The Shaved Shins of a Manly Man © Jay Goodrich

Most serious cyclists break out the Bic at one point in their life or another. “It is for the road rash.” or “For the speed.” Or maybe because they just feel cool with silky, smooth, super, supple, soft legs–for a day. Yes, I do shave my legs, but not in some crazy cyclist fashion, even though I manage to ride an average of four days a week. No, I shave because of my ski boots. And because I am not one hundred percent confident in my masculinity (not true I swear), I don’t take those babies down from the groin to the ankle either. Nope, I take it off only where the intense pain lies in my ski boots–right in the shin. You see, what happens as I ski day-in and day-out those little shin hairs get wedged between my ski sock and ski boot and every time that I pressure into a turn, those hairs get torqued. Torqued to the point of ripping out. Just do it fast like a band-aid. So badly so that they will bleed profusely. Nice. When my wife is not looking, I steal her Bic in the shower, add her soap, and take those puppies down. And of course in pure manhood, I leave her the present of all of my leg hair floating in her razor. I usually hear the “fucking man” from the shower at 5am while I am still in a dazed dream state. Now we just need to add snow to this freakin’ winter.

Owen Dudley Drops into the Baker Backcountry © Jay Goodrich

Well, finally, it snowed. It has literally been since November, but on the final day of the year, Mount Baker got hit with a foot of new snow. Owen Dudley, Tyler Hatcher and myself headed out to see what we could make of a perfect stormy day. You can view more of the images on the Mount Baker Ski Area website. Now, we just need this to continue so we can do it again, and again, and again–much like the movie Groundhog Day. I guess if you love it, repeating it is not really a torture. Happy New Year!

Eastern Oregon Foothills, Christmas 2010 © Jay Goodrich

Happy Holidays from all of us at jay goodrich photographer inc. to all of you and yours. May it be the best yet!

Mount Shuksan, North Cascades National Park, WA © Jay Goodrich

I have been skiing for 25 years now. If I were about to turn 30 and not 40, I probably would be some kind of professional athlete instead of a photographer. Maybe? I only say this because statistically most professional athletes are exposed to their sport at an early age, usually before they can really walk. The “experts” say by 5, I didn’t start skiing until I was 15. However, there is nothing to say that I wouldn’t hate skiing if I were exposed to it at that early of an age and be exactly at the same point in life regardless. I can say though, that skiing is my sport. It is my heroin. No reasonable offer to ski will be turned down, ever, period. I can’t really explain why, I just love it. There are many mistresses in my life (sorry to my wife and my kids) fortunately, they are all favorite lines in the backcountry of some mountainous place. Some have hated me, some have treated me with open arms and others have gone unnoticed. The key to all of the best lines though is the snow. The best dressed gets my respect, always.

Recently, I had hands-down the best day of this season. It was the culmination of a week long storm cycle that brought close to 8 feet of new snow to the Cascade Mountains of Washington State. The snow phone at Mount Baker Ski Area reported 16 inches new in the past 24 hours and snowing heavily. I arrived at the maelstrom only to agree whole heartedly. It was dumping! Close to 2 inches an hour at times. I think there was 8 additional inches by Noon. Then came the crescendo, the break, visibility. Intermittent at first, then more and more towards clear blue bird. I pushed on, my sore and tired body fueled by the availability to see. A day that ended at 4:30pm with this–the gift. For every skier, the beauty of the mountains, beholds the key to finding those amazing lines.

deep snow in the Vail backcountry

Chris is one of my best skiing buds of all time. I don’t know how many days we have logged together, but I can tell you that it is probably close to 1000. He was one of my first friends in Vail, and that friendship is still going strong today. A couple of weeks ago I received a phone call from him with a completely off the wall idea. Let’s go to the Olympics. My initial reaction was hell yes, then I thought about the money and backed out, then I talked to Heather and she said what are you stupid? The reply to that question does not need to be answered here or in the future. That pushed me back to my initial response, hell yeah. Plans were formulated, magazines were contacted, letters fired off in all directions, then responses came back, a little success. Now we have a story to shoot, I think, if Whistler doesn’t change their mind. Anyway, last night Chris showed up at my doorstep. And consequently, we, he and I, are headed to Vancouver tomorrow. Yes, I am headed to the Olympics for a few days of shooting, eating, drinking, and hopefully some skiing on snow like the image above. It is entirely possible with the weather that is supposedly coming in…we’ll see.

Eunice Lake at Sunset, Mt. Rainier N.P. © Jay Goodrich

Two days ago Younes Bounhar and I spent the day trekking into Eunice Lake in Mount Rainier National Park to photograph the sunset. The day was a a bit of an “epic” due to the fact that the snow was still about 6 feet deep along the trail and closer to 10 feet deep once we got up to the lake itself. For most of the day we were cursing our friend Art who gave us all of the information and advice regarding how to get there, but in the end his wisdom out weighed our naivete. We thought that there was no way that we could capture Mount Rainier in the reflection of the lake at sunset because it was still frozen over. As we made our way around the lake we discovered a spot that yielded more than we could have ever thought possible.

Once the light faded at about 9:30pm, we walked out with our headlamps on, regularly yelling aloud, to wake up any sleeping black bears that we might sneak up on along the way. We began our day at about 10am and arrived back at Art’s house a 2am. A long day, but one we will surely remember for years to come.