in the air on my way home from park city utah to maine i stop for a moment for the first time in nearly two years to pause and reflect on the time that has elapsed since i last wrote to cyber space. i find myself about to begin a new transition back to the me that chases my goals again.. a week in utah mostly consumed by 54 holes of golf connecting with old friends wake surfing till my legs hurt to walk and meeting with sponsors for the u.s. team has brought me back to my focus on the goals that lie ahead in the next two winters. the vancouver olympics are a mere eighteen months away and as we near the opening ceremonies of the beijing games it is hard for me not to start to grin with excitement. the world stage begins to call again and i start to drift towards its distant siren.

the past couple years of my life have blown by in a whirlwind of new experiences.. the prince of monacco set a band of cloth around my neck on the evening of thursday feb 16th 2006 from which dangled the first ever olympic gold medal for mens snowboardcross and in an instant while the national anthem played and fireworks exploded over an italian courtyard basked in a most beautiful blue hue i walked from the world stage my dreams come true and entered into a new stage of life as an olympic champion.. i will not lie. life became overwhelming at times but it also exposed to me great beauty, powerful nature, kind hearts and souls. commraderie with the people in my life who had been there before it all. the interaction with beautiful mountains draped in powder and playing amongst the oceans waves.. quiet times in the woods of maine and many new experiences meeting strangers along the way who had shared in the spirit of my accomplishment. and others who just shared in the excitement of life.. but tonight on the final leg back to portland i find myself newly inspired and ready to begin the chase again. the stories will resume and i hope you enjoy them.. seth

looking beyond gold..

the funny thing with a long term goal like the olympics is that as soon as that day is over, years of work and motivation seem to fade away into that very next night. its time to move on, deal with the details you had left unfixed and figure out what it is that you want next out of life.. the first step for me was an easy one.. the celebration lasted in earnest about a month before i had a harsh awakening. on the first day that i had planned on returning to competition, at a world cup in lake placid new york, i had shown up late for the race day of qualifiying, and in an attempt to learn the course in as little time as possible jumped in the start gate next to a young swede named jonathan johannsen. i asked him if i could follow him down the course. he said sure and pulled out of the gate. i gave him a second or two and pulled out to follow him and get an idea of what i was in for racing that day.. unfortunately less then thirty seconds into the run tragedy struck. jonathan got stuck on his back leg on a large down roller that was poorly designed and couldn't make the move to suck up the take off on the next jump. i was about a feature and a half behind at this point and watched in horror as he launched sickeningly high of a jump with far too short of a landing.. he died on impact and i watched as the surreal scene unfolded in front of me. the ski patrol giving him c.p.r. and then the horrible reality of watching them stop and give up so they could transfer him onto a sled to get him off the hill. i hiked back up the race hill to the start where i had to be the bearer of bad news.. i felt sick. i told the first couple of people i saw. drew neilsen of canada. jonathan's team mate matius bloomburg. when i got into the race tent at the top i saw nate holland feverishly waxing his board and told him he could stop, there wasn't going to be a race today.. he didn't get it. but i'm almost out of time he said. no nate there isn't going to be a world cup today because jonathan johanson just died.. i grabbed my backpack and headed off the mountain. the next couple of hours sucked, sitting around the base area seeing the devestation on the faces of everyone as it set in and the news spread. my father was there to watch the race and i spent an hour or so on the deck of the lodge talking to him about the good things in life and how its so prescious. i packed up my truck that afternoon, decided that i had had enough of racing for the year. canceled my trip to the next stop of the tour with my coaches. got into a fight with tanja about not making the trip to japan. collected my friend terry plumb who had made the trip over with me to reunite with old racing friends from his days on tour, loaded up the truck and beat it over the frost heaved new england roads back to maine. i dropped terry of in naples late night and continued north to carrabassett.. it had been an overwhelming day and i was lost in my thoughts when twenty miles from home a dear jumped into the road. i locked up the brakes till the last second. pulled an evasive manuever into the left lane and got the truck around the dear only to hear the sickening thud of its body slam into the side of the truck still in full sprint. i watched as it picked itself back up in the road launching itself over the left snow bank and disappeared into the night. way too scetchy of a day i thought and eased up until i got home and passed out with heavy eyes and a heavier heart that night..   

GROUP
when i got up to cordova a few weeks later i arrived to a heros welcome from small town alaska and it was awesome. on the first trip through town from the airport i was blown away to see my name painted on the local store fronts welcoming me back. the town threw a party giving me the key to the city which was really just an oversized bottle opener but was awesome. they brought so much halibut and salmon out to camp and there was a serious feast at the nefco. that night. here is the crew that got recognized that night. cinamatographer tom day, my riding partner and swiss olympian ueli kestenholz, founder and owner of pnh kevin quinn, the mayor of cordova rocking the gold, myself, happy, flo orely freerider extrodinair from austria, and my old dynastar teammate and big mountain king, soon to be doctor and all around amazing person, mitch tolderer. as you might be able to tell by the smiles it was a little bit into the night and we were stoked that we had finally gotten the town to be excited about pnh and all the exposure they bring to that amazing little part of alaska.

after more then a month off snow with all the olympic follow up hoopla it was nice to get back to what i love to do most and just have the chugach range to go riding in! i felt like i was home.

our austian filming ace for the past five a.k. seasons seppi dabringer surveys the possibilities..

clouds and wind rolling into the zone make for nice pictures but also the end of a day.

the northern lights are the most beautiful and awe inspiring thing i have ever witnessed in nature.. some nights in ak you are so tired yet you can't help but stay up half the night to witness a show like this.

looking across toon town at ueli, will paden and flo while i hiked into position to get some of the best snow of my ak trip in 06. toon town is an area i have gotten to ride so much now its really just become a nice little playground set amongst some of the most scenic areas of the chugach and tucked under the towering pontoon peak.

fish cannery debris rusting into the landscape

the front window of the reluctant fisherman.. many hours spent at the reluctant and as you can see on this evening they were open for business.

glacial ice making its slow march to the pacific under the spring sun.

on my men's vogue shoot we got to fly into some really amazing glacial areas. this one in particular made me feel like we had landed on some sort of moonscape. the helicopter puts a very little area in an emense field into a bit of perspective. alaska has a great way of making you feel very very small.

leaving alaska over the mud flats. such surreal landscapes i have never found elsewhere in the world.

leaving munic on our way to the 07 world championships in arosa switzerland. global warming in full effect as peter foley, jason "ears" smith and i tripled up in the front seat of the van euro style. 70 degrees in munich in january is a scary reality but unfortunately it has met us there for the past two winters.. the had to build the course mainly out of hay bails and push what meager amounts of snow they had on top of the piles.. less then perfect conditions but we had to make due..

america, fuck yeah!! lindsey with gold, me with silver and nate holland with bronze completeing the colorway of hardwear  at the world championships. our wax tech andy buckley had just joined us that week from the alpine ski team.. after a first worlds experience like that he never went back to work for the skiers!..

opening ceremony of the world cup in japan. crazy parade of costumed japanese. madness always tends to ensue with all the free sake that flows and this year was a particularly fun opening ceremony.

ever since i first saw the movie scream of consciousness in 92 i have wanted to ride powder in the trees of japan. while i have had it all right a few times over there i finally got the dream day at furano. to make it even more fitting i spent it riding with one of my childhood riding heros and many year destroyer of the alpine world cup from back when it was cool. mark fawcett. the week ended as a major down note for me and was a season ender. shattering my left radius while i had the lead in the finals of the world cup.. a brutal japanese hospital experience while they tried for twenty five minutes to set the bones without painkillers and finally gave up. a 36 hour travel day back to vail where tom hackett and randy viola fixed my arm with a plate and thirteen screws and it was time to head home to maine to recover in time to head up to ak six weeks after surgery..