Red Bull Skiing

*Courtesy of our friends at ESPN Freeskiing

Tanner Hall needs no introduction. The audacious and often misunderstood freeskier out of Kalispell, MT. has been dominating the competition scene for the better part of a decade, but his horrendous crash back in May has everybody wondering: Is the end of the T. Hall era? ESPN's John Symms (himself a professional freeskier) caught up with Hall for the latest on what might be the toughest obstacle he's ever faced.


ESPN: How are you doing, Tanner?

Tanner Hall: All right. hangin' out here, watchin some movies. Yeah, there's not really much else I can be doing at this point, so--

Yeah, I guess that's true.

But it's good, you know. Stoked. Got a new home entertainment system yesterday and been doing really good in physical therapy and s--t so yeah, it's good.

What do they have you doing in physical therapy?

Just getting my range back, you know. I still have to go in for a couple more surgeries, and I have to get my range back and let the bones heal before I can take care of the ACLs.

D-Rock, Super D, D-Train: Call him what you want, Daron Rahlves is a one man slaughter yard when it comes to racing damn near anything. Most recently, it has been his 09 Honda CRF450R, winning the overall title in the Vet Intermediate class of the Mammoth Motocross. Not bad for skier. Way to go, D!

Read Daron's blog entry...

Meet Dano Bruno. This past January, on the morning of the X Games 13 Superpipe Finals, we walked into the zen zone that is the garage of the Armada house in Aspen. The smell of wax and methodic buzz of an expensive cordless drill permiated the senses. Enough Armada skis lined the wall, in various phases of mounting and tuning, to thorougly stock a retail shop for an entire winter...and it was all next year's shiz.

I talked with Dano while he moved through the preparations on Tanner Hall's Armada Pipe Cleaners for the evening's event and got the story on Dano, Tanner's Skis, and perhaps why the Pipe Cleaner is the winningest ski in X Games Superpipe history...

Continue Reading Tech Talk....................

Here's a little stoke for you as we enter the meat of this long, hot summer. I hope you're finding sufficient ways to cope without the snow...or maybe you're ripping it up on Mt. Hood or Blackcomb Glacier right now. Either way, enjoy. Thanks to our homies at Freeskier.

Behold the fruit of three days of labor for Red Bull Photofile Photog Christian Pondella. Aside from being a winner of Powder Magazine's "Photo of the Year," Christian is a general big mountain badass: he's currently taking shots of Red Bull skier Chris Davenport on Mt. Rainier.

It's truly a treat to see Pondella in action. He never messes around, bringing out the big gun flashes and suspending his uber-expensive camera from a 15 foot tall pole, all in the name of getting a better shot of Simon Dumont for you.

Enjoy the gallery.

He's a pioneer of the freeskiing discipline, has nine X-Games medals to his name, and he invented his trademark 'kangaroo flip' underwater in a Brazilian swimming pool.

Jon's many fans have been able to keep up with his hectic schedule (not many skiiers are based in Monaco) until now thanks to daily video blogs filmed and edited by friend and collaborator Josh Knox. But now Jon and Christoffer 'Crill' Kristiansson have made a feature documentary - The Life I Live - with spectacular shots of Jon's season on the slopes, as well as interviews and footage of many of Jon's other 'extra-curricular' activities. --Courtesy of The Red Bulletin

Fire drills and slow-roasting. This is what making ski-movies is all about. You'd think that after all the snow storms and cloudy days of winter you could just roll into late-spring Mammoth and throw up a pipe and get a bunch of shots in the can in a day or so. Not exactly so.

If it's not one thing, it's another. Clouds, storms, rain, high-winds. Out of the five days of potential shooting, most went like this: up at 7am and out the door by 8am. Rally to the parking lot. See every flag in the place straight sideways like it was starched that way. Pull out the cameras and get shots of Simon pretending to unload to go ski...like four times in a row. Load back up for real, go get breakfast for two hours. Go play some basketball. Nap in the afternoon. You get the picture.

But, as you can see from the second Mammoth gallery, when it's on, it's on.

The best laid plans...

Just a few days ago the plan was to get Simon Dumont and Tanner Hall to film, together for the first time, in a 22-foot superpipe built high up on one of Mammoth's peaks. How rad would it have been to see the two best pipe skiers in the world feeding off each other's stoke and creativity? Just thinking of the possibilities blows the mind. Unfortunately, Simon and everyone were super bummed when the day prior Tanner Hall was injured on a jump in WA. With everyone en route to Mammoth, the only thing to do was go forward.

The great news is we still had a perfectly sculpted superpipe and Simon Dumont hungry to throw down. After an epic 3-on-3 tourney down in Mammoth Lakes with Johnny and Tyler from Poor Boyz, Shay from Freeskier, Simon's Agent Michael Spencer, Photog Nate Abbott, and the man himself; we headed up the hill to get some nice afternoon and evening shots. Simon was joined by Red Bull snowboarder, and local Mammoth shredder, Greg Bretz and proceeded to boost out of the huge pipe like he hadn't just taken two months off of pipe skiing.

The footy in "Everyday is a Saturday" is gonna be off the hook. Until then, check out the full gallery. Stay tuned for more action from Mammoth...