After swiming in my boxers on the Smith a week ago I thought that my next trip to Montana would be all nice and warm.  WRONG!

We rolled into Ennis with the wind howling and the rain deluging!  That didn’t stop us from fishing.   We wadered up, through tight casts, and caught fish!

Over four days we fished multiple sections of the Madison and every day we caught fish.  Some days were great others we casted and tied knots, with the occasional fish tug.  Regardless we were in Montana, catching fish, drinking whiskey and having a great time!  I’d like to thank Blue Ribbon Nets for the beautiful nets in all these shots.  Please check out their site here.

Day one, woke up in Utah and drove to the motherland!

Inbetween squalls we managed to fish a little.

The clouds were a little scary at one point...

but they didn't stop Jared from breaking off flys...

or catching fish!

It was awesome to have an amazing gal on this trip! Sydney can out fish and out drink most of the boys on this trip!

The snow was pretty amazing to fish in.

Dan didn't let a little snow get in the way of his midge hatch.

Syd and Dave making sure Jared and Dan know when they miss fish!

The evenings were filled with whiskey, fish talk and tying.

We floated the Madison one day and Ryan was the only one who caught fish...

...Whitefish!!!

The next day we went to a super secret spot and caught a ton of fish!

Ryan crushing this fish with a Blue Ribbon Net!

The rainbows were in full spawning colors and beautiful!

I think this is my favorite shot from the trip.

“April on the Smith?”, I responded from a phone call from my buddy Mark Seacat.  “That sounds cold!”

I have always been told that if you get invited on the Smith you cancel everything your doing and go!  So I did, regardless of the warnings of feet of snow possible and wicked cold temps.  I also volunteered my son to go as well, because misery loves company.  I saw it going two ways.  Either the weather was going to suck and Eli and I would be whining the whole time or we would catch a break and have a fun time but not many fish.  We got the later but it wasn’t all true.

We did the 60 miles of floating in 3 days with awesome weather and one of those days was one of the best fishing days of my life with around 30 fish from 16-19 inches.  Below are some image I shot between slaying fish!

I'm not sure if I've said this before but this is the coolest kid on the planet!

50 miles of canyon and money fishing!

I only caught a couple rainbows but this guy was fat!

Ben is like an older brother to Eli. They are best buds!

This trip turned Ben into a fisherman! This fish had a bit to do with it!

Yeah, 50 miles of this! What an ugly place!

I got introduced to a net company on this trip, Blue Ribbon Nets out of Bozeman, MT. If you see a net in any of my photos from now on it will be a Blue Ribbon Net.

Welcome to crushtown!

Streamers and drys, the browns wanted them all!

...still ugly!

Eli taking a break from fishing.

Ben letting a good one head back home.

The last day the sun came out and we didn't need these anymore!

This was my biggest of the trip. There are way bigger fish in this river which will keep me coming back.

Packing up and heading home!

The Crew

Wow!  The last two months have been busy.  I’m finally getting a chance to breath between river trips and figured I would update this for all you peeps out there who care!  First off I went back to Haines for just under a month and it was awesome!  I got back for a week and then went to Montana to fish the Smith river.  Now tomorrow I leave for a fishing trip on the Madison!

Haines was awesome!  It was by far my best trip to AK and we captured a ton of great stills and footage!  I got to work with Carston Oliver, Donny Roth, Drew Stoecklein, Zack Giffin and Sweetgrass Productions.  We were on the Glacier for 18 days and had 6 days of travel which lead to some busy time!  This first update will be focused on the life around camp and where we got to spend our time on this amazing trip!

We flew into Juneau and then took a ferry to Haines.

Some of the peaks you could see on the way to Haines.

We got in from the ferry and then got flown in by Drake Olsen.

I got to be the first one on the glacier and it was pretty sweet to be in the middle of nowhere all by myself!

This is the zone we got to play in for 18 days!

The standard night tent shot

This peak has been plaguing my memory for a long time now and it was one of our goals.

All we had was our legs once Drake dropped us off so we made lots of these.

Only having 5 down days was super sweet. On the first two the cave was dug.

To get sunrise you have to wake up at 4 in negative temperatures, put on ice cold, ice hard boots and skin for hours to be on top of your line to shoot. Not an easy thing to do at -20F.

The crew in their puffys!

The sunsets were pretty amazing too. Stand by for some action imagery!

On the way home from Nelson I got a call from my good friend Ben, in Bozeman.  He told me that it was snowing in Cooke City and the avi conditions were manageable.  Since we left Nelson a little starved for snow all it took was one look at Carston and we were in for another Beartooth adventure.  We arrived in Bozeman a couple hours later packed up, picked up Ben and Ryan and headed to Cooke.  Cooke is the snowmobile capital of the world and also has some of the coolest backcountry ski terrain in the world.  We went last year and got on some crazy spines but this year avi the conditions weren’t as cooperative.  What I didn’t know about the Beartooths is that they have a ton of super cool pillow lines and we were already in pillow mode from Canada so it fit in perfect.   And once again soo much unfinished business, so I guess I’ll have to go back!

You have to drive through Yellowstone to get to Cooke so you see a bison here and there.

They like to hang out on the road and as you can see they are as big as my truck.

I feel like all the slednecks look at us like we are crazy and we think the same thing about them!

Ben Nobel not rupturing his achilles.

Ryan Walters finding some pillow playland.

As if Carston didn't get enough pillows or pow in Nelson.

Four dudes and one very small room...

Cooke is a very unique place.

These guys are serious!

There was a Snow Hawk convention going on while we were there so these guys who I had never scene before were all over the place.

With 2 feet of fluff on facets the landings were sweet!

Ryan finding a pretty cliff to send.

I’m pretty excited about my 4th cover of this season.  It is a shot in the Brighton backcountry of a very talented gal by the name, Pip Hunt.  Pip and I were working last season on an article for ESPN Freeksier when we stumbled upon a little gully.  The tree shadows and light were perfect and I could get above on a little knoll.  I set up for the shot and Pip nailed the line.  Now a year later and it is on the cover of Backcountry Mag!  Some days just seem easy while others you work so hard and don’t get anything accomplished.  This day we also had an ad for Voile, which you can see on a previous blog post here and many of the images in the ESPN article.  Thanks Pip!

Pip Hunt the Mountain Chic!

13 hours after we left Salt Lake we drove into Nelson just as the clouds were letting up after a good storm.  The following days we crushed all terrain knowing that any day it would cloud up and we wouldn’t see the sun for awhile.  We ended up getting 5 days of clear, which I think is a record, each one of them beautiful and well captured by many cameras.  There was a required down day after many early mornings and late evenings and missed landings and long skin tracks.  Then we set out to get shots in the dreary, foggy, no light conditions that are so prevalent here in BC before the sickness struck.  Sitting here in bed wishing I didn’t feel like such ass, I find a small grin creeping across my face as I  look at all the shots we killed in only one week in BC.

Day One, money shot in the bag with Carston Oliver.

After building a jump for 4 hours one day and finding out that the landing wouldn't work we found a natural cornice that put Hayden right over the sunset!

Tandem booters are twice as much fun for Eliel Hindert and Hayden Price!

Ben Sturgulewski from Sweetgrass Productions stoked to be filming Carston on the RED!

This is the first time I have ever scene surface hoar encapsulate the whole skin track.

Michael Brown nailing the pillow shots!

BC had fields of pillows for Carston play in!

Then the darkness came over the dude...

I brought up a bunch of ropes with the hope of making use of days with bad light and it worked out pretty good. Here Ben is filming Thayne Rich getting nasty over a creek.

Now we wait patiently for more snow or more light, which ever comes first.

I just got back form a whirl wind crush session to Cody, WY.  I was there on a ice climbing photo shoot for Rab, with Aaron Mulkey, Travis Kemp and Kelly Dedel.  We hit 4 different climbs in 2 days, and if you have ever climbed in Cody before you know that isn’t an easy thing to do.  The funny thing about this shoot is that Aaron and I were both fresh of the injured reserve list from playing indoor soccer.  Aaron just had his ACL fixed and I just tore my groin.  Travis flew up from San Diego, where he has been for the last two years, and we all know how much ice is down there, and Kelly just started climbing ice.  Sound like a difficult project? Not when you have a motivated crew that is ready to go to Crushtown!  I think we did just fine…

The South Fork of the Shoshone River, one of the best ice climbing destinations of North America.

Aaron and Travis getting ready for round one.

Only hard men seek out overhaning ice and Aaron found some!

This little pillar was a gem in the middle of the Wyoming desert.

Travis keeping his head in check on his first rad route in awhile!

Kelly found herself a bit pumped on a sweet route.

Aaron making it rain for the camera!

Travis making a pretty route even prettier!

What an ugly walk back to the truck.

The end of two days of hard work, sweat and tears!

If you think getting skunked will stop me you have another thing coming!

I had a great week last week getting my leg ready for my ice climbing shoot in Cody, WY.  I got to ski at the resort on Monday.  I got to tour in Little Cottonwood on Tuesday and got my last day of hunting in for the season.  Wednesday was the chukar rematch and they won most rounds but not all of them!  Ryan and I headed to the super secret chukar spot that didn’t fail.  Every time birds got up I got shots and Ryan didn’t.  I missed them all but near the end of the day we flushed one that Ryan had a beautiful shot on and 2012 became the year of the chukar!

Cholla is one of the coolest dogs ever. Could you imagine running through chest deep snow all day and loving it?

Ryan is one of the coolest hunting partners ever. For every 10 shells out of my gun and no birds he has one shell and one bird.

Not a bad place to spend a day.

We hunted this whole ridge hard.

Again, Cholla killing it. My dog you can't even see because he walks behind the hunters.

He is old and tired but wouldn't miss a day in the mountains for anything. Tigger the dog of all dogs!

...and could we get a happy ending? Yup!

After about a month off of skiing from ripping my groin and hamstring, I finally got back on snow.  Yesterday, I skied at Alta and today I went for a little tour to check out our sketchy conditions.  I went with my friend Jonah who I have sat on many ridges with and shot tons of skiing.  Today he wanted to shoot some time lapses and I shot a bit of skiing.  Nothing was A material but it just felt soooo good to get out and tour.  This was the first day ever I have been up in Grizzly Gulch and didn’t see a single person or track.  It was awesome!

I kind of tweeked my groin and hamstring playing soccer and it put me out for 4 weeks.

I can't help but to take pictures of Mt Superior when there are clouds around it.

Jonah skinning up!

I'm just starting to remember what powder looks like.

Jonah blowing the shot!

We hung out on the ridges trying to stay out of danger.

We aren't far away from a real Wasatch Winter!!

My life isn’t very interesting since I hurt myself.  I’m very limited as to what I can do.  Skiing out!  Ice climbing out!  Ice fishing….IN!

Ohhh Yeah! I said that…ice fishing.  My son Eli loves ice fishing and right now it is about all I can do that gets me outside.  Luckily my friend Ryan is an expert ice fisherman and has all the gear so all I have to do is drive.

While I was on one of these adventurous outings I decided to test the camera on my new i-phone.  Yup you heard that right too! I finally made it into the smart phone world.  I have heard the camera is super sweet and I wouldn’t need a point and shoot for those small trips when I don’t want to haul the DSLR.  You tell me.  See if you can guess which images are from the DSLR or the i-phone.

Siri doesn't do real well with high contrast situations.

I can make ice fishing look appealing. Hint: DSLR

Siri does much better with front lit situations but this is a little grainy because I used the lens on the front of the phone which apparently isn't as sweet as the lens on the back.

I love my DSLRs!

I saved the toughest for last....