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1st March 2009

Roland Morley Brown, Heath Patterson, Vaughan Brookfield and I went for a bit of a hike up the infamous Grizzly Gulch up Little Cottonwood Canyon in Utah, USA.

Unpacking the Ford Explorer

Photographer Vaughan Brookfield cutting the trail

It had been snowing a bunch and was still snowing so we were just going for a bit of a look and to maybe hit a jump through some trees we had seen a couple of days before. It didn't actually seem like it had snowed that much at the bottom so we took the gully route over the longer groomed cat track you can walk up, a decision much regretted halfway in. There was so much snow, like easy waist deep, no fun to hike through but good to land in.

We were the only ones up there and the weather wasn't to bad, snow flurry's at times with some good light at times to. We built the jump pretty high and poppy but it was smooth so it worked out well. Couple of hamma's went down, none that were documented that well unfortunately. Heath getting a sick front double cork 10 and I got a Back 10 which I only learned the other day. Stoked, have to do it again for the cameras now.

Vaughan in the shell of the Pyramid Gap Jump

Done on dark

A few days later and it was bad weather day so we decided to go do some work on the jump for Pyramid Gap (which is a famous 80 or 90 foot gap up Grizzly Gulch), in the hope that it would fine up the next day. We spent about 5 hours on it and I thought it was looking good the jump was probably 10 feet high and looked kinda poppy but should be sweet.

The next day was fine so we were up and into it early, we built the run in and everything was looking good. I hit the jump a few years earlier and it was good and I thought it looked better than when I hit it last so I wasn't to worried about hitting it first. The run in is pretty intense, steep and has a big roller in it which you need to negotiate before hitting the jump, which you need to hit going real fast.

I dropped and thought every thing was good then just dropped out of the sky, it felt like I was going to land in the middle of the gully, ended up hitting the wall about 4 meters down from the top, crazy. RMB hit it next dropping from higher and almost clearing it but coming up short, Heath hit it next doing a BS1 super casual and without flail going into the wall, one of the funniest film shots I've seen. I tried it once more just coming up short. We tried to think why it didn't work, thought of a couple of possible reasons, we had to go back and give this another go.

Heath Patterson getting corked over the gap

Another day later and we decided to give Pyramid another go. It had snowed another 8 inches or so the day before so it'll be a bit more work plus we wanted to built the jump a couple of feet higher and mellow it out a bit. It ended up taking us 6 hours to get it the way we wanted.

The jump was about 2 1/2 Vaughans or 12 feet high, we made the run in better shaved down and filled in the roller. everyone was shattered but after so much work we had to hit it. Heath went first doing a dope Back 3 clearing the gap but not quite landing in the sweet spot. We made the run in a little higher and it was on. After an exhausting session of maybe 4 or 5 hits each we were done for the day, not really getting the tricks we wanted and wanting to go back with fresh legs for another go.

Heath about to get smashed on the Mineshaft jump

It had been snowing a lot and after a couple of days off we were amping to get back into it, Pyramid was on the list because we hadn't really had a dece sesh on it yet and we also wanted to hit the mine shaft jump which is in American Fork canyon a short sled ride out of Heber. So Pyramid first ad then Mineshaft was the plan.

Pyramid was kinda buried so even more work to do on that, luckily not to much - maybe about 2 hours. The day was getting hot so we didn't want the snow to get to slow so we got straight into it. I was confident about getting over the gap now so I went first, making it over by a couple of meters but needing to go a lil further. I made the run in a little higher and it was on. We finally had a good session!! It was still hard to go big on which was surprising because last time i hit it it was easy to clear and go big on and even hit switch which there was no way of doing now. Stoked to tick it off anyway.

Derek with a Frontside 5

The next day the boys rented a sled and we went out to hit this Mine shaft jump, it was real warm again and as we got to the jump we could see it had already been hit not to mention the landing was in the sun and the snow was pretty baked. At least the jump was built though and the tracks in the landing weren't to bad. We decided to see what else we could find and go from there.

I went for a quick sled trying to get up to this bowl higher up where I knew of some stuff to do. The snow was so gluggy and deep it was pretty much impossible to get anywhere, even the flat was hard to get through. After quite a few attempts and a few times getting stuck I was over anything to do with a sled and we decided to just hit the mine shaft jump. It was good although every one got kinda smashed in the end, a mixture of a soft takeoff, big flat and steep short landing making it easy to under or over shoot. Cool to hit tho, had wanted to hit this jump for ages.

- Nick Brown






Nick Brown is on the NZSBU National Team and is supported by Burton Snowboards, RPM and Export Gold.