Let me back up a second. Monique and I had hit the road not so much for a photography road trip, as my annual pilgrimage to Colorado for the freestyle kayaking competition circuit. First stop, the legendary Teva Mountain Games at 8200 feet in Vail, Colorado.

On our way out, we decided to take the loneliest highway, highway 50, partly because I hate traffic, but mostly because it is cool and quirky. There were a million things I would have loved to spend time photographing, but we only had two days to get to Vail, so that will wait for another trip. We stopped in Ely, NV, for lunch, where I discovered that Bell Telephone actually becomes the Empire and invents the Death Star. It’s right there on a mural painted on their office wall.

Next we found a great hotsprings near the town of Meadow, UT. Giant hot pools with an underground cave. Unfortunately, we had to spend about an hour in the wee hours of the morning cleaning up after the locals, but then we had the place to ourselves and really relaxed. It was after this energy sapping soak in hot mineral water that I really needed my coffee. Alas, we had to wait to Colorado. A whole state away for coffee!

Once in Colorado, we high-tailed it to the town of Vail, home to the famous ski resort of the same name. The Teva Mountain Games are huge. The creek where we were competing, however was very small. Small, ice cold and did I mention at 8200 feet? Nevertheless, I had some good rides between gasps for oxygen and made the semi-finals in my first appearance there. I was happy.

From there we hit Lyons, Colorado. Lyons starts the string of cool kayaking communities in which there are only 2 requirements. A whitewater park and a brewery. Colorado has nearly 20 man-made whitewater parks on existing rivers. More than all the other states combined. Colorado has quickly found out that constructing these boater friendly parks is inexpensive, and pays huge dividends in increased tourism. I am currently in Salida, CO, home to the longest running whitewater festival in the country, FIBARK. Going strong for over 60 years, it turned its first profit the year after they build several whitewater features on the Arkansas river that runs through downtown. Many other small communities quickly followed suit, seeing the goldmine created by recreation on about the only things many of these old mining towns have left – water. I really wish California and Nevada would get off their duff and follow through on existing plans for expanding recreation in Reno and Chico. The Reno whitewater park is about the most successful thing that city has build in 20 years.

Many of these photos were shot by Monique while I was boating.

This mural on the Ely Bell Telephone building proves that Bell systems eventually becomes the Empire and invents the Death Star.

Soaking in the Utah Hotsprings after cleaning it up.

Monique floats in the steamy waters at sunrise.

Clouds and sun-rays held sway for the Teva Mountain Games. It was scalding hot when the sun was out, and cold when it went behind the clouds.

They kayaking competition venue at Teva is unique. First, thousands of people actually come out to watch, tens of thousands for the finals. Second, you are surrounded 360 degrees by spectators on bridges surrounding the feature.

Lyons, CO, is the gateway to Rocky Mountain National Park, a mere 30 miles up the road.

Most of the park was still covered in snow, but near the 12,000 foot pass, the water cascading down this alluvial fan was a little lighter than the near flood levels of the rivers below.

Back down in Lyons, I was immersed in the comptitions. Fortunately, I had enough sense to keep out of the boater-cross this year, as one competitor finds out while getting hit in the face....with a boat!

A picture Monique shot of me practicing in the feature on the St. Vrain river, below flower-filled bluffs.

Another rough end to a boater-cross competitor.

Kayaker sprawl. Don't worry, we left no trace.

This is what I call a two-fer. I had this location on Incline peak scouted for this shot on a clear day. Unfortunately when that clear day arrived, my wife was the only person available to hike up there with me. Fortunately she is a good photographer, so I schlepped the cameras up, set up the shot and had her pull the trigger while I skied the line and we ended up on the cover of this year's Lake Tahoe winter recreation guide.

My how cluttered our digital lives are getting. I remember when the internet made things quicker and easier. We had search engines for looking up stuff instead of going to the library, and we had email instead of mailing letters and waiting weeks. When did it all get so complicated? Just trying to keep up with letting anyone at all find me and my work now requires hours of web updates, managing my mobile searchable archive of stock images, keeping up with the facebook posts for our wedding photography business, keeping up with the summer blog posts for Reno Mountain Sports, which sponsors me as a semi-pro freestyle kayaker, and who knows what else. Time flies by in a whirlwind of shooting and sitting and I am only just realizing that I have been ignoring my main stock photography blog for nearly a year now.

Well, the other day it snowed on us and today dawned the coldest day yet, so I figure it is a good time to get pumped up about skiing and post some of my favorite ski images from the lake tahoe area from last season. Some of this work comes from the advertising work I do at Mt. Rose and some just for fun. Ski photography is really tricky. You can have great riders, and great snow and a great sky, but they rarely all come together at the same time. I think we had only two really deep bluebird powder days all last season. Most of the powder days were cloudy. One took me completely by surprise and I found myself up at Mt. Rose early during what was predicted to be a cloudy and stormy day, staring at 2 feet of snow and blue skies with no riders in site. After a quick phone call to the resort’s PR folks, we decided it would be worth a try to get something, so I grabbed some skiers out of the line and a couple of patrollers and we tried to make some shots. They were good, but still nothing like having a couple of pro riders there who can hit their marks and look good doing it.

Enjoy the photos, here is a quick link to my archive of winter stock photographs which you photo buyers out there can feel free to search.

Mt. Rose added a new dimension to their special events by hosting the first (that we know of) snow boater cross on the west coast. I was both competing and photographing this event. This shot of Jr. World champion kayaker Jason Craig was used by National Geographic Adventure for thier best adventure town blurb on Reno

A sunrise backflip on skis near the Mt. Rose summit. I had hoped Moment skis might be interested in trading one of these shots for some gear since my skis are getting busted up, but no bites yet.

Another big air shot on Moment Nighttrain skis

Even the little tykes love the backcountyr. Here 7 year-old Blaise poses on his custom kiddie Moment skis, handmade in Reno.

Well, we are in the wild west, so Moment rider Jared and I decided to screw around one day and borrowed a six shooter and some cowboy gear for this shot that we thought might be interesting.

JJ Shiller at the subaru freeskiing world championship competition at Kirkwood 2010

I was experimenting with my Go Pro camera set to shoot still photos to see if I could get an interesting angle on powder skiing. It didn't quite work, but next snowfall I know what to do to make it sing.

These are a few shots from the pond skim at Mt. Rose ski tahoe. I did the photography for them, I was also the forerunner for the course.

This year I was the forerunner for the course, which was a good thing because it was a very cold morning and we had the original start area so high up that I flew across the water, caught huge air on the exit and barely stopped before I crashed through the gate on my first run. We made a few adjustments and got it nice and friendly for the competitors. You can have a look at my POV video of the first few runs here.

Carving the groomers at Mt. Rose. This is a variation on one of the photos they used for a highway billboard and as their facebook icon for a while.

Mark riding rails at Mt. Rose ski tahoe.

Schmearing that turn

We wanted a few shots from Mt. Rose to show the beautifull falloff into the dry desert of Washoe Valley. Just a note to you budding pro riders out there, you can have super cool modern clothes and that is a good thing, but about 70% of what buyers choose to publish from my images involve red or yellow. Just food for thought.

Looking for the light in the backcounty near Donner Summit.

It has great detail on all the classic locations, sunrise and moonrise tables and lots of great photography tips for everything from finding the light to photographing waterfalls. We aimed to hit the valley during a winter storm and stay for a day after with hopes of getting a day of snowy, stormy landscapes and maybe another day to photograph the spectacular light phenomenon on Horsetail falls, which only occurs the last two weeks of February. Well, our snow turned to rain and the light on the falls teased us until it was abruptly cut off just before turning deep red by clouds at the horizon.  All in all, being a photojournalist, I didn’t think I would have as much fun here as I did. Granted it is quite a scene with all the photographers at the classic spots, but it is really harder than you think to make a really good photograph here. I consider all of these to be a warm up to hopefully some great pictures in the future. All in all, it is really quite a challenge to make really good pictures here. The problem is that the location is so beautiful that you think at first that everything you do is good, then you see the vast library of exceptional photography from the area and it really pushes you to think a little harder. I am currently a big fan of night time exposures, though with all the planes that come over the valley, I think the method of stacking exposures for star trails allows the plane lines to be more easily removed or discarded than long exposures. I think I just may become a regular winter Yosemite addict. Enjoy the photos and remember, get up early, stay out at night and sleep in the middle of the day!