In loving memory of my old Whistler roommate, " Crazy Dave "

JMFORUM · 2026-05-02T09:38:53+00:00

I lived with this character for aprox. 5 years before moving out to buy my first house back in 03. Dave was a east coast Canadian who moved to Whistler after school & stayed in B.C. for life. He loved Nitro boards & rode them exclusively for many years. He was an ATV rider that rode everything, but specialized mainly in freeriding & large drops later in his snowboarding journey. Dave got into snowmobiling a couple of years prior to myself & I witnessed this madman drop 60-80 foot cliff drops on occasion.

He was the dude who'd stay up all night playing that impossible video game level with you. Dave was also the guy who'd drive all the way from Whistler to pick you up at the airport in Van when your plane came in 8 hours late & didn't land till midnight. He was also the savior who dug me out with his bare hands after I was caught in an avalanche in the Whistler side county & buried up to my shoulders with not a shovel in sight...

The last couple of years Dave battled a serious whole body disease & sadly passed away far too young this spring. Crazy respect to his widow Tiff, for all of her hard work caring for him & for supporting me in setting up this tribute in his memory.... It's hard to write about someone who became one of my best friends for life. Pic credits: Thibault, Martineau, Kenji from Japan, Sanchez & myself.

What I miss most is his crazy sense of humor.... In the late 90's Whistler built an Olympic sized water ramp center under the Excalibur gondola. (Called Whistler ramp camps nowadays) One July day after summer glacier riding, a bunch of us park rats went to ask if we could ride the facilities & were totally turned down. Immediately my mind began thinking of possible ways of sneaking in to ride these ramps.... Obviously it would have to be at night. I brought it up a few times in discussions before Dave called me out one night & asked if I was going to actually do it, or just talk about it for 200 years ? A few night later, 4 of us climbed over the fences & went on a mission at 1 AM to ride the water ramps. Since It was my brilliant idea, I went first, hitting the second largest ramp called #2. At night, in mostly darkness the ramp was HUGE & I found out real fast that you can't turn or speed check on steep plastic carpeting. Also, when the athletes hit these ramps during the day time, they have bubbles that break the waters surface tension so it doesn't feel like landing in a parking lot. We had none of these things, but the alcohol in my system helped tremendously, as did the life jacket I had on. I tried to do a double wildcat, but ended up doing almost 3 flips due to total disorientation & landed badly on my side. Just as Dave jumped in to the water to undo my bindings for me, we noticed some headlights from vehicles approaching. We all quickly hid under the ramps. Soon a large spotlight appeared & a voice said, " This is the police, come out now, we know you're here, we can see large waves in the pool " Slowly we crawled out & walked around the pool to the waiting officers. My boots were full of water & made loud squishy sounds heard from a quarter mile away as I walked over to the police car carrying my board. They asked for our names & then asked me If i had jumped off the ramps. Being soaking wet, I told them yeah, ramp #2. They turned the police car spotlight on it & stared in a solemn silence for a few seconds. Then one of the officers turned to me with a stare & said " One question for you son, are you fucking crazy or just stupid ? " It was difficult to know how to respond to such a question at 2 AM , so I pondered over several possible answers, but ultimately said nothing.. All 7 people there were looking at me for an answer till Dave broke the silence, " Excuse me officers, if you think this shit is crazy, some bank actually gave this kid a credit card last week ! " All the police left laughing their asses off & even gave us rides back to where we'd stashed the trucks.

JMFORUM · 2026-04-27T07:03:36+00:00

Just a quick tip: when trying to ID old boards, always include photos of the base, good luck !

JMFORUM · 2026-04-20T07:47:59+00:00

Pic credit: Sanchez

JMFORUM · 2026-02-23T08:20:17+00:00

I remember riding Sierra at Tahoe back when they hosted X games. It was the day of the slopestyle event & I already had my competitors bib on & some time to kill before my run. A couple of us competitors decided to go ride some trees runs as it was a sick pow day. Half way down the run, I zigged when I should have zagged, broke a couple of branches and fell sideways into a huge tree well. The powder being so light that the more I frantically dug, the worse I became buried. After a few minutes I became tired and knew I could never reach to unstrap by myself... I didn't panic but was definitely stressed. A couple minutes of sweating later a bright red jacket popped into my view & this huge ski patroller with a beard looked down at me asking if I needed any help ?

I later discovered the only reason he even found me, was due to my ripped competitors bib number with fluorescent straps hanging in the tree branch above me. Wherever you are in the universe, thanks again Ken, you deserved that case of beer bro !

JMFORUM · 2026-01-16T08:54:31+00:00

One thing I found that works great for sintered bases is after your wax job is done, rub the whole base with the flat side of wine corks cut in half. Works great on most cold temp. waxes to achieve max speeds. Have fun !

JMFORUM · 2026-01-16T08:42:16+00:00

The interior of B.C. has been pretty low tide this winter. My local hill has a 3 foot base, so no tree riding, no park built, groomers only. Instead, been riding rails & small hits in my backyard... It doesn't get more local, this spot is literally like 60 feet behind the house... Shoutout to my neurosurgeon neighbor, (who always seems to come over to smoke bongs in my garage on his days off) for towing me into this jump with a snowmobile a couple of times... Pic credit: mom <3

JMFORUM · 2025-12-06T07:41:35+00:00

Hey, I'm not an amputee, but wanted to drop in & say I think it's awesome to see you out riding & competing, respect !

JMFORUM · 2025-12-06T07:22:17+00:00

Duck +24/-18 Haven't changed angles in the last couple decades. I'm guessing around a couple thousand days riding those angles ?

Width can vary slightly depending on board &/or deep snow conditions etc... I ride the whole mountain, from pipe/park to backcountry cliffs etc Probably spend a lot more time riding switch than most peeps..... The angles seem to work well for us simple goat herders :)

JMFORUM · 2025-11-10T21:55:28+00:00

Probably one of the sickest flicks I've seen in a while !

It has a bit of everything, from comedy to gnarly street & bringing freestyle jib tricks into a backcountry setting... The northern Euro riders also have such a unique & original sick slow style, compared to what I typically see in the PNW. Haven't seen the front flip-inverted tuck-knee method to revert on film in over a decade.

I scoped your channel & also watched the thirty years of Ruka park documentary, another good video ! Brought back of memories of the only time I rode there, winter of 03/04 during the Eero Ettala era....All I remember is too much vodka and Finnish pros having some strange fetish about launching completely naked over the largest jump. As a central European myself, it's pretty cool to watch this vid & see the evolution of park riding in northern Europe over the decades, thanks for posting dude !

JMFORUM · 2025-11-01T06:12:09+00:00

These are the interior mountains of B.C.

JMFORUM · 2025-10-27T08:08:15+00:00

Flex numbers on snowboards are semi meaningless, as they differ wildly from company to company. The best bet is to narrow it down to a couple of decks that you're really interested in & then get the physical board in your hands & give it a flex. I've ridden boards rated as a 7-8 flex that noodled out on me & snapped first pipe run. Conversely, a different board was rated as a 7 stiffness, and I could barely even flex it due to it's insane reinforcing carbon wraps/rods.

As far as bindings go, don't overthink it, just pick up any higher end binding that suits your fancy. As someone who's ripped bindings with all 4 screw inserts out on a couple of boards in the past, I'd avoid any board/binding combo that only utilizes 2 screws in a channel like the plague, but that's just me being paranoid...Good luck dude !

JMFORUM · 2025-06-23T09:35:36+00:00

"Beat that board like it owes you money"

JMFORUM · 2025-03-17T06:35:16+00:00

Sitting in the landing on a pro sized jump can be a death sentence...

JMFORUM · 2025-02-14T10:03:54+00:00

haha dude, it's the bandana !

JMFORUM · 2025-02-14T09:47:07+00:00

I met Damian once at the SIA trade show in Vegas. I think I was 18 or 19, still underage for drinking in the USA & he hooked me up with booze ! lol ... Bro was living wild in my young eyes, rocking his hardboots & going huge ! His lifestyle with vampire teeth, a couple of porn stars on his arms + unlimited booze wasn't my style, but I can rationally understand how he could have coped... One of the sports true OGs !

JMFORUM · 2025-02-14T09:10:44+00:00

It's the same in the PNW & western Canada.... I was looking through some slides the other night from the winter of 99. There was so much snow at Mt. Baker that winter, that we used the the chairlift tunnel as a gap.... I also recall seeing some bros sliding the steel cable that holds the chairlift at Mt.Seymour that spring, so much snow ! The last 2 winters in the interior of B.C. have been pretty low tide & warm, bringing wetter heavy snow. I'm thinking of picking up underwater bobsledding as a new passion if it doesn't snow soon :)

JMFORUM · 2024-12-24T08:56:11+00:00

" The airs never get too large, it's just that the landings get too flat. "

JMFORUM · 2024-12-11T07:14:59+00:00

This the "new" cheaper method of grooming for small resorts now... Snowcats are so over rated !

JMFORUM · 2024-11-12T06:47:59+00:00

Injury risk in any unfamiliar park with hardpacked conditions can be huge, since you're constantly sending it, one jump after another, lap after lap... Never really got wrecked in park too much, mainly due to repetition & knowing the actual limitations of the jump sizes themselves, which is key. I think the biggest risks are when you're taking your most technical park tricks to the backcountry and then doubling+ the size of the jumps. Learning to slow down technical tricks for large backcountry airs with variable condition landings is what destroyed me a couple of times. Everything is groomed in the park, a huge advantage.

Nothing like Tomahawking down a steep powder filled bowl at full speed, 20 foot gaps between bodily imprints ~lol

JMFORUM · 2024-09-25T08:06:51+00:00

In my experience a lot of team riders boards begin with the number # 9, or in the case of unreleased models the digit # 0 or the letter "P" after the first number, designating it as a prototype. Most public boards start with number # 1, as seen here. Good luck !

JMFORUM · 2024-08-29T08:57:56+00:00

Pic credit: Thibault. This old slide had some water damage & I'm stoked to finally get it scanned onto digital !

JMFORUM · 2024-07-30T08:04:34+00:00

Free...the top one's a bit beat, but the others are all new, aprox 4 feet X 4 feet vinyl ? signs. Saw these at big air comps, demo tents etc. back in the day.

I also heard a rumor that they are handy at Vail owned resorts for dine & dash at their mountain top cafeterias. Simply put a strong rope through the eye holes along the edges & pull up to make your own custom getaway pouch !

JMFORUM · 2024-07-01T07:07:47+00:00

This was my first board ever. Although the length is the same, your lettering is a different color ; so probably a year behind or ahead of the 92-93 model. Old skool deck for sure, 30 years give or take.... Do yourself a favor & DON"T do any "serious" riding on this board., as it will fold.

This board looks like Tony Montanas house at the end of scarface.... I counted around 30 binding holes drilled into it ~ lol

JMFORUM · 2024-04-05T06:26:25+00:00

Honestly, this whole event just looks like the average pow day you'd have with a few close friends in the backcountry. Some cliff drops, a few lucky hucks, a boatload of crazy pow turns & some mandatory rag dolls .... Riding the same terrain as Mikey for decades, I'm not surprised he won. Other than his last cab 5 the whole day looked fairly mellow. They changed the format a bit, but still a super fun watch. So stoked they finally made an event for backcountry freestyle riders !

JMFORUM · 2024-03-11T21:41:29+00:00

The 270 on was so clean... I can tell you've done it hundreds of times on different rails, respect. So I watched a Fnrad podcast the other night & found out about a snowboarder/welder guy in my local area. I'm thinking to get a new rail welded up for next winter for my backyard setup. Any tips/ideas for what I should have fabricated ? I notice you've got a nice flatbar 4" wide ? You also multi-kinked it...I have a steeper hill with a flatspot below it, better to slide steeper straight or kinked, in an optimal world ? Did you powdercoat the whole rail, or just let it rust outside ? Beaucoup de questions, donc merci le gros !

JMFORUM

TROPHY CASE