshaw and Lucas Magoon! See it first at the 2012 Hot Dawgz & Hand Rails event at Bear Mountain, CA on Saturday, September 22nd, or in its entirety online at snowboardermag.com after our live webcast of the HD&HR contest that same day.
August 13, 2012
We don't know if we just walked into a night club or watched the trailer for a snowboard movie, but here is the teaser for Burton's upcoming video, "13". Burton always has some new tricks up their sleeves when it comes to producing snowboard flicks, but one thing that always seems to remain the same is a solid group of riders on the roster. This year's film features Danny Davis, Mikkel Bang, John Jackson, Mark Sollors, Mikey Rencz, Jussi Oksanen, Terje Haakonsen, Jeremy Jones, Zak Hale, Ethan Deiss, Seppe Smits, Werni Stock, Roope Tonteri and more. Stay tuned for video releases and premieres coming mid September 2012.
August 3, 2012
If you are anything like us then you have spent the last few months going through a major case of winter withdrawals. SNOWBOARDER has just the cure for your DTs and that is a healthy dose of DT. While the former DT we are referring to are the delirium tremens, the latter is none other than Dylan Thompson. Due to his humble nature and subdued bag of technical tricks, Dylan is arguably the most underrated rider in the game today. Watch episode 2 and wonder to yourself what sort of hammers DT is still holding for his main video part, because these clips are dope.
July 3, 2012
Eddie Grams of Variety Pack fame put together this 12 minutes retrospective on the magic that is a summer spent at the Camp of Champions in Whistler, BC. Featuring Matt Belzile, Jake Kuzyk, Alex Beebe, Chris Grenier, Zak Hale, Mikkel Bang, Alex Andrews, Harrison Gordon, Viktor Simco, Zach Aller, Charles Reid, Ethan Deiss, Rusty Ockenden and Mikey Rencz.
May 6, 2012
Superpark 16 Presented by Gatorade is just around the corner, and the Prinoths and pushers are sculpting the biggest features of the year up on Bachelor. Well, to tide you over, we've compiled a super selection of video edits from Superpark 14.
April 5, 2012
Words: T-Bird
Captions: Pat Bridges & T-Bird
Day three of The Launch 2012 Presented by Red Bull at Bear Mountain, California was the best yet…hands down. The morning started off with a similar crew from last night’s sunset session on the stepover jump, and with a gigantic crowd of general Bear Mountain public looking on, Mark McMorris, the brothers Mindnich, Cam FitzPatrick, Emil Ulsletten, Ole Christian Hagen, Broc Waring, Sam Taxwood, Craig McMorris Caden Michnal, and more put on one of the most spectacular displays of freestyle park riding that I’ve ever bore witness to. Highlights included Mark McMorris’s double cork back ten, his brother Craig’s crail to super late back 180, Cam FitzPatrick’s Cab fives, Sam Taxwood’s front nines, back sevens, and front sevens, Hans and Nils’s style (they have insane style), Broc Waring’s super floaty corked front fives, Emil Ulsletten’s double cork, and Ole Christian Hagen’s gigantic frontside spins. The cheers from the onlookers watching from just outside the rope line and the sound of sleds shuttling the riders back up top made for one hell…sorry, this is The Launch…“heck” of a morning.
After lunch, the riders dabbled around in the bowl and quarterpipe area. From what I saw, Taxwood, Merrick Joyce, Zak Hale and Max Warbington were hauling into the flat bar at Mach speed and gapping up to it. Red Gerard, Stefan Krumm, Zach Normandin, Brock Crouch, and a handful of others were sessioning a high speed line into the pole jam, and Zander Blackmon, Ben Bilodeau, and Jaeger Bailey hit up the up rail with mind-boggling variations. Zander was going for ollie over 270s to front board, while Ben opted for the more straight on noseblunt pretzel out, and Jaeger hucked backflip to switch 50-50s. Oh yeah, and Hans Mindnich stalled on the top of the damn…sorry…“darn” thing.
After the madness settled in the major artery through The Launch setup, a group of riders wanted to get in on a little sunset session on the tree gap. The tree gap is a massive wedge that sends the jumper catapulting through the air, up and over a large, deadwood tree. Quite literal, if you ask me. Anyway, Stefan Krumm, Jack Herald, Ben and Gabe Ferguson, Zak Hale, JD Dennis, Craig McMorris, Jaeger Bailey, and more sent it ’til the sun went down and between the tricks they tossed and the golden light, it made for some mind-blowing imagery. Basically, today was the day that The Launch got really “frickin’” gnarly (See? I caught myself there). Check out the photo gallery and the Day Three video and be sure to keep up to date with all the happenings from The Launch 2012 Presented by Red Bull going down all this week at Bear Mountain, California.
March 28, 2012
The Launch continues to be both the stomping grounds and proving grounds for some of the best up-and-coming young talent in Snowboarding. From it's debut in 2008 at the Northstar-At-Tahoe it has attracted the likes of Mark McMorris, Zak Hale, Sage Kotsenberg, and more who seem to be household names in the world of snowboarding today. However this may have not always been the case before they attended this event, and that is one thing that makes The Launch what it is. The playing field is leveled, and young riders are given the opportunity to really stand out and make an impression. Speaking of standing out, we have compiled some of our favorite photos from the past years of The Launch in order to hype up the upcoming event at Bear Mountain, April 3rd-6th. Take a click through the history of The Launch in the gallery above and keep you eyes peeled for coverage of this year's Launch during the first week of April, 2012.
January 27, 2012
Forest Bailey is a gold medalist at the Winter X Games 2012 Street Rail Jam!
January 26, 2012
Words and Photos: Mike Yoshida
To kick off the sixteenth year of X games, the newest competition of snowboard street was showcased. The top jibbers from the US and Canada arrived to show us some of the craziest moves we've seen in a while. The likes of: Forest Bailey, Zak Hale, Ethan Deiss, Nick Visconti, Louif Paradis, Phil Jacques, Ryan Paul, Johnnie Paxson, Dylan Alito and more, were giving the crowd what they came to see. Hardway 270's, 450's on and off, front lip to container smash, and half cab to backflip were some of the more difficult tricks thrown. Louif was buttery smooth with 270's on and off, Ethan had some insane shifty to 270 manuevers, and the standout clown Dylan Alito was terrorizing the course with his antics, dropping in whenever and not listening to the event coordinators. In the end it came down to three riders, who all rode insanely in their own way. Nick Visconti who came in third did a hardway cab 3 onto a flat down bar while Ryan Paul in second, did a numerous amount of hardway spinning and even attempted a hardway 450 onto the down bar. In the end he settled for a half cab on backflip out of the down flat ledge. Forest Bailey is a name that all will recognize after today. Bailey continually destroyed this course. He started with the flat container, where he landed tailslide oppo out, and 270'd the whole thing out to the flats. Then the Vermont native proceeded to do every hardway 270, cab and regular, with the best style I have ever seen. His skate influenced way of riding really shines through, and he obviously deserved his first ever X games gold.
January 24, 2012
Photos & Captions: Huggy Our photo editor, Huggy met up with the People Films in Anchorage this week. There were crews all over Anchorage, it was the best place to jib in the world at this time in January. Riders Johnny Lazz, Scott Brown, and J-Rob searched for new spots or a creative take on [...]
January 4, 2012
We let Zak Hale's girlfriend Gabi Viteri write the questions for his Video Guestbook. See how things panned out.
January 3, 2012
Things are in full swing at I Ride Park City! Sam Spedale, Johnny Brady, Knut Eliassen, Alex Sherman, Blaze Kotsenburg, Mac Spedale, Ted Borland, Zak Hale, Sam Taxwood, Sage Kotsenburg, Griffin Siebert, Harrison Gordon, and Matty Moriarty enjoying the goods up at Park City mountain resort.
December 30, 2011
Check out Zak Hale shredding his home mountain, practicing up to take his moves to the streets. Bear is looking all time right now, so get up there and lap the People's Park.
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