Blog: 2013

my site has been quiet this year due to a new filming endeavor that I created. It's called "The Backyard Project". And this is what its about. 

The Backyard Project - teaser #1

Our society deems whatever we have is never good enough. Marketing is essentially built on this concept. Action sports offer this is in droves. Magazines and videos are filled with far off and exotic destinations. You surf in California? You should head to Hawaii. You’re from Hawaii? You need to head to Indonesia. You skateboard in Vancouver, head to California, then Barcelona, then Australia. Deeper and further, something is better over there. Biking, climbing, kayaking, kiteboarding, skiing, snowboarding.. We’re all fed by the industry that somewhere else is better. We’re fed a dream that is unrealistic to the masses. Helicopters filming helicopters? Multi-month long travelling trips? The industry has glorified the unattainable.

I’ve lived in both Squamish and Whistler for 12 years, and while it could be called the hub of the winter sports industry, even here “you need to head to Alaska. Or maybe Europe”. We have all forgotten what can lie in the backyard.

Every year, nearly the whole snow industry drives up the sea to sky highway en-route to ride the Whistler backcountry.  Snowmobiles are the primary mode of transportation and they make short work of travelling the backcountry. Having lived here for a long while, we now go out with a plan of what cliffs to hit and what lines we want to ride again. It’s like the backcountry is an extension of the ski hill. Every mountain has been ridden, every cliff has been shot, and every jump filmed. Or have they?

I step out of my house in Squamish and every day I’m greeted by mountains. Mountains in every direction. About 30 of them can be seen right from my backyard. I’ve never met anyone who’s ridden them all. You can’t snowmobile to the top. Some are just below treeline and don’t seem like “plumb” lines. You have to find your way through the maze of logging roads, learn the local conditions and slog and climb your way to the top. But the payoff is the unknown. It’s being skunked for days then finally unlocking a mountain and scoring. It’s about finding ‘Little Alaska’ or the “Chuting Gallery” which are hiding in plain sight. It’s the dream that everyone can pursue, but very few do as it’s only the backyard and obviously it’s better somewhere else.

This is a project to find what really does lie around the corner. Hopefully inspire others to follow suite. Obviously, my locale has some pretty amazing mountains but this concept could even be done (albeit on a smaller scale), for example, at my parent’s house in Quebec. This can be done anywhere. Walk out the door, pick mountain, hill (whatever) and ride a line you’ve never ridden. You might say it sucks but until you go, you won't know.  

jl

justin lamoureux - Days with a Camera 2012

better late then never I guess. finally got some of my footage from the 2012 season together. I didn't seem to remember I owned cameras last year. I'd forget them at home, forget to charge batteries, or my favorite - forget to turn it on when it's on your head! sometimes you get too focused on what you're about to do and you forget about the little box on your head. but sometimes it's good to just have your own memories.

enjoy

jl

Made it to the FIS world championships in quebec. Psyched to be competing in yet another world championships (there's been quite a few!). I had some politics to deal with prior and after showing up here, but we're onto the business of competing. Being out in quebec you need to get ready for anything and everything weather wise. last week, i heard the snow as great. on the weekend it poured rain. tomorrow it's going to be -30! yeah it's a little icy, and a wee bit cold.

The cold snow wrecks havoc on your base. What happens with cold snow is the crystals are very, very sharp. In halfpipe we carry quite a bit of speed through the flat bottom and we hold the same edge for quite a while. So those sharp little crystals dig into you base. As you take more and more runs, your base actually starts to get noticebly chewed up by these crystals. Having an event in copper last week (where the snow is cold) then followed up by here basically ruins 1 or 2 boards. Today the board I was riding had finally had enough and the ptex base was not only chewed up, it had gotten so bad that the ptex was actually lower than the steel edge. When this happens your board becomes very twitchy and digs in at unexpected times. I had some troubles on my heelside today and when i saw that on my base I quickly put the 2 together.

After practise, my good friend and old temate Hugo Lemay took me down to a race ski shop that he knew had a good stone grinding machine. The tech had never seen a base so chewed up in his life. I told him to grind it down as much as possible to get the base and edge back to being flat. Having designed the boards I'm on I knew exactly how thick the ptex was and figured there would be enough to get it back into shape.

After the sweet stone grind, the real work started. When we have a new board or a fresh base, generally we will 'feed' the base with wax. I follow a feeding program that I've worked out over the years, but it takes a good deal of coats to get a board ridable. 3 hours of work waxing and tuning the edges. usually I'll be in the tuning area for a while but 3 hours is a very long while to be working on primarily 1 board.

2013-01-17 19.26.59.jpg

some tools of the waxing trade. When the racers show up the tuning room becomes much more crowded and serious it seems.

Tuning is a key component of doing well in contests these days. last week I made a mistake and used a new file guide while tuning my edges for the conetst day and it was different than my old guide and my board rode like poo. This week I'm back to my old file guide. Little things at this level can ruin your contest. Hopfully I learned from my mistakes last week, and my work tonight will have my boards running like they should be.