cortneyharrington.com

June 2011 update, the season that was

Cortney — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 07:40:15 +0000

On the one hand, it snowed a lot which is good. But I didn’t find this season the be one of my best in terms of being able to use the snow for my purposes. As soon as the storm cycle relented at the end of March, it got super warm and messed up the snow. Literally the first sunny clear day, the snow got baked by that very afternoon. I was hoping to put something good together for Sugar Bowl’s video contest (like interesting powder riding with a lot of creative and freestyle stuff on natural terrain features, or at the very least that kind of riding on fast spring snow) — and I did try but I did not succeed, I wasn’t able to capture what I can really do. In retrospect I don’t really like it much and the conditions I had to work with were utter crap so I am not super enthusiastic about posting my video here. Maybe I will change my mind, I don’t know. It is on youtube, you can go find it. I was riding slow sludge or dust on jagged ice crust most of the shots, it was so bad. As someone said to me on the chair lift one too hot and slow snow day, “this snowpack is such a tease”. It was such a tease.

I want to get good shots, I was so badly to annihilate all preconceptions and misconceptions people seem to have about where the level of women’s riding is in this “genre” of snowboarding. Putting myself through those logistical machinations of trying to make things happen in such “not good” conditions this spring gave me invaluable experience that will be very relevant to what I am trying to do. I’ve been taking it kind of easy since Boreal closed (had some good pipe sessions there at the end of April and early May). I went and took some runs at Donner Ski Ranch last weekend. I don’t really want to financially drain myself in pursuit of N. Hemi summer riding. I don’t know if I will be able to pull off any S. Hemi trips before fall but if I can and if conditions in NZ look okay, I may try to get down there for a couple of weeks.

I had several good days of lake surfing but now the weather pattern has changed to summer and there aren’t going to be waves for awhile.

Update April 2011

Cortney — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 06:10:05 +0000

It has been a season of much questioning and thinking. When I decided to stay here in the Tahoe area for another winter I wasn’t sure I even wanted to be snowboarding. I was writing a lot of strange things. I was wondering if it was time to go, to leave the snow behind and flee to the coast. it hasn’t been easy, trying to progress as a snowboarder and trying to find a niche. It is a harsh insular little society if you are not one of the chosen ones…and I have never been. Some people have done some really negative things to me to try to hurt me and tear me down. It was pretty dark, and it was hard to feel like there was a bright happy future in snowboarding for me when it seemed like I was unwanted and the way I ride or think or create art is not conforming to the standards of the machine.

But ultimately in life, I will do what I want and follow my instincts and my heart. If I wanted to be painting and that was my medium I would find a way to paint and to get my paintings into galleries and sold. When I have no money and all of my gear has 500 days on it and is beat to death and no one wants to ride with me and I don’t have any of the perks of those snowboarders who have money and gear and things and peer groups to film with and all of that…well, I just go out and ride anyway. I just go out and film anyway.

I am focusing on the creative natural terrain riding and the “freestyle in natural terrain type riding” that has been what I have most enjoyed since I started snowboarding. I am going to film what I am doing whether I find people to do that with or have to do everything myself. That is where my heart wants to go. I wanted to run away and go surfing forever because I thought I could find that kind of freedom of expression in the ocean. But when it came time to decide and commit to moving to the ocean I realized that I didn’t want to leave the mountains. I like what I am doing. It is fun. I’ve started to film some of my riding and I see what I can do and I really believe in myself that I can do this. I am doing this. Everything is real now and I have a purpose.

Pattern Change

Cortney — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 07:33:48 +0000

Here is a little storm edit from the first big snowstorm event since New Years. It is a weather video with a little bit of snowboarding in it. Nothing really interesting in terms of riding, but good to see what I can do with the camera with limited help filming my own riding. A new big, cold snowstorm has arrived tonight.

Pattern Change by Cortney Harrington on Vimeo

I need a new snowboard.

Cortney — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 08:17:41 +0000

I don’t have much to show for all of the snow riding that went down during that last huge storm cycle, so here are some pics of my board that I’ve been riding in the many tens of feet of snow Tahoe has already received this season. I keep riding this old 2007-2008 Burton T6 (the second one exactly like this that I’ve had) even though it’s base is peeling away from the bottom of the board on the ends. It gets water in the base and is kind of not riding at its best. Yes, I really am so poor I can’t afford to buy a new snowboard. And yes, I really feel like the season is slipping away from me because I don’t have a new snowboard. I would feel so much better about riding if I had a new snowboard. I have some nice CO2 est bindings new in the box that I will put on my new T6 or maybe a Custom X when I finally get one. Whenever that will be. I have been held back so much by not having the gear I need or not having outerwear that fits and so much assorted crap for so long. It sucks so much that I could barely ride last year because my boots were so packed out and loose I could hardly do any tricks or ride as well as I can, now I finally have boots and now I don’t have a board that isn’t worn out. I just can’t win.

Early Season Snow - November/December 2010

Cortney — Sun, 12 Dec 2010 09:42:05 +0000

This season so far consisted of a couple of weeks of early season riding at Boreal on mostly manmade snow…then there was a huge cold snowstorm cycle for well over a week — during which there was some early season riding at Northstar and Sugar Bowl and I went night riding a little bit at Boreal. Now we are in a lull between true snowstorms. Last week was really wet, with some slushy snow and rain.

I feel warmed up now for the season, and what I want to do this winter is coming into clearer focus. I got new boots but I am still riding a 3 year old board — and I have new CO2 EST bindings I bought last summer but I still haven’t been able to make a board purchase for something to put them on (probably going with either a last years T6 or this years Custom X). It is pretty silly that I am this far into the season already and still deprived of gear but I really am working hard, just barely getting by and doing the best I can.

Regarding my plans for this season, I didn’t sign up for TNF Masters and I am not planning to do it. I am not completely ruling out some kind of competing, but I haven’t registered for anything or made travel reservations of any kind yet. There may be some traveling, but it will be later in the season. I know exactly what I am doing. I have never been more confident in or comfortable with how I am doing things right now.

Apres-ski Party with Animals

Cortney — Sun, 12 Dec 2010 09:15:50 +0000

Apres-ski party with top-level predators. They like their Oakley goggles and are enjoying delicious beverages and fondue. It just cracks me up, putting the goggles on the animals.

Lake Tahoe Surfing Late October 2010

Cortney — Sun, 12 Dec 2010 09:12:43 +0000

Lake Tahoe Surfing back in October. It was small and weak, even for a lake. But within the span of about 4 hours I went snowboarding at Boreal and surfing in Lake Tahoe. After the people who were so nice to take these photos left, of course 3 “real”, bigger sets came through and I got a bunch of real waves. Going to keep after this lake surfing project this winter, but will only be suiting up for the “major” swells.

First turns of the season today on Mt. Rose

Cortney — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 06:53:47 +0000

It was really shallow snow. I didn’t hurt the tree.

Blog entry preseason 2010 early September

Cortney — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 08:36:07 +0000

These are recent things I have written down at different times assembled into a single post.

Winter is still coming and I am still waiting for it. The mountains and the ocean are still too far apart. To go to the ocean now would be too much like quitting, but to stay in the snow may be too much like being afraid to move on…I know what I want to do and will do this winter here in the snow, it is a complete diversion from what I have done the last 6 winters.

There is plenty of excitement in chasing waves, however sporadic trips to the coast become, the winds should be making big things happen on the lake pretty soon. My whole riding aesthetic has gradually gone and taken up residence by the water (without me, for now). A paradigm shift has taken place, there is no going back. It has been happening gradually for the last 5 years or so, like tectonic plates slipping and quaking the Earth a little bit at a time.

I had this epic nervous breakdown at Snowpark NZ 3 years ago, it hit me so hard there all of a sudden how much my aesthetic and values had diverged from the status quo of snowboarding…my direct instinct was to runaway and surf and never look back. But then it snowed and I went and did my natural terrain freestyle thing at Treble Cone and Cardrona and on that Heli day and I felt connected to my muse again.

I watched that Mike Basich movie the other day and he asks the question near the end, “What do you feel most alive doing?” and he is up there on the Summit snowboarding and living his passion…and when I ask myself that question and really delve deep into myself I realize that for me it may not be snowboarding, it may be surfing.

Here is something I wrote a few months ago that I think has some truth to it:
“The game changer for women’s snowboarding maybe isn’t to learn difficult tricks and get treated like the guys with respect to that kind of progression, it is a broader paradigm shift — to have our riding be appreciated as aesthetically beautiful and compelling in the absolute same manner as the men who are the icons of snowboarding. ”

Snowboard movie premiere season has begun in earnest…pretty sure I just saw something timeless and beautiful tonight at the 9191 premiere. I look forward to seeing it again when it goes on iTunes in a couple weeks.

I am not very good at saving the world, I am so glad so many people are better at it than me. A lot of Cove watching and Blood Dolphins watching this week. I have an environmental book I have been writing in fits and starts, I think it is my calling in terms of making a serious contribution to the kinds of changes that need to happen in the world. I’ve done some planning and sketching for some paintings but I am waiting until I know for sure which rental I will be living in for a few months before I get all involved with that, things are still a little up in the air right now. And if I have any public/performanice art protest ideas where my contribution seems like it would be effective, I would engage in that kind of action.

When I go up and look at all of the mountains around here I see a really big and extremely varied expanse with so many possibilities for riding, then I see how it will look in a few months, everything stacked with slightly wind-affected meringue powder that begs me to do things to it. Infinitely complex waves that are from ten feet to 2000 feet tall, and I know how to surf them really well and can do things on them that I can’t really make happen in water (just yet?)

Winter is still coming and I am still waiting for it. The mountains and the ocean are still too far apart.

Still from the pre-movie loop at the 9191 premiere tonight, two skier ladies trying to get out of the ditch, it was pretty entertaining…

Mammoth Mountain, CA June 30, 2010

Cortney — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 08:04:57 +0000

I got up at 4am Wednesday morning and drove to Mammoth. I rode for about 4 hours and then drove back home. Long day. Fun day. Conditions were fairly good where it had been salted. The pipe was really wide but had a couple of good hours, it’s still in the 20-22 foot range. They drove the cat that was salting stuff down the middle of the pipe mid-morning. The run-in snow to the jump didn’t feel like it had any speed at all to it to me, it felt really toasted. Conditions were for sure past the point of spring and well into summer, more novelty snowboarding to keep the legs in shape and to feel the fun of just riding and slashing around. They were farming snow from the remnants of Main Park to improve the coverage on Broadway when I was coming back down to leave at the end of the day. First photo is going up Chair 1, second photo is the view from the top of Cornice.