As many probably don’t know, I destroyed my knee earlier this month tearing my acl and meniscus. So, my season is sadly over. With that being said, I have the first full episode of Just Passing Thru up online for your enjoyment. Our summer episode will be up shortly once I get a bit more free time to finish up the last bit of editing.

This episode encompasses 1,783 miles of travel through Western Europe with Tom Wallisch and Matt Walker (and a short cameo with TJ Schiller). After 120+ hours of editing, it is finally up and the link to the video may be found at the bottom of this update.

Matt Walker was kind enough to write up a full recap our travels:

Hey Salomon fans, wanted to give everybody the run down of my trip to the fantastic continent of Europe. I left Denver in a blizzard andarrived in London 40 hours later after spending a surprisingly comfy night inthe Minneapolis airport. After some croissants, and a day of being tourists, we sessioned a big flat box at the base of the London Freeze jump. It was a good session with Vanular 630’ing his way to victory and a new LG phone.

Walker and Wallisch take a break in London.

What time is it Benjamin?

With the LG Freeze Big Air going down the next day,everybody had a mellow Halloween night. We showed up to the venue bright andearly to find that the overnight rain had caused the in-run to avalanche (I amcalling that it was the first avy in the UK’s history..) And to make mattersworse, the Nitrogen tank used to blow snow broke. When I heard this, I justassumed no contest. Au contraire, they slapped some dry slope material on thein-run and poured bunch soap on it. To the surprise of virtually every rider,it worked really well and people were actually getting more speed than they didin the Battle of Britain comp on the first night. Enough speed for Vanular totoss a ridiculous nose butter 9. YEA C-VAN!!! Russ’s perfect dub 10 poke was atad more perfect than Bobby’s perfect dub 10 poke (Salomon crew what!) and heended up walking away with 5,000 pounds, which is like 47 million dollars orsquid or something.

The London Freeze Jump – morning of the big air competition.

Matt Margets, TJ Schiller, Phil Casabon, and Richard Permin charge the VIP bar during the London Freeze.

After the comp, I moseyed on over to the music tent where the London Drum and Bass and Dubstep duo Chase and Status were dropping beats.I hate Drum and Bass in general, but these two produce some amazing dubstep (“Heartbeat” and “Death” are my favs, check them out at http://www.myspace.com/chaseandstatus)

The next day the Just Passing Thru Europe crew consisting ofWallisch, Clarke, Teej Schiller and myself piled into Neil’s (Scotland Jiberishrep) Honda and motored up to the Chill FactorE in Manchester, England. Thisplace is an amazing place to ride, and I wish I could session it all summer. Ithas clearly benefited the local riders who were throwing down, especially theUK Salomon girls, watch out, there are four girls who are going to turn headsin a couple years when they come out of nowhere and win everything.

Walker rodeo 5s at the chillfactore in Manchester.

Some quick interviews with the local media.

Walker and Wallisch look up at the hill after a successful session as the snow starts to fall for the night. That’s right, it snows every night in Manchester, England.

Deciding that skiing indoors wasn’t core enough, we headed to Glasgow, Scotland to ski on a soccer field, ahem, I mean the Bearsden dryslope. Jokes aside, this place is dope and surprised me. I thought it would be super sketchy to land on dryslope, but it turned out to be very similar tosnow. Carving takes a little to get used to, but after a couple runs the crew was used to it. Scotland is another place you don’t expect to have a big freeski scene, but there definitely is one. 40 or 50 kids showed up and sessioned with us, throwing 9s and rodeos and everything in between.

Walker found a friend.

We bid Neil adieu and traded 35 dried squid in order to take the most uncomfortable all night bus ride from Glasgow to London. Gettingabsolutely no sleep on the bus, we decided to pass out in the Victoria tubestation McDonalds. Sleeping in public is apparently a ticketable offense in London and luckily the officer who woke us up believed our ignorance.

Walker’s bed while waiting for trains in London.

After lugging ski bags through the Underground, we hopped on the Chunnel to Paris. Aswe ate our 3 course meal with personal micro bottles of wine, we decided trainis by far the best way to pass through Europe.

Wallisch and Walker attempt to navigate their way through the Paris Metro.

Arriving in Paris we did what every Americans do, eat abunch of amazing food, drink a bunch of wine and go see the Eiffel tower!

Photoshopped.

Wallisch taking a break in Paris.

The following day, we caught a train to Toulouse (southern France) and met up with Mattieu from Voleurz. Happening to just pass thru on Mattieu’s 19th birthday, Mattieu’s mom whipped up the best home cooked meal in my recent memory. The language barrier was tough, but we quicklygot to know our host family and simply put, they rule.

Leaving Toulouse, France.

Walker takes a nap on the way to Barcelona.

We were on the road at 9am sharp the next day planning on getting to Barcelona in time for practice. We made it to Barcelona and then conveniently got lost for 3 hours trying to find our hotel. We decided to cutour losses and just go check out the jump. That was the best decision we madeon the trip because we had already missed practice and showed up 10 minutes before qualifying. Fortunately, we got 2 practice runs before the contest.During my straight air, I decided the Barcelona jump was really good, so my next jump I tried my first ever dub 10. I didn’t throw it flippy enough andended up over rotating to 12 and landing on my side, but it felt great.

Checking out Barcelona.

Clarke GTSing in Barca.

Walker and Wallisch take a break from unsuccessfully trying to get into the stadium during practice.

Wallisch stops to take a pic with a fan outside of the Olympic Stadium.

Finally finding our way into the stadium.

Top of the jump in Barca.

I threw rodeo 10 in qualifying thinking that it would probably be cleaner than my second attempt at a dub cork. I ended up not qualifying, but I must say, the Barcelona jump was the best city big air jump I have ever hit.

Wallisch switch double 10ing his way to the podium at the Barcelona Snow Show.

After the competition, http://www.newschoolers.com/web/content/readnews/id/2960/everybody went out to the after party at club Oshen. Being an electronic musicfan, this place was my heaven: 4 stories of different floors of different electronic music that was open til 7am. YESSS. After staying till closing, we decided there was no time to sleep and just went directly to the airport for a 9am flight. Fantastic way to end Just Passing Thru Europe!!

Salomon love in Barca.

For a more photos on the UK part of this tour, check out Neil’s story here.

http://www.newschoolers.com/web/content/readnews/id/2969/

I want to thank everybody who made this trip happen! Jennythe Salomom mostly, Drago from Jiberish, James from the London Freeze, Neil from Jiberish, Rob for showing us around London (sorry about not saying bye),Mattieu and his whole family, Simone, and finally Pako and Jaime and everybody else from the Barcelona Snow Show. Epic Trip!!

Peace

Matt

So, with that I give you Just Passing Thru Europe:

Shot on the Canon 7D with 28-135mm kit lens.

Well, as I’m currently in school full time, I haven’t had much of a chance to sit down and finish the project. However, our first episode is close to being completed and should be viewable in time for this holiday season. In addition, Adventure 1.2 will also be done around this time as well, so expect to see some great video content popping up sometime this December at justpassingthru.tv

Adventure 1.2 starts today! This time around we’ll be Just Passing Thru Europe with Tom Wallisch, Matt Walker, and myself. However rather than the typical ski trip to the European Alps, we’ll be heading to London, Scotland, and Spain for our ski destinations. Here’s a quick rundown of what we’ll be doing:

• Day 1: Thursday, October 29th
  • Fly to London, England
• Day 2: Friday, October 30th
  • Arrive in London
  • Meet up with Neil MacGrain (our UK tour guide
  • Check out London and be tourists
• Day 3: Saturday, October 31st
  • London Freeze Rail Jam
• Day 4: Sunday, November 1st
  • London Freeze Big Air
• Day 5: Monday, November 2nd
  • Drive to Manchester, England
  • Ski on indoor snow slope at the Chill Factore
• Day 6: Tuesday, November 3rd
  • Drive to Glasgow, Scotland
  • Ski at outdoor dry slope at the Bearsden Ski Club
• Day 7: Wednesday, November 4th
  • Taking the train from Glasgow to Paris, France
  • Paris for less than twenty hours
• Day 8: Thursday, November 5th
  • Take the train to Toulouse, France
  • Meet Mathieu (our tour guide for the rest of the trip) and stay at his house
• Day 9: Friday, November 6th
  • Drive to Barcelona, Spain
  • Training for the Barcelona Snow Show
• Day 10: Saturday, November 7th
  • Barcelona Snow Show in the 1992 Olympic Stadium
• Day 11: Sunday, November 8th
  • Fly home

And there’s the itinerary for Adventure 1.2! I just picked up the newly released Canon 7D DSLR to shoot with for this trip. Should be a lot of fun!

Be sure to stay tuned to justpassingthru.tv as we’ll be posting regular trip updates to the site.

Clarke and Wallisch wait for a snowcat ride at the Mt. Hood Level 1 shoot during Adventure 1.1

Adventure 1.2 will encompass a five-day skiing road trip through the UK with the likes of Tom Wallisch, Matt Walker, and myself. Beginning in London, the crew will have a chance to explore the city while attending the London Freeze, which features both a Big Air and Rail Jam event this year.

Following a short stay in London, the crew will depart on a two day skiing adventure; led by Jiberish UK rep Neil MacGrain. We will be skiing at the dry-slope resort of Bearsden Ski Club in Glasgow, as well as the indoor snow facility of Chill Factore in Manchester.

Also, the online thirty-minute broadcast version of Adventure 1.1 will be available exclusively here at justpassingthru.tv in the near future. Check out the trailer for a sample of what you can expect to see.

Our studio for the shoot was my basement, with an elegant Blake Kimmel design canvas backdrop. Despite the mom ‘n pop wood panel walls, it certainly did the trick.

The project is coming along great. Our original plan of releasing the series by the end of July, looks like it was rather farfetched. However, we’re shooting for the end of August by the latest. Its been rather difficult to balance school, life, and Just Passing Thru.

Here’s a view of the Just Passing Thru office, which also serves as my room. As you can see, we’re equipped with a brand new Mac Pro and other electronic trinkets. Also, our trailer should be ready in the near future, so check back at justpassingthru.tv to stay up-to-date with what’s going on in our neck of the woods…

Interior view of “The Barn” at Woodward…

Our trip began on Sunday, July 29th, when Pete Drago (one of the owners of Jiberish), picked me up from my home in Boulder, Colorado. Venturing up to the camp, we met with the kids who were attending Woodward this session (ages eight through ten). 

Woodward’s staff led a stretch amongst the kids prior to letting them loose in the barn. Safety first here at Woodward…

This could quite possibly be one of the best bowl cuts I’ve ever witnessed…

Following the orientation session on Sunday night, we found our home for the night at “The Edge,” Copper’s staff housing. Here, Drago seems a little tuckered out after a fun filled evening of playing in the Barn at Woodward…

The following morning, we awoke to a beautiful day and sunny skies, something we aren’t typically used to here at Just Passing Thru…

We jumped in a bus and made our way up to the hill. Sadly, being the end of July, much of Copper’s snow had already melted, leaving the park severely diminished…

Here is Copper’s jump line as of July 20th. Had we been here a month earlier (as originally planned), we could have found a much more significant jump…

A view of the lower half of Copper’s run, late July. Blake gives a friendly wave…

Kimmel slides one of the down rails with his boots. One word: progression…

Here’s an example of some of the skiers attending grom week here at Woodward. The little guy is working that pizza stop…

Following our morning on snow, we ventured over to the barn to continue our day of play. Kimmel signs his life away prior to heading up to the trampolines…

While we arrived a little late to hit some of the larger features of the summer, we still had a great time throwing on our gear and making a few turns. Stay tuned to www.justpassingthru.tv for some more updates on the project.

As we began to gather our gear, we quickly realized that Keri’s ski boots were no longer in the car. Apparently I had unloaded them back during our stay at Da Hood House, forgetting to put them back in the Subaru. We quickly resolved the problem with a trip to the Salomon store at the base of Whistler mountain.

Rental boots and all, we shlepped our gear up three ski lifts and one bus ride to reach the top of Blackcomb mountain.

Keri and Charlie, one of our videographers during our stay in Whistler, check out the menu for our next few days of skiing. During this time, we had the pleasure of skiing with the likes of Corey Vanular, Mike Riddle, Justin Dorey, TJ Schiller, Peter Olenick, Matt Margets, Joe Schuster, Mike Henituk, and many others. One highlight being Vanular stomping his first double flatspin ever.

Pro skier: TJ Schiller…

Heading down the lift after a fun day of skiing with Henituk. Just hanging loose in Whis…

Whistler village looms below.

On our walk back to the day lots, we stopped by the dirt track to watch some biking. Unfortunately we didn’t see any tail whips…

Ryann, my girlfriend, jumped on a plane and met us while we were passing through Whistler.

One of the challenges for a Momentum Ski Camp scavenger hunt was to get a kiss from Meg Olenick. Meg loves kissing little boys…

Check back at justpassingthru.tv for further updates on our adventure back to Colorado and other info associated with Just Passing Thru.

Here’s the lovely view from our balcony. Unfortunately, as can be seen in the above image, Whistler has been perpetually covered with a menacing rain cloud since our arrival in the area.  As a result, we’ve been able to do very little skiing. I’ve turned to jumping in puddles and consuming far too much food and delicious beverages as my daily activities.

Here Josh Bibby exemplifies the proper puddle jumping form and technique.

Walking around the village I ran into many friends. Most notable was my encounter with Justin Dorey. We had matching outfits.

As I sit here writing this post, I can hear the rain falling outside. Keri is still fast asleep on the couch, and it appears that we have absolutely nothing to do today as we wont be skiing. However, looking at the weather forecast, it appears that tomorrow we’re being served up an order of mostly sunny skies and a balmy temperature of 70 degrees.

On our final morning at Bainbridge, we woke up to a beautiful sunny day and a majestic view of Mt. Rainier looming in the distance. 

These shots were taken right from Wheels’ back yard.

Prior to our departure, we decided to take some short rides on Blue, the Burn’s pony.

After some pony rides, we jumped on the ferry and made our way over to Seattle en route for British Columbia and the Whistler area. 

Nothing like a nice view of the Seattle skyline.