Life of Bot

Argentina revisited...Chris Coulter

This summer I spent a couple weeks in Argentina with the Vans team and it really takes the cake as the best trip I've ever had the privelage to go on. There were so many new experiences, life experiences. I wanted to share a couple photos that I took while I was shooting with Vans team rider Chris Coulter.

(Chris on a soggy, foggy wet day in Bariloche)


(autograph session)


(inside the slash at Las Lenas)


(Chris riding up the Marte chair with Good friend Skylar Holgate)


(After a dicey ridge top traverse Chris drops into the hidden couloir at Las Lenas)


(The hole in the mountain we crawled through to get to the next section of badass)


(Concluding with the final decent down the hole in the wall couloir)

Zeitgeist: Addendum

This was passed on to me by Jussi Tarvainen at http://www.jussitarvainen.com. I can't but help thinking about this system based on greed. If you have the time, check out the video below, it's not new, but, I would hate for it to slip through the cracks of your intelligence.

What?

    So I've been shooting with Forum Pro Snowboarder Joni Malmi and he has just been laying it down. I had to ask him what his trick was several times because it was boggling my mind as we sit for food at St. Hubert's. Check the video clip below.

Joni Malmi's new wallride trick from Tim Peare on Vimeo.

    The Forum video is gonna be tight this year, the guys are really motivated, more to come.

Tragedy in Cooke City

  
(View from the bottom)

   

    I've been in Cooke City, MT for the better part of two weeks and it has snowed approximately 4 feet in that time. According to avalanche experts, the danger has been extremely high. The sun came out for the first time on Saturday. I checked with the local avalanche reports and the danger was still high to considerable above aspects of 35 degrees or higher. They also said not to gain false confidence due to the blue skies.

    Kurt Heine, John Jackson, Pat Moore and myself took to the hills with all these conditions in mind and did our best to stay out of the way of any avalanche possibilities. We had a good, long day and made it back to the Exxon station in Cooke City at 6:30pm. As we were gassing our sleds for tomorrow, an emergency call was sent out that a massive avalanche had been set off in the Daisy area of the Cooke City mountains. We responded immediately and sped back up the hill in the dark to find the above slide. We worked tirelessly with the local search and rescue teams to try and uncover a buried snowmobiler. It became apparent that we were not going to find him in the pitch black and the Sheriff called off the search around 10:30pm. The photo above was taken at 8:00am Sunday morning.
    The slide was caused by a snowmobiler. He became stuck near the top of the of the slide path. As he was getting his snowmobile unstuck, it flipped over and began to roll down the face. This is the cause of the avalanche and it broke 40 feet above him. Rescue crews were out this morning with rescue dogs in search of the missing snowmobiler who has yet to be found as of this point.
    I would like to send out my prayers to his family and friends and to let you all know that all of us, (Pat, John, Kurt, & myself), are all fine and in good health.

(Look at the massive crown)


(Long shot from across the valley)




UPDATE

    The rescue ended today at 12:45pm with the body of the avalanche victim found approximately 4 feet under the snow. Unfortunately, his transceiver was found in the off position extending the search into two days. Kurt Heine was there as the rescue dogs pinpointed the victim's location and was then removed from the scene. I've attached a couple more photos.

(The small dots up the hill are people at the point of recovery)


(Another look at the crown. I'm guesstimating it to be 10-20 feet deep)

I can only imagine...

...what it must have been like when animals ruled the earth. This past week I've had the fortune to see some wildlife out in the open in Yellowstone National Park. Although I have barely scratched the surface of the park, it becomes quite obvious that it is filled with a wide variety of wildlife right off the road. I wanted to share with you a couple photos that I took from the car driving through the park on Tuesday (I was a passenger). I'd love to spend some time here and shoot photos of all the landscape and wildlife that the park has to offer.

(A big, beautiful, Big Horn Sheep)


(an amazing fox, with a big bushy tail, see tail below)




(A Mule Deer)


(A very large Elk)

    To me, it is a rare opportunity to come into direct contact with these other life forms and see how they exist in the wild. I've also seen Bison, Moose, Coyotes, White-Tail Deers and Pronghorn, no photos...yet! If you get the chance to visit Yellowstone...do it. If you don't have the chance...make it. It's a wonderful place.

The Neighborhood

(Danny pokes stale while Mike Odell drives on)

    Each year, I make as much of an attempt as possible to shoot with local riders in South Lake Tahoe. One of my absolute favorite people/riders is Danny Rein. He's a great kid and is very talented on the shred stick. Last winter Asa Martinez called me up to come shoot with him, Danny and a couple other holmies on a driveway gap they had set up in a tight little neighborhood street around the Lakeview Ave area. I was actually leaving town that next morning so it was the last chance we were going to have to get some shots. The most interesting thing to me about the setup was that they were using a car to get speed on a one lane road. I set up a remote strobe inside the tow car and a focused strobe for Danny's trick. Big ups to to all the Tahoe riders that ride for the sake of riding! These guys would be doing this whether I was there or not.

 

all photos ©Tim Peare

You ever have one of those days?

    Jake Blauvelt has had one of those days. In the above photo, Jake resigns to trying to understand what is wrong with his '09 Ski Doo 146" rev xp. Undoubtedly one of the best sleds on the market. Zero miles and within 2 miles of it's maiden voyage, it became clear that something was wrong, so we turned around and stopped at the local sled shop. Rick at the shop, got it going back up to full speed in no time, but, when you consider how much money you have to invest in one of these things, it's pretty dissapointing for it not to work right away. I have essentially the same sled, which I purchased right before I drove out here. Mine was going to be a demo and had 140 miles on it. I got a sweet deal and it was broken in, no lemon.

My apologies to Nate Farrell...revision

...so, I just received an email from the magazine in question that they may have a spot for Nate's shot in their final issue. Such a turn around. I don't even know what to say at  the moment.

My apologies to Nate Farrell

    (Nate clearing an infamous Tahoe road gap)

    ...my apologies to Nate Farrell. This is perhaps my favorite snowboarding action shot from the 08/09 season. A certain magazine held on to it for the duration of the editing process until it was too late to shop it anywhere else, and like most of my photos, went unused. The main impression that I was given was that they were going to use it however. Nate was really good at communicating with me about this shot and I would relay the information that was given to me . He mentioned that his TM was stoked on this shot and said that they might want to use it for an ad. I asked him where he would want to see it published and he said with the magazine, because they already said they were going to use it. Near the end of the editing season, Nate called me again to ask me if the magazine was going to run it. He said that he was really counting on the shot to run or his sponsors would not be able to help him with travel budget, so I called them and they, at this point...the end of the magazine season...told me that they had no place...sorry. This is the part I dislike the most about the snowboarding world.
    I spent this New Years with a photo editor of a different magazine. He gave me some advice and I'd like to pass it on to you. If you have images, shop them around as much as possible and stop by the offices as early as you can afford to at the beginning of the season. If you get an offer for an ad, sell it and tell the magazine to take it out of there prospects. Unless it has gone to print, it cannot be held exclusively. This has been a learning lesson for me and it had consequences. I send to you Nate, my deepest apologies and hope that you have as good a season as you can. Tim.

Danny Kass on the wall, used to be off the wall, now he just does it.

(Danny Kass showing how well rounded of a snowboarder he is)

    I had the opportunity to shoot with Grenade for about a week last winter. Those guys are super fun to shoot with. A good session went down on this wall, we were shooting well into the night and the temps were well below zero. I'm always impressed with Danny's ability to conquer anything he wants to on a snowboard. He was towed in on a snowmobile and had to clear the grating and also the landing was really flat. He killed it with this and also a bs1 out, huge. For such a little guy, he has strong legs.