Day 2 of The Gathering was a pretty good one.  We started out early skiing powder at Red Mountain in Rossland, BC doing laps on the Motherload chair.  It had been about 10 years since I’d skied at Red and man I forgot how good that place is.  Such fun, steep terrain.  Some of the best tree skiing anywhere, you don’t get steep tree skiing in Utah, especially with 2,000+ feet of continuous vert.  It’s such fun bouncy terrain, I miss skiing in the Northwest so much.  Anyways it was a great day skiing with the OG photographers and finally getting some runs in with people I’ve known for a while but never had a chance to ski with like Jordan Manley and Christian Pondella as well.  The OG’s still rip, it was super fun to ski with them, especially on such a good powder day at a great mountain.  Paul Morrison joined the crew that day to help round out the crew of the old gaurd.

The skiing was so good we ended up blowing off the rehearsal meeting for our photo presentations and instead a few of us worked on our presentations back at the condo.  The above shot is Wade McKoy (who speaks very well, a lot like Tom Brokaw) had a late dinner meeting to discuss that and the future of The Gathering.  I’m stoked at the idea of this event growing in the years to come.  It was so much fun, I hope to have the opportunity to do it every year!

Finally it was time for the big show.  We all got up there in front of a crowd of about 200 people and presented our work.  Wade McKoy started off with some tales of a few epic trips and of course some epic photos spanning the length of his career.  It was pretty sick to see the old and the new and finishing with the imfamous sequence of Jamie Pierre jumping the 230+ foot cliff on the back side of Grand Targhee resort.

I was up next, starting off with my entry slideshow to the World Ski and Snowboard Festival Pro Photographer Search, followed by 7 of the shots I’ve taken that I’m most stoked on.  It was good to be up there, but a bit nerve racking speaking in front of a good crowd.  It was the first time I’ve spoken in front of a crowd since college!  That was a long time ago!

Following me was Christian Pondella, one of the most versatile of the ski photographers out there.  Pondella is a guy that can go shoot a crazy mountaineering expedition in Nepal, then the next week go shoot wakeboarding on a massive iceberg.  Pondella’s show consisted of of course some of his most epic shots but like Wade some epic stories of trips, near death, and some great people.

After Pondella it was Hank DeVre’s turn.  Hank showed some classic photos from way back in the day.  Some OG gems that was really good to see, I’m sure I’ve seen most of them but just when I was 10 so I probably didn’t remember.  Haha!  One of the shots that was pretty memorable was the cover shot from the 1994 Powder Magazine Photo Annual. What was so great for me is to see that not only is that the oldest issue of Powder Magazine that I own, that I distinctly remember buying cause the cover shot was so awesome, but that it originally was a color shot and Powder turned it to a black and white for the cover.  Following Hank was Jordan Manley.  Jordan is the youngest of the photographers attending the gathering and one of the most creative minds in snow sports photography right now.  Jordan’s presentation was full of very unique angles and compositions with some damn good processing making for some really epic shots.

Closing the show was Dave Heath.  Dave is one creative dude.  Dave’s presentation was a 2-week project shooting locals in the Kootenay’s skiing on ancient ski equipment.  Not only were these skiers skiing on old leather boots and bear trap bindings on 210+ cm skis, but the were CHARGING and sending it off of jumps and cliffs.  Mixed in with the action was some real funny lifestyle shots along with some humorous people skiing with some dated accessories.  Dave processed the photos meticulously with effects making the look of the photos match the age of the equipment.  It was one damn good show.

Check it out Here

Schuss from dave heath on Vimeo.

Following the show, it was party time.  In the end, party time followed me back to my condo as the old timers, and of course, Dave Heath kept going till about 5am.  I only took a few of these photos, I managed to leave my Canon Powershot G9 out and I have no clue who took most of these, but I’m glad they did!

Finally at about 5am the night ended.  A few hours later it was up and at em and time to hit the road.  We all got a few more photos for good measure, loaded up in the limo and headed down for the Spokane Airport to head home and end the fun weekend.

The Gathering started last season as an even put on by Powder Magazine and Red Mountain Resort in Rossland, BC to bring back together the group of people that started the way of life I get to live as a professional ski photographer.  This was one of those things I got to go to that was quite an honor for me.  I was picked by Powder Magazine to rep the new generation of ski photographers along with Jordan Manley and Christian Pondella.  It was quite the motley crew there ranging from the OG crew of photographers, the younger photographers, mountain guides, writers and of course some of the crew from Powder.

Powder got us together to meet with the OG’s, ski with them, party with them and present our work along side them.  It was a great time and I’m really stoked I got to be a part of it.  The first generation of ski photographers there presenting were Mark Shapiro, Ace Kvale, Hank DeVre, Wade McKoy.  Also with them was John Falkiner, one of the skiers and now mountain guide who was a part of the movement started along with Ace Kavale who was one of the other guys skiing for Mark Shapiro behind the lens.  The other presenters were writer Mitchell Scott, professional skier /traveller Kasha Rigby, photographers Dave Heath , Steve Ogle and previously mentioned Jordan Manley, Christian Pondella and myself.

The Gathering for me started off with slideshows being presented by people I’ve known about and then some that I didn’t.  Mark Shapiro presented an epic trip from the middle eastern deserts followed by a great show by Steve Ogle.  Following that was an amazing show by Ace Kavale and finally an very creativly shot and edited film teaser for the mountain bike film “Life Cycles” by Derek Frankowski. It’s not live anywhere yet on the web but when it is, you are going to be really stoked.  Derek has spent a few years on this project and it shows.  Really unique imagery here.   Ace Kavale’s show was one of those I wasn’t expecting.  Even though Ace was one of the original generations of ski photographers, my youth showed as I simply hadn’t seen any of his work before, or at least knew who’s work I was seeing. Ace’s show was very very well done and the images were amazing.  Capturing the images of the epic mountaineering expeditions, skiing, mountain lifestyle and just great portraits, Ace’s first name pretty much sums it up.  He kills it.

After the shows from day 1 we had a little party at the Rafter’s bar upstairs at the Red Mountain lodge.  It was a good time, as I got to spend some time talking with Marko, Ace, John, Wade, Hank and Christian Pondella.  I also got to find out that Christian Pondella has a lot of emails to answer.  I called it a pretty early night as it was snowing pretty good that night, and wanted to get a powder day in with everyone, not hungover!

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