Speaking of traveling and being a mad man. My younger (and only) brother Andy has been traveling and snowboarding for the last year. He’s a bit of a mad inventer/lunatic. When we were kids we used to take things apart and make all kinds of crazy things. We once built a tandem bike out of two bikes, we built wagons, forts, etc. Our parents were pretty cool with us just using the back yard as a mad science department, even today my Dad says whenever i come home “Do you want any of this crap in the shed?”. There’s tons of it. I can get into all kinds of crazy stories but now is not the time.

When we were kids though my Mom brought us up to blue mountain one weekend to try snowboarding. We both got hooked and at christmas that year we both got snowboards. That was the beginning of years of going to the local mountain to snowboard after school everyday.  I remember clearly being there one night and we (two of my friends and my brother and I) decided to try the terrain park for the first time. We all sat down at the top of the run and watched in awe as older kids with way cooler jackets and snowpants jumped and spun off of all kinds of obstacles. Being the ass that I was I told my brother to go first. He asked what do I do? I responded just go straight as fast as you can into that jump. My brother without hesitating stood up, aimed his 130 odd cm long board down the mountain, and sped into the jump. What happened after that I can still see in slow motion. At full speed off the top of the jump his board with the momentum of a pendulum flew 20 feet into the air dragging his upside down body up behind it. Eventually (upside down) he came down from the sky past the obscured other side of the jump like a rocket falling out of the sky and falling off the edge of the horizon. My heart sunk… I thought…”I’ve killed my brother, he’s broken his neck for sure” “My mom is going to lose it on me”. We all in a panic with sweaty palms looked at each other then rode down to the landing, seeing the backside of a jump for the first time. There he lay at the bottom of the landing totally fine with some remark suggesting he will attempt it differently next time. That was the start of years of snowboarding being the centre of our universe. I unlike my brother was fortunate in having a best friend who’s family was fanatical about skiing. I got to go on all their ski trips. BC twice a year, three trips a season to Vermont, I couldn’t have been luckier. All the while my brother was stuck at home, but he still worked hard. Eventually my parents started skiing too and I went on to return the favour to my friend and my brother would tag along on the big mountains.

Eventually I left for Toronto for school and lost interest in snowboarding. With no car and busy winters in the city, snowboarding just wasn’t on the radar. I picked up new sports kiteboarding, rock climbing, cycling and clearly am still obsessed. But my brother stuck with snowboarding. He went to school in Ottawa and spent more time on the mountains in quebec than he did in class. Eventually he decided that he couldn’t pass up the fortune of good health and a strong young body, and put school on hold to snowboard full time. He went down to New Zealand last summer and spent our summer enjoying their winter. When their winter ended it was the start of ours and he’s been in BC teaching snowboarding at Fernie ever since. Here’s a little video he posted on his blog of all the riding he did “down under”. Sticking with it has certainly paid off for him.

New Zealand Snowboarding from Andy Marr on Vimeo.

I thought since I’m gearing up to travel I’d share this. If anyone is interested you can check out his blog here.

http://wideopeneye.blogspot.com

rm

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ok

rm

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