Tim Brauch Memorial Skateboard Contest

September 27, 2009

This weekend Sessions kicked off the 11th Annual Tim Brauch Memorial Skateboarding contest at the Scotts Valley skatepark in Scotts Valley, CA. This year was one of the biggest years yet with over 100 skaters from the grom to grandmasters level, and boy were they all destroying the courses. On Saturday the groms and ams got down on the street contest, competing for a ton of great prizes from our sponsors. The bangers were out that day in the amateur division showing off some sick tech skillz, and killing all aspects of the street course. Are 360 flips the new kickflip?

I don’t know why but it seems that everyone has those dialed these days, and so steezy.
On Sunday day two of the contest, we switched up the park to the Lake Cunningham Regional Skatepark in San Jose, CA and prepared for the heavy hitters in the girls, Local, Pro, and Grandmasters divisions competing in the sixteen foot skull bowl to take home the 1st place prize purse. Hosoi, and Caballero ended up in the finals battling it out for first place, but Hosoi’s continuous 6-foot blasts out of the skull bowl couldn’t match Cab’s flow in this round. Cab stole the show with his unreal flow and buttery slides leaving the judges with no other choice but to put him on top of the podium. The turn out was great this year and we appreciate everyone that came out to support Tim Brauch! Also, thanks to all of our sponsors and everyone who made this event possible!

Results:

Grandmasters Division:
1. Steve Caballero
2. Christian Hosoi
3. Tony Mag
4. Mark Partain
5. Josh Nelson

Pro Division:
1. Brad McClain
2. Michael Brookman
3. Steven Pineiro
4. Sky Siljeg
5. Josh Rodriguez

Locals Division:
1. Chris Henderson
2. Cory Juneau
3. Jerry Gurney
4. Brad McClean
5. Shane Sullivan

Girls Division:
1. Lindsey Adams Hawkins
2. Allysha Bergado
3. Priscilla Lee
4. Lizz Armanto
5. Erin Wolfkiel

Ams Division:
1. Tommy Werner
2. Adam Emery
3. Anthony Anaya
4. Dylan Hilton
5. Christian Lanza
6. Nate Linford
7. Zach “Ducky” Kovacs
8. Skylar Bowers
9. Stephen Moulding
10. Jeremy McNamara
11. TJ Lewis
12. Jesse Boudreax
13. Stephen Smith
14. Konnor Adney
15. Brogan Robinson

Groms Division:
1. Jake Selovar
2. Drake Riddiough
3. Ryan Sanders
4. Joshua Douglas
5. Ethin Montes
6. Kalani David
7. Matt Beaton
8. Ricky Williams
9. Reid Nikolaieff
10. Shane Sullivan
11. Justin Miller
12. Jack Doran
13. Pero Simic
14. Koa Cortina
15. Stephen Hill

Almost Dead Full Movie on TWS

NC Production's 2008 release Almost Dead is now online. Almost Dead features Sessions AM Kyle Miller. Miller starts off the movie with the opener and also features amazing riders like Lucas Wilson, Jason Robinson, Kyle Martin, Justin Norman, Vincent Remmel, Aaron Robinson, Aaron Brietenbach, Carson Schubert, Nicki Wiess, Jonny Malanga and Skylar Thornton. Filmed by Leland McNamara and Sam Hiltner. Don't miss this one, she's a good!

Almost Dead from Leland McNamara on Vimeo.

Montevideo Premier @ 50/50 In Truckee

September 16, 2009

Last weekend Truckee, CA's 50/50 Brewery hosted the premier of the new Autumnline video "Montevideo," starring Sessions riders Brett Butcher, Andreas Gidlund, Kyle Miller, and Taylor Carlton. The Premier had a great turn out and everyone had a hootin good time! Check out some of the pictures from the premier below!

Miller on the Big Screen!

Sessions VIP Section/ Nacho Bar

Havin' some fun during the video

Steve having a nice cool glass of apple juice

Bataleon team rider Nicky V. Showed up to hang with the Sessions crew

The ladies love Sessions Team Manager Brett Butcher!

To much fun in one night....But still hangin on the that Sessions lid

Chile MegaPost 1

Well I got to finally do some good summer snowboarding this summer. Unlike my usual routine of spending almost everyday in hot weather on a fire line digging all day. Lucky for me I was able to get a little bit of both and cut fire season off a little early and come down here to Chile. Myself (Kyle Miller) and Shane Stalling got down here about 10 days ago and have pretty much loved every minute of it. I flew down here by myself which went pretty well for not speaking much Spanish at all, very shortly after I got down here I met up with Shane and a few other buddies he had came with. We were able to get a pretty good deal on a rental car and headed up to a small town in the mountains called Farellones. The road from Santiago to Farellones is crazy, the gnarliest switchbacks, insane drivers and lots of stray dogs to dodge. Our first day at Valle Navado was insane. We drove up the day before in pretty heavy fog and couldn’t see much at all. The next morning we woke up to blue skies, completely surrounded in snow covered peaks and about 10 inches of fresh at Valle. I was speechless to say the least. We spent our first week in Farellones riding Valle Navado with breaks of near by lines and jumps. I have not done any real international travel so just being in another country like this is a lot of fun. I take pictures constantly. The food here is pretty tasty, it’s not a lot different than food in the states but you’ll find some pretty wild stuff here and there. The first trip to the grocery store was pretty eventful for me. The wine is very cheap in Chile so that has been our primary beverage, that and Emergen-C. We caught some bad weather for a bit after our arrival that brought down a bunch of rain in the lower parts of the mountains. There was so much water running down the mountains a pretty massive landslide let loose. A few houses were hit by it and the report said two people were killed. It took them a few days to get the road all cleared off. Boulders the size of cars were moved from this slide. It was crazy to see the aftermath. We just arrived in a small town outside of Chillan called Las Trancas after spending a few days running around Santiago. Santiago is fun place. I was really stoked on the street venders, bought some neat stuff. Stumbled upon a zoo while skating around the streets, also pretty jazzed about that. We spent our first day up here hiking around the resort of Navado de Chillan doing some little gaps and mini shred features. The mountain has a not so pleasant scent due to the hot springs, but the boarding is good. I think I hear it raining outside now, hope it’s snowing up higher. More Chile boarding adventures coming soon.


Leo


Sunrise coming into Santiago


Mountains for days


Yeah...not to bad here


Powder snow


First jump in 5 months... hope I still got it

Air time


Shane high speed boarding


Shane doing what he does best


Bet you 5 bucks to climb that wood pole


Big ol' chunk of meat


The essentials


Mr. Crab


Rental car in Chillan


Touched a monkey


Valle Navado


Pretty rewarding hike


Still need my summer bronzing right???


Buddy Murph ripping a Chute

Shane getting mini jibby with it


Shane fs 3


Good morning Andes


Night boarding from the bar


Montana Photog Jeff Hawe really excited on my ollie skills

Sessions ladies in Argentina

September 3, 2009

Day 4 South America Snow Sessions

It is day four of our adventure here in Bariloche, Argentina in South America. We began our journey at the end of the first weekend of August and settled into a hostel in the MicroCenter of Buenos Aires. During our weeklong stay, we explored, tasted, and enjoyed all the city had to offer. We have been blown away with the beauty and elegance of this country, but that does not even start to explain the regions of the Andes we have been apart of these past few days.We will be spending two weeks with the snowboarding camp South America Snow Sessions, or SASS, that specializes in backcountry style snowboarding with a side note in searching out the best tree lines, natural features to ride and big mountain riding. There are 85 other campers that come and go within the session, including professional snowboarders and skiers who are out to train and explore the area.This session at the camp has combined with MGT, More Good Times, an all girls company that organizes and hosts all girls snowboarding camps. We have been riding at Cerro Catedral Resort, and have been in the middle of a weeklong storm with has delivered more than 4 ½ feet of fresh powder. The local patrons at the mountain are mainly found riding the groomed trails of the mountain, which leaves dozens of untouched tree runs that stretch the entire length of the mountain open for us to shred.Although we have only spent three days out snowboarding, Krista and I have racked up more powder runs, cliff jumps, and tree runs, than we have in all our past seasons combined, and have also found it necessary to take a day off to rest and recuperate for the rest of our days here is Bariloche.Cerro Catedral is known for its access to multitudes of powder and long trails, but it is also known for its dangerous terrain, which often is associated with avalanches. All the campers are required to be wearing a working beacon carry a pack with a probe and shovel, in case of an emergency. We have daily beacon drills, where our guides and coaches hide an active beacon, and we take turns being timed to search and retrieve the beacon.Although the campers and guides have fun doing these activities, we all have a solemn approach and acute awareness that perhaps we will actually need to use these new learned skills in a real avalanche.As for now Krista and I are having fun being taught and coached by seasoned veterans of the sport and meeting new friends and chairlift buddies!

Until next time! Adios! Monica and Krista

Tim Humphreys Shreds Liberty Snowflex Grand Opening

September 1, 2009

If you haven't heard about it yet, Liberty University in Virginia has just had the grand opening of first and only Snowflex park in North America. Snowflex is an artificial snow surface that simulates the closest possible thing to riding on the real white stuff, It even has such features as a 20ft kicker, 10ft quarterpipe, and even some jibs set up. Once Sessions got word of this event (we are sponsoring the one coming to Califorinia) back about a month ago, we decided that it would be a worthwhile idea to go and check this stuff out to see if it actually works.

Tim Humphreys and I (Billy Flick) hopped on a plane last week to go and test this stuff out and see how you could actually preform on it. As it turned out it was a lot different than we expected but still really fun to ride on, as long as you didn't try to carve to hard on to your edges. It took us about five runs or so to get the hang of it, and then came the jump session. We got to shred the park for at least an hour by ourselves until a few other guys came out to ride with us and turned out to be a damn fun session "Shradical!" Once we were too tired of shredding we headed back to the hotel to wash up so we could go and check out the local snow/ skate shop SCENE3, and have Tim autograph some stickers for the kids. We then went out to dinner and checked out some of the VA nightlife, which there werent actually to many places to go but there were a couple of good spots to hang out, just a whole lot different than we were used too.

On Saturday we woke up early to go to the grand opening of the of the mountain and set up a tent so we could give out some goods, and talk to the media. Tim hung out at the tent for a while then went up to shred in the opening day ceremony demo that the mountain was putting on. He pretty much killed the show for only having one day to ride on it, not to mention it was in front of a 3,000 deep mob of spectators. After the demo we went and relaxed in the freshly built lodge deciding that it was worthy trip overall, even though it was a little unusual to be riding in 90 degree heat with humidity.

Sessions Is the official outerwear sponsor of the Morgan Hill Snowflex Center coming to the bay area, expected to open in the next three years.

-Billy Flick

(See Below For More Pictures)

Tim gettin nasty on the wall ride with a lil frontside invert

Getting that Humphreys signed Sessions logo up front and center on the door of the local skate shop SCENE3, thanks to Jeff Gray and KC!

Sessions tent looking up to the Snowflex Mountain

The start of a new revolution in Snowboarding and Skiing

Humps getting ready to so some Sessions Branding on some innocent bystanders

Got Sessions?

3,000 people crammed in to watch Tim and the others take the first official run off the jump!

Tim about to drop from the top

Dropping!!!

Carpetboarding Mayhem! Gnarly man!

What a better way to finnish the day than to post on a nice leather couch in the lodge! Tim slept there probly three times!