Colorado Re-Cap

Greetings from Colorado. I'm writing this from the Allen's house in Denver, a family I am residing with for the evening. Dew Tour went fantastic. I wish mother nature would have cooperated with my qualifying run, but aside from that, I had a great time. On the second kicker in the slopestyle course, I managed to hit a gust of wind and come up short of the landing. As you could predict, Dew Tour is always a zoo of people and athletes.

How it works is there are 60 competitors in the qualifying round divided into two heats. They take 5 skiers from each heat and then the 3 next best scores to pre-lims. I placed 6th in heat 2! Despite the near miss to pre-lims, I still managed to get some excellent training in and I learned a couple of new tricks. Since I qualified only one spot out, that puts me in a great position to get a wild card for the next two stops. I will be traveling to Killington and Snowbasin just in case I'm able to compete.

Here is a quick little edit I composed of a couple days of skiing at Keystone after qualifications. 

2 Days at Keystone from Nick Goepper on Vimeo.


 As of now, I'm flying back home tomorrow for Christmas. There are still many competitions to come this year! Keep tuned! 

Colorado Update

........BOOM!........BOOM! That's is the sound I hear every morning when I wake up in Breckenridge, Colorado. What sounds like extremely loud thunder is really ski patrol setting off explosives doing avalanche control up on the mountain. It sure is a nice wake up call! Our cozy house in Breckenridge is the perfect place to unwind after a day of shredding. Equipped with a hot tub, fully stocked kitchen, and free wifi, it sure is great. To the right is a fox that was sleeping on our porch this afternoon!


 Colorado has been going well so far. I've skied the parks at Breckenridge and Keystone the last week preparing for the Dew Tour. Open qualifiers start next Wednesday and are going to go off! They are almost done building the slope style course on Freeway Terrain Park. Practice is scheduled to start on Tuesday. I can't wait to get a taste of the that adrenaline that Dew Tour offers! For now, I'm playing it cool in the gondola. Stay tuned.

Three More Days...

...Until I head to Colorado! I've been in Lawrenceburg Indiana for quite some time now and I'm ready to get back on snow! Thanksgiving was great. I enjoyed a fantastic meal with my family at home and then headed to Michigan to hang out with some relatives. I always love going to Michigan, it's a time to relax and hang out with my grandparents. Here are a few photos from and Michigan...

Delicious Thanksgiving Day Turkey
 

Michigan hike 

My little bro gillin...

We explored this abandoned barn...spooky

 Portrait time...

For now...I'm getting stoked to head out west and compete in the Dew Tour. More updates will be coming from Colorado. Peace!

Thanksgiving break is upon us!

Thanksgiving break is approaching and I know most of you are itching to get out of the classroom or workspace! I am excited to get home to see my family as well.Thanksgiving is a time of fellowship and relaxation with the ones you love, no matter who that may be. I hope you are all planning to cook up a delicious turkey to enjoy next Thursday with your family. I know I am!

Things have been pretty mellow here at Windells the last two weeks. After our trip to the Newburg skatepark, our good weather spell disappeared from Oregon and we started to get pounded with rain. The good thing about rain at Windells is that when it's raining here, it's hammering snow at the mountain! We just got pounded with our first real winter storm of the year. It dropped about two feet last night and is going to continue to drop more snow throughout the rest of the week. The mountain has been closed the last couple of days because of the lack of snow, but opened up today for business after the snow we received last night. Pow Day! I have never skied this much snow in my life! There was about two feet of freshly fallen snow at Timberline this morning. I busted out my pow skis and shredded lines with my boy Jared Karon all day at T-Line. I've been experimenting a little bit with my style (laughs) and busted out some tight pants today also:)

I'm hopping on a plane tomorrow at four in the morning to head back to the midwest. Can't wait to get home!

Newberg Skate Trip

This Wednesday we took the day off skiing and took advantage of the nice weather to take a skate field-trip. We rose early as usual and gobbled down breakfast eager to get to Newberg public skate park. Newberg was about an hour and a half drive away, half of which I slept through. When we arrived at the park we were amazed. We were blessed with perfect weather! 70 degrees and bluebird!? In November!? You have got to be kidding me mother nature. Newberg is one of the coolest parks in Oregon. A combination of quick trannys, tight bowls, huge quarter pipes, and endless lines makes it unique. We sessioned for a couple of hours before we got in the vans to head back to camp. Here is a quick video of a train through the deep-end section of the park...



The day ended quicker than everybody had anticipated. Time flys when your having fun!

Hood River Trip.

I love the Fall!
It is definitely my favorite season of the year (besides winter). Fall in Oregon is awesome. The combination of the smell of freshly fallen leaves and the perfect temperatures, it couldn't get much better. We made an industry trip to Hood River to see Dakine today. The tour of the corporate office was short and sweet. Although, it was cool to experience Dakine from the inside out since a lot of my skiing attire is Dakine! Afterwords, we checked in to the Hood River skate park for an hour before heading back off to Windells for school. What a park! Here are a few photos documenting the shredding...

Bowl Shreddage

Frontside kickturn

A scenic view of the Columbia river in Hood River, the Windsurf capital of the world!

We are taking a day off skiing tomorrow and going to skate Newberg Skatepark, one of the best parks in Oregon. I will surely document our experience for another post, check back tomorrow!

Winter Hawks Hockey Game

Tonight the Windells Academy attended the Portland Winter Hawks hockey game in downtown Portland. All the students thought this week went by very slowly and it was good for all of us to get off of campus and have some fun. We showed up fashionably late for the game and got comfortable in our seats just as the second period was starting.

Hockey is an exciting game! We were all jumping out of our seats and cheering for our Portland Winter Hawks to kick some butt. One awesome part about hockey is the fights! We were only at the game for two periods and we experienced three fights! At the end of the match, the Winter Hawks prevailed over the Rockets 3 to 1. Go Winter Hawks!

Kick some ass Winter Hawks!

Two players in the penalty box after a fight.

 Goodnight from me and my homie Felice Pozzi from Switzerland!

First Pow Day of the Season!

Nick Goepper here reporting from Windells. A pacific storm just demolished Oregon and dropped 3+ feet on Mt. Hood! The rain didn't let up at camp the last 4 days but finally a sunny day graced Oregon today! An anxious van ride followed breakfast as we drove to the mountain this morning. The lifts weren't running so we opted to hike a small gully just south of the Timberline parking lot. There was some steep pitch on the sides of the gully which allowed us to build some cool features. My coach Jeff Curry and I built a tree tap/gap over some pines after we were done sessioning the small stepdown we had already built. Building jumps in pow and hitting them is more work then I expected!

Here is a clip of the craziness.
 

More updates to come as the snow continues to fall at Mt. Hood!

Windells Skatepark: New Feature

The skatepark builders at Windells, AKA Billy Coulon and his crew of builders, are killing it again in the Windells skatepark. They've just added a new feature to our ever expanding skatepark. It consists of a three stair with a handrail in the middle and a bank on one side and a ledge on the other side. They have huge plans this winter for expansion in the park. Can't wait to shred this! Keep up the good work Billy, you're killin it.

October at Hood Edit

Last weekend, me and my friend Brad Bulzan from Ohio made a little edit at Timberline. Brad was out at Windells Academy for a trial week and couldn't be more stoked to come this year. Anyways, here is October Shredding at HOOD.

October Shredding at HOOD from Nick Goepper on Vimeo.

K Fost!

Just wanted to give a shout out to my boy Karl Fostvedt from Park City from dropping a ridiculous season edit recently. Check it out.


Karl Fostvedt SUN VILLAIN re-edit from Jeremy Lato on Vimeo.

Soon to come is an October shred edit from Windells Academy at Mt. Hood.

Stay tuned!

Windells Skatepark POV

Hey everyone,

This afternoon I was exempt from school because I got all of my homework caught up for the week so I decided to make this little edit of the skatepark. It was my first time taking any POV (point of view) footage so I hope you enjoy!



 

Some Old Photos and Music Tracks for Your Enjoyment

My buddy Tad Feiss recently dug out some old photos of me skiing from when I was really young. Thanks Tad! I spent my grom years skiing at Perfect North Slopes Indiana. Perfects has an insanely well maintained terrain park that is lap-able from 8 in the morning until 9 at night every day throughout the winter. If your ever in the Midwest, I encourage you to check it out. Anyways, here are a few photos of mini-Nick.

I've been thumbing through my I-Tunes library and found a couple of crazy dubstep songs that will melt your brain. Here they are...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJzfTZlEl40   UKF DUBstep

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVuZWfWUb1c    Quantam DUBstep



I'm going to try to post a lot this week so stay tuned.



 

New Sponsor!

This past week has been great in Oregon! The lifts opened up at Timberline ski resort for the first day of the Winter season. Even though there isn't any new snow yet, winter is coming! We all have been having a ton of fun lapping the Palmer chairlift. Soon we will be shredding laps on the Stormin Norman chair and hitting the Conaway's terrain park!

Hillcrest Sports is a ski and skate shop about 15 minutes away from Windells in Gresham. They have always hooked us up with ski mounts, boot fitting, ski maintenance, ect. The guys in the shop are super cool and have always been super helpful when we needed their services. They have decided to sponsor me to represent them around the Mt. Hood area. I'm super stoked to officially be on the Hillcrest team and to promote them at Mt. Hood!

Tail press in te public park at T-line

New Hillcrest skate!

Hiking Trip

This past weekend at Windells we embarked on our first hiking trip of the year. Saturday a crew of about 13 of us laced up our athletic shoes and grabbed our digital cameras to go hiking. There was a trail about 10 minutes away from Windells in the Mt. Hood National Forest. It was a fairly casual hike but yielded some great spectacles. It was called the "Mirror Lake Trail". The trail whisked and winded up steep inclines and around huge trees until we got to the lake. There was a great view of Mt. Hood from the lake. We all hung out at the lake for a while and ate our lunches that we packed. The highlight of the afternoon was when Sean Hannon decided to jump into the lake! It was hilarious!  Here are some photo's that documented the adventure...

The Oregon Forest

View from the lake

Sean being the man

That's all for now, check back for another update soon.

Home Sweet Home!

All is well back in Oregon at the Windells Academy! I arrived in Portland last Wednesday to blue skies, pristine skate parks, and awesome skiing at Windells. Being back out here is awesome! School has officially started and all the students, including me, are super stoked for the year ahead of us. We have about 4 times as many students than we did last year which is great! That means more people to socialize with! I have been skateboarding a ton lately and jumping on the tramp. The mountain is incredible. We have a private park all to ourselves that we get to hike every day for 4 hours. We get the superstar treatment every morning by getting to ride in a snow cat ride up to the park since all the lifts are closed. This weekend we took a trip to the coast to relax, surf, and hang out. Tomorrow starts a full week on snow! Boy am I ready for the season to come! Here are some photos.

Short Sands Beach!

We found some starfish!

Lake fun

Bonjour! This past weekend my family and I had some fun out on the pontoon boat with some other families. Great times! It's is always good to relax all day in the sun and not have a care in the world. Unfortunately, I only spent about an eighth of the day doing that while the rest was spent swimming, diving, and jumping off the boat with friends. Here are some more photos.

Kasey, being cool as always















Last but not least, muscles posing for the camera.

Check back soon!

Back Home. Homework, Family

               Hey guys! Sorry I haven't updated in a while. I have gotten a little lazy these past few days with just relaxing at home and not having to do anything! Well I'm back from New Zealand and the last weekend has consisted of hanging out with family and friends at home. I also have been working on lots of homework because I am still (technically) a sophomore in high school (oops!). I'm on track to catching up with school in the next month or so, so I'm looking forward to that. I went on a run with my dad and my dog today around lunch time which was fun. After all this skiing, I can still keep up with my old man on a 5 mile run (surprisingly). Being outside felt really good given that I cut my hair as soon as I got home! I definitely am missing the snow right now but it's good to be back home with the family for a while. Planning on going back out on the boat this weekend. Going to be fun!

Beginning of my New Zealand Trip!

Hey every one! My July and early August has been full of excitement. i returned home from Windells in late June and have spent most of the month of July at home with my family and friends. The Goepper family took a marvelous vacation to Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina following my return home. Here are some photos


Building a sand castle with my brother


Bring it on hi tide!!


Following directly after Ocean Isle beach with the family, I spent the next week coaching at Ohio Dreams Action Sports Camp in Mansfield, Ohio.

Sitting on top of the water ramp


Having fun at the skatepark


Getting ignant on the trampoline!


Again, shredding the outdoor skatepark


Following my week at Ohio Dreams, I began my journey to New Zealand for 11 days to ski and compete with the Windells Academy. New Zealand is a fantastic place and I am truly thankful for this awesome opportunity! My parents and family, along with my sponsors and Windells have been awesome to allow me to do this! Here are some photos from my experience so far.

Flying over the south island


Getting off the plane at the Queens town airport in New Zealand!


If there is one thing that New Zealand has way to much of, its sheep! There are about as many sheep in New Zealand as there are people in California.


Here is a view of the valley as we were driving over a pass to get to Wanaka where we were staying


Stay tuned for more updates coming from New Zealand!