The other day, while editing photos from the Go Pro event at the Roxy Chicken Jam, I realized I should make a slideshow out of all my best shots of the day. Finally, it's done and uploaded.

Watch it here: http://vimeo.com/patrickbranch/roxypowderjam. All the shots in the slideshow are in a gallery if you want to share or buy individual shots: http://gallery.pbmedia.us/p38979092 .

Saturday was the inaugural Roxy Powder Jam, an event brought on by the weather. Slopestyle was canceled due to less than ideal park conditions, so the backup plan they came up with to replace it was an event where teams of riders were to film anywhere inbounds on mammoth mountain with Go Pro cameras. The footage of whole teams (and individual riders) will be judged and winners will be announced April 11 with $15,000 to be split between them.

I ended up going with team 4. The riders of team 4 were Christy Prior, Danielle Brodrick, and Leslie Glenn. Seth Lee went along to help film with a Go Pro, doing lots of follow shots, while I took behind the scenes still shots of the riding and filming. We started by Main Lodge and worked our way over to Canyon lodge, first dropping a building gap in the trees and then getting some shots of natural gaps and drops with all the fresh powder. We stopped at Canyon for a bit to dry out the cameras and get some food. As we were heading out, we heard the lifts would be closing because the wind was getting so strong. They did close with exception of chair 8 (where a huge line quickly formed) and a chair lift up the bunny slope. We ended up taking the gondola to the village and then taking a bus back to Main Lodge.

At main lodge we built a jump with a gap over two wind lips above the athlete lounge. It was around 2:30 in the afternoon when we built it and the wind was getting worse, but we wanted to get some more Go Pro shots. My camera was getting covered in snow that wind was blowing across the direction of the jump. I had to keep cleaning off my viewfinder and lens. It was an effort to even stand, let alone build a small jump. By the time we finished it, visibility had gotten a lot worse. The riders had a hard time finding the lip to even aim for it and the wind wasn't making being in the air easy. They hit it a few times and called it.

The Trouble Andrew and La Roux show with the awards ceremony that would take place in the village was moved inside to Canyon Lodge because of the weather. Halfpipe was the only planned event that happened. Qualifiers and Finals were combined in one heat because the weather window was questionable. Kelly Marren took first in halfpipe winning the $15,000 purse
with Leslie Glenn in second and 10 year old Chloe Kim in third.

Today, it actually cleared up and stopped snowing, but it was windy all day. Riders started practicing the pipe for the first time during the event at around 11 when the wind died down a little. The comp started at about noon. The results will be announced during the show tomorrow night.

photos from left to right: 1 - lots of riders, 2 - practice, 3 - Leslie Glenn, 4 - Michelle Zeller, 5 - Summer Fenton, 6 - Michelle Zeller, 7 - Leslie Glenn

Today ended up being like yesterday, but with more wind. Qualifying and practice got postponed, so hopefully they can happen tomorrow... Here's some shots from my phone of all the snow

Yesterday was the first day of the Roxy Chicken Jam at Mammoth, a full day for riders to practice the pipe and slopestyle course. But, the weather decided otherwise. When I arrived at the Mammoth airport the day before, it was partly cloudy and almost warm (though, it had been snowing a lot the past few days). Wednesday morning, I woke up to it snowing with a few inches on the ground. As I scraped wax off my board outside, it started coming down more and more.

I made it up to the mountain at 10. Only a few girls were practicing the course, before it closed early. If they could even get speed for the jumps with all the new snow, they wouldn't have been able to see them. I ended up going riding with two girls I met on my flight to Mammoth (Kelly Etsell from Roxy and Audrey Guillemette from DC) and two others. As we got on one chair, a lifty said the visibility was pretty much 0 at the top of it. He was right... we couldn't see too well dropping in. I couldn't believe how deep it was. It was dumping so much, any tracked out sections in the trees became nearly untracked in 10 minutes. I shot the last four photos with my phone, so the quality is a bit lower than with my Canon.

Hopefully events go as planned today. I've been hearing it'll be like yesterday was...

Last Thursday, I left Santa Barbara with some friends, off to Mammoth. We stopped in Bishop that night. They weren't going all the way, so I took a bus the rest of the way to Mammoth, Friday morning. To get myself and all my stuff from lower Main St. to upper Main St., I took a taxi for $5. After dropping my stuff off at a friend's house, I headed up to main lodge to get my pass.

At the media room, I randomly met a friend of a friend, photographer, Makena Hunt. After checking out the sponsor booths, I headed up to shoot halfpipe. I tried a different way of shooting and found it didn't work as well as I thought it would... but I got a few good shots. Both days, it was clear, warm and there wasn't much wind. Last year, the slopestyle on Sunday was canceled and postponed until monday because it was so windy. There was barely anyone on the mountain. Friday was quite warm. Of course, I forgot to bring sunscreen, but I had aloe vera gel in my bag back at my friend's house... I got some SPF 45 sunscreen from the mammoth store that I put on halfway through the day. I ended up with a sweet goggle burn by the afternoon though. Saturday, I shot all day; slopestyle finals in the morning and halfpipe finals in the afternoon. It was awesome watching the girls kill it. Jamie Anderson took first in slopestyle. Janna Weatherby got second and Jenny Jones, third. Kelly Clark won superpipe, with Rana Okada in second and Elena Height in third. After uploading my cards to my laptop, back at my friend's place, I was off to the village for the shows.

The next morning, I went to a coffee shop and got those few shots up. I rode the next few days before going back to Santa Barbara. It was a successful weekend in mammoth. I got good shots, made new friends and did lots of south park laps!

Here's the full gallery: 10.03.26-27 - Roxy Chicken Jam It will be locked for a few days for companies view photos for possible use. If you have any interest in commercial or editorial use of my photos from the event, please contact (email, because my phone is broken) me.