Megastorm
Stay Wild
Story by Maxwell Carl Scott // @springbreaksnowboarding
Photos by Kealan Shilling // kealanshilling.com // @kealanshilling
We decided to cruise down to Tahoe from Portland, where a beautiful spring storm was brewing. The news dubbed it the “Megastorm.” We figured we couldn’t pass up such an outstanding chance to test out some of the new experimental shapes we had spent the better half of our free time constructing.
If the Megastorm couldn’t provide a shitstorm of good times, the crew would. Corey Smith, Brendan Gerard, Ben Rice, Kealan Shilling, Robbie Sell, Stephen Duke, Mark Dangler, Charlie Deptula, Alex “the Ozman” Scott, and I brought our own Megastorm.
We battled some extreme whiteout conditions for the first few days, but we made the most of it and snowshoed all over the Lake Tahoe backcountry. We checked out a few classic backcountry zones, including the infamous Terry Kidwell hip at Donner Pass. Brendan’s brother Red Gerard attempted and landed the first ever double backflip in the face of gale force winds and total whiteout visibility. We checked out a few new spots as well, and tested out some of our latest handmade prototype shapes while taking some keen mental notes on their overall shredability. I got to test my own very special shape, the eight foot long “Powder Dildo,” modeled after some of the old surfing longboard shapes and of course...a penis.
