Urban Reno Snowboarding

I woke up early Monday morning to grey bird sky's and almost a foot of new snow in Northwest Reno. The National Weather service called for substantial amounts of snowfall along the crest of the Sierras and low level valleys even as low as elevations of 200 ft! I received a text message from my sister this morning that they had received snow in the foothills just west of Tracy, Ca. Snow falling in farm towns is a pretty big deal and unheard of, especially in CA. Almost a foot of snow in Reno, NV means that the town will literally shut down as they really do not have the infrastructure & resources to deal with the snow. It also means playtime for all snowboarders looking for urban features to express their riding style.

The night before the big part of the storm, I called Brandon Cocard to see what his plans were for Monday morning. Not to be disappointed, Brandon had informed me that he was already planning on making the trip down to Reno with Alex Horgan to start filming for their next installment of the "Get Into The Van" movie. The rail mission was on as we me up at one of the more popular rail spots as our 1st destination. To my dismay, when I showed up there were 3 other crews along with ours and an insane amount of people. When it's on I guess it's on. The guys battled the lineup of participants and the rail won most of the time. Alex tacoed super hard on one of his boardslide attempts that it put him down for the rest of that session. Brandon was having issues from the start trying to drop in switch. After numerous attempts, he finally go one in the bag, switch boardslide to tail 270 out. Lunchtime!
As we broke down the setup there was another crew setting up on another set of rails nearby, then the boys in blue showed up asking us what we were doing. The boys replied, " we're sledding & having fun just like those guys". The cop smirked at them & moved on to the other crew to take out his life frustrations. Since school was out on a snow day, there were lots of kids in attendance on their boogie board shreds catching air and getting the whiteroom as well. Since the cops had nothing on us and none of our camera gear wasn't in sight, no problem. The other boys on the other hand were having some issues. Hopefully they didn't get stacked with too large of tickets...ouch.
After a tasty lunch courtesy of Raleys, the boys got in the van and rolled to another spot. I had to separate with them for a bit to go grab some other camera gear that I was anticipating to use. Right when I pulled up to the session was on. Once again to my dismay the session was now stacked at least 20 deep with skiers as well. I've shot this spot before & I knew it wasn't going to last long as I have dealt with property management here in the past. Alex was up again and went for a Five-O which ended up into another Taco...damn! Once again, sat the rest of the session out. Brandon dropped in next with a nice & clean half cab front board. Right when he unstrapped, "You guys need to stop that!" Property management showed and session 2 was done.
It was time for our final session and we really had to try to get to a spot without the herd. Filmers Rob & Cam went to a spot ahead of us to see if it was doable...right when they showed up, boys in blue again. Since we weren't with them we proceeded to rendevous to site B. Site B, no cops, but a herd of shreds trying to get the shot as well. It was getting late in the day as the sun was starting to fall on the western crest of the Sierras. Cam & Brandon decided to hit the rail while Alex sat this one out deciding to take on more classical snow advetures hooky bobin behind a quad that showed up to check out the show. Cam was on his game an landed a few slides. Brandon got a nice backlip in the bag & decided to step it up a tad. It took him a couple of tries and put a frontside 270 board on the bolts....call the day done.
In retrospect, Monday December 7, 2009 was a very fun & productive day. We learned that Horgan should be sponsored by Taco Bell, don't roll around with too large a crew (given), and Cocard is a machine. There's more snow in the forecast this week so wax up your board & get ready to ride.