Matthew Lazzaretto!

Thanks, everyone for leaving your comments and taking part in our warm-up for Summer 2012! We are sufficiently stoked for the first summer session to begin. Keep up with Windells Camp on the blog, on facebook, twitter, vimeo, and youtube.

It’s not too late to get registered for camp, either! Some sessions are still open, and the snow on Hood will be great all summer. Get out to the “funnest” place on earth!

I’ve also done some spring hike/tour missions. Ten miles and 4,000 feet of vert with all your snowboard gear on your back is tiring, but rewarding.

One place I’m always excited to return to is Windells. I’ll be there in under 2 weeks! Skating, shredding, and riding my bike. Last summer was amazing with Saga Outerwear on Hood and I can’t wait to do it all over again. Thanks for checking in and I’ll see you guys soon!

This is an extra exciting Team Takeover Thursday because it is our last installment of the weekly contest before summer camp starts! This time next week, campers will be here and Dakine will be taking over session 1 for snowboarders and Poor Boyz Productions will be taking over session 1 for skiers. Because this is our last Team Takeover Thursday, we wanted to highlight one of our longest Team Takeover Sessioners, Nick Visconti. Nick has been hosting session at camp for four years and before that was a coach, and before that, he was a camper! Nick is a longtime member of the Windells family and we look forward to him coming back every year.

Nick was nice to catch us up on his summer plans and why he returns to Windells every year. We can’t wait for Nick’s creative snowboarding, filled with tuckknees, one-footers and handplants to abound in the Windells park! Make sure to check out The Reunion Team Takeover Session 4, with Nick, Curtis Woodman, Jason Robinson, and Stevie Bell. Combined, these four guys have more energy than a cabin full of campers and they are lots of fun to shred with, skate with, and play knockout (or bump) with. You can check out everyone that will be at Windells for the Snowboard Team Takeover Sessions and Ski Team Takeover Sessions.

And, for this week’s question:

If you could go snowboarding with Nick Visconti for a day, where would you go and what would you do?

Post your answers in the comments below before 4pm Friday and we will pick our favorite answer to win a Windells prize pack! We will announce the winner tomorrow afternoon!

For more with Nick, check out his sponsors. Arbor, Arnette, Sandbox, Sessions, and Pow.

codylee360: @dr_drage working hard at @windellscamp #windells

lukeochoallen: Danger Dave hard at work! #windells2012

someginger: My neat office. #Windells2012

theburrrprint: New Nike blue. #windells

angela_swain: Back to reality and it’s go time for #Windells2012. Death by Sasquatch Music Festival @WindellsCamp

p: @csantz – where did you get this cake? It’s awesome!

The #Windells hashtag has been blowing up lately on instagram! As more staff members arrive at camp and campers get excited that summer is almost here, tons of photos are showing up and they are awesome. Check out some of our picks from the past week and join in the fun by tagging #Windells2012 and #funnestplaceonearth and following @Windells.

p: the burrrprint Our amazing digger, Austin Leonard, has been working hard with the rest of the diggers to make all of the park features look great. Here’s a “before and after” of the Neff/Windells wallride.

p: @tristansadler Counselor Even (@dr_drage) in the Concrete Jungle

p: @jedipauls Counselor Jesse arriving in Oregon.

p: chaseburch Chicken and waffles. The kitchen has been making some awesome meals!

p: ishredfreestyle We’re not sure what is happening in this photo, but we love the shirt!

The official camp countdown to the beginning first day of Windells Camp summer 2012 is just a little more over one week. Here at camp, the Diggers have arrived and are getting all of the features ready to go on hill. Head Digger Chase Weaver and his crew are putting finishing touches on everything before they take it up to Timberline to the Windells private park. We’ve been staring at our snowboards and skis in our rooms long enough, we’re ready to hit the slopes. So, what better for this second to last Take me back Tuesday of the year than an awesome photograph of digger Justin Fronius on the down-flat-down. Yeah Fronius!

It’s getting exciting here at Windells as new staff members are arriving every day. The campus is abuzz with people, moving into cabins, hanging out in the Heshin Delicatessan, and skating all over the place. It’s a reunion for people that have worked at camp before, and a whole new experience for the folks who are here for their first summer. Head Counselor Cody Lee took some quick photos showing a little of what the counselors were up to today. Check it out! Summer’s almost here!

Above, new counselors Ari Morrone and Kelsey Boyer arrived at camp all the way from Pennsylvania. Ari was a camper before becoming a counselor, pretty cool!

Everyone pitches in to make campus look great for summer. Head Counselor Jamison Anton is cleaning debris from the dryslope with a leadfblower.

The Concrete Jungle is perfect for breaks. Stephanie Feld has been a counselor for a long time at camp, but this year, she’ll be ripping up the park as a snowboard coach.

We’re excited Jesse Paul is a new counselor, but he looks like he’s already familiar with the Concrete Jungle.

All of the counselors work hard to make sure the cabins are in great shape for arriving campers. Tons of cabins got new bunks this summer and Roadhouse got a whole new room! It’s really sick!

This isn’t at camp, but Sparky’s Pizza is one of Cody, Jamison, and the rest of the counselors’ favorite places to get lunch while they’re working before camp starts. Not too far away from camp in Sandy, Oregon and Sparky’s is delicious, with tons of different kinds of slices to choose from and a lunch deal on Mondays.

Stay tuned for more updates from camp as we get ready for Session 1 and if you haven’t signed up yet, you still can! Check out dates and register here.

My first trip of the winter was back home to Vermont for the holidays.  I spent a lot of time catching up with friends and family.  This photo was from a day of shredding with three great friends of mine.  L to R: Mike Toohey, Jake Blauvelt and Cole Barash

I spent my winter coaching Roxy/Red Bull athlete, Ty Walker again.  We spent about 7 weeks on the road hitting up the contest scene.  It started with the Canadian Open in Calgary, BC.  From there we flew to Austria for a photo shoot and the Roxy Snow Pro contest.  We went straight out of that to Norway for the World Snowboard Championships, then came back to the states and rounded the tour off with stops in Mammoth for the US Snowboarding Grand Prix and Stratton for the US Open.  The highlight of this rigorous trip was catching the Dropkick Murphy’s live in Oslo, Norway.

These two photos were taken at the US Open.  The first was the result of snowboard therapy.  Ty suffered a concussion and was forced to sit out of the Slopestyle Semi Finals so the next day  I shredded the unusually warm Halfpipe practice session.  My homie Mike Slaughter snapped this one unexpectedly and texted it to me when I was on the lift, I felt a whole lot better after seeing it.  The second is the field of competitors waiting to drop-in to the “Washed Up Cup” event at the US Open.  It’s the first time I’ve competed in a while and it was a blast.  I competed against some of the legends I had looked up to on a course that was a combination of a banked slalom, a giant slalom and a jump after the finish line.  If you did a sweet enough trick on the ‘lil 15 footer you could get up to 2 seconds bumped off your time.  I’m in the back right of the photo somewhere throwing the thumbs up.

I wrapped up my winter/spring shredding with an epic road trip that involved skating three parks in the Park City area.  I then moved on to Mammoth to do some soul shredding with the US Snowboarding Gold Camp members and some super fun skate sessions at the Volcom Brothers Skate Park.  After which I ventured to Yosemite National Park for some camping and hiking.  The next stop was Bend, OR.  After some shredding at Mt. Bachelor in the morning, I hopped right in the car so I could make it to Windells and skate the Concrete Jungle before dark.  These photos are of Bridal Falls (the first one) and Upper Yosemite Falls/Half Dome from my stop in Yosemite.  Since there wasn’t really any skating to be done there I took the time to take some photos. I’m stoked to be back in Oregon and can’t wait for another season coaching all of you on Mount Hood! See you up there!

The folks over at Camtrol were nice enough to let us use some of their products this past summer! Never heard of Camtrol or have any idea what we’re talking about? Well, if you shoot any video, you might be interested in looking into a Camtrol! They are handles / supports for your camera and really good suports too!  They produce different models and sizes for any and all types of cameras to help you get the shot!

The Camtrols in combination with a DSLR, have really been great for shooting on the mountain and at camp here at Windells. Whether we’re shooting follow cams or just posting up at a feature we use Camtrols. Follow cams can be tricky and the goal is to get a nice smooth steady shot. Ideally you want something thats stable as well as lightweight, otherwise shots are going to be shaky or your arms might fall off! The aluminum construction gives you both stability and a light weight, so by the time you get off the hill you still have energy to sink a few balls during knockout and then shovel mac and cheese into your mouth in the dining hall. Along with that, the locking ball joints make it easy and quick to adjust, so it can be tweaked to get just the right angle when following a rider.

Even when we’re not shooting follow cams we still use the Camtrols because they really help balance out the camera and give us something solid to hold onto. The vertical stabilizer is a great secondary grip to the main action control grip and the retractable legs keep the cameras off the snow. And when shooting is wrapped up for the day, they break down to a compact size that fits right into a camera bag.

So, whether your shooting follow cams, posting up on a feature, or doing any other type of shooting, Camtrols are awesome and we would recommend them to anyone. Camtrol just released a couple new models to cater to all sorts of camera configurations and sizes so head over and check them out.

For this Team Takeover Thursday we asked all of you to describe your ideal adventure with Van Bear Pig. The Line Traveling Circus crew has definitely worked this thing to the bone, but there’s always room for another good road trip. Our lucky winner Hunter Muir figured out the next best trip for this infamous van. “I’d take Van Bear Pig down to Cancun, Mexico during Christmas break and try to explain to people what they’re missing.” Ya know what Hunter, that’s a great idea and we wish we could spread the snow love to all those fools in speedos. There is still tons of snow to be had in Mount Hood so get off the beach! Enjoy your new swag bag and have a great summer!Stay tuned for Session 3 with Line Traveling Circus and Will Wesson!

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