For the last six years at Mt. Hood, there has been an event in the ski community that gathers a bunch of riders for a fun week of shred. This event is called the West Coast Sessions. 

The last few years I had planned on going out, but would always fail in my efforts due to circumstances such as, money, bad timing, or last year’s MCL injury. By the time spring arrived, I had already made up my mind that this was the year I would finally go. Little did I know till I was on my way up to Whistler for WSI that I had actually received an invite from the people running the event.  With this I made sure that I didn’t miss out on another West Coast Session and was able to go shred Hood for a week in early May.

When all of the riders arrived we had a nice mellow day to chill around the Windells campus before getting things started with the WCS team draft. When it was all said and done there was six solid teams of riders. I ended up on Team 9-5 with filmers Evan Heath and Hennie VJ. The other riders on the team were Tim McChesney, Collin Collins, Maude Raymond, Brady Perron, Niklas Erikson, John Ware, Andy McDowell, and Noah Morrison.

The entire next week was non-stop fun. We had the most perfect weather of warm temps, sunny, and not windy. With this all the teams were able to get a bunch of great filming done for their edits. On the first day all we did was hot lap the Timberline park and tried to get as many shots as we could.

On the second day we began hitting the big jump. During the day since it was fresh we weren’t able to get the proper speed for it, but during the evening for our shoot we had perfect speed, and thankfully got a lot of work done.

On day three we had a lot more fun lapping on the mountain in the morning, followed by hitting the bigger jump all afternoon. This time the jump had plenty of speed, and thankfully everyone was getting most of their tricks down solid.

On the last day of filming it was extremely slushy over in the park, so we all went to the other side of Timberline and hit some amazing features that Tommy Ellingson and his friends setup. After a bit of making sure the features were perfect, a bunch of people started hitting them. At first I wasn’t that into hitting them, but the more I saw guys hit the jump the more I started feeling like going for it as well. After a bunch of attempts I finally was able to land a new trick. So hyped on ending the session in a good way.

Very thankful Ethan Stone and Brandon Pastucka invited me out for the session. I had by far one of the best weeks of skiing this spring, and made so many memories along the way. Check out my team’s edit below, and all the other edits at http://thewestcoastsession.com/video.html 

After the fun week I had at Hood for West Coast Sessions, I went back home to Spokane for the weekend to surprise my mom for Mothers Day by showing up with my oldest brother Josh, who she hadn’t seen since Thanksgiving. She definitely wasn’t expecting the surprise :)

So happy we were able to surprise my mom! After a great mothers day of smiles and laughter it was back to Mt.Hood for the rest of May. I was able to crash with my buddy Tyler and new buddies Derek , CJ, and Rich in Government Camp.

The rest of the month was spent hanging out, shredding, and having an absolute blast. Unfortunately for us the weather took a turn for the worse, and we experienced a lot of rain during that time. Towards the end of the month, it started to get a little bit colder, and all the rain turned in to snow, a lot of snow. Government Camp turned into a winter play land, and it felt like it was the start of the season all over again. During one of the days after the big snow storm we were hitting a few rails set up, and a couple news crews stopped by and filmed for a little. We were all pretty hyped to get on the news for just having fun during the day.

The following day we were blessed with more snow, and were able to actually get in a late may powder day. Kinda sad, but that was the third day the entire season that I was able to actually ski some powder.  

After a couple more fun days of riding it was time to head back up to Spokane and begin summer.

So grateful for the time I spent out in Hood. West Coast Sessions was beyond amazing, and the rest of the time spent in Government Camp was so awesome. Looking forward to shredding up at Windells this summer, and a lot more good times to follow. Thanks again to Tyler, CJ, Derek, and Rich for letting me crash at their place for a bit, and to everyone at West Coast Sessions for all the good times. Till next time!

-Noah