MAY 6 = officially done with college classes...4EVA!

ESCAPE: ASHLEY BATTERSBY

Ashley Battersby was born to ski. She grew up in Chicago, and she’s the second of four children who all enjoy the same passion. At 18-months-old, she was first to put on skis and continued to evolve with the sport of Freeskiing. Ashley was fortunate enough to leave the Windy City and surrounding Midwest ski resorts and move to Park City, Utah in 2002. During this time she was able to ski at least 50 or more days in the winter and later attended the Winter Sports School where the number of days on snow only increased. She had received her first sponsor at a Big Air at the Canyons Resort and from then on she started making a name for herself as a young female freerider. Ashley now resides in Park City Utah, living out of her suitcase nine months out of the year when she’s skiing. After winning the 2008 US Open slopestyle, Ashley Battersby was qualified for Winter X 2009 but could not attend after tearing her left ACL a month before the event, so she was pretty amped up to finally attend her first Winter X in 2010:

“I got the chance to go to Europe for the second time this year and it was by far the best trip of 2009-2010 season! We first headed to Laax, Switzerland for a week where I had placed 1st in the European Open. From there four girls and myself traveled to Tignes, France for the European X –Games. That was a drive I will never forget, all of us from different countries (America, France, New Zealand and Canada) stuffed with four bags the size of an average human, driving in a car with no working windshield wipers in the middle of winter, windows won’t roll down, eating nothing but Swiss chocolate and gas station ham and bread sammys in a five person car. It was supposed to take us only seven hours from point A to B but we had hit up closed roads and got stuck in Italy for a few hours. We had been through three different countries in a total of 14 hours (never rely on a outdated GPS)!
The morning we competed was epic, 9:30 am and completely slayed! After hitting the longest course in my entire six years of free riding (two rails six jumps), I ended up taking home the bronze from Euro X. I have never been so stoked in my life…I accomplished my dream. I have always wanted to be in X games and to be able to travel over seas to do it with some of the most inspiring men and women skiers, I couldn’t ask for anything more!
My brothers have always been my motivation for skiing, they pushed me out of wanting to be a racer to switch to free ride. They are also the most dedicated guys I have ever seen in the ski industry, they slay! We all grew up on a 200 foot vertical hill in Wisconsin and then our parents moved us to Utah so we could try and achieve our goals. Four years ago I tore my left ACL and last year I did the same thing to my right. Those injuries are very common in skiing, as well as being the most annoying thing that could happen. I had unfortunate luck, as I did it to mine in 2008 a month before the very first year they had ever put women slopestyle in X-Games. I was heartbroken that it had happened right before, although it lit a fire under my belt to get stronger for next season, to learn new tricks and achieve my goal! I have to give thanks to all my sponsors, Volkl, Tecnica, Marker, First Drop, Scott USA, Bendis, Kicker, McDavid, Bern for your continued support as well as my amazing brothers, parents and God.

“Third place went to the lil’ steezeball herself, Ashley Battersby. Ash-B was absolutely killing it all day, and like many of the girls today, was skiing better than ever. 5’s both ways, switch 7’s and a silky smooth 270 on 270 off the rail up top, proving that she is absolutely the most stylish girl in skiing, hands down.” -Jeff Schmuck

–-Via Jessica Bush

If there’s one standout event for this summer,
this is it! Is there anything waterskiers like more then bikinis and beer? How about a fashion show and beer garden party?

It shouldn’t come as a huge surprise to find that [BS] The Board Shop and Champs Sports Bar and Grill are living up to their hype! We have joined forces to host a huge fundraiser in support of new jump skis for the wonderlake ski team.

Lets keep these guys entertaining the masses of crowds! This ain’t no bake sale; We’re giving away A wakeboard lesson at “The Wake
Experience” Wakeboard school, Free entry to our Wakeboard
competitions, Prize packs from our apparel sponsors featured in the fashion show and much, much more!!!

Here’s the run down:
1:00pm - 6:00pm: Come to the Board Shop for a food buffet, beer, purchase your drink wristbands for discount on Champ’s beverages, 50% of specific sales at the shop will be donated, raffle purchase, etc...

7:00pm - 2:00am: Move down the street to Champs bar and grill for a Board Shop Fashion show (make-up by Jillian Sommerfeld), DJ Mike Mantas, Give-aways and Raffle announcement! Stay and enjoy off-price drinks with wristband, and fun dance music!

All raffle, wristband, food & beer donations, and part of sales at the Board Shop will go to the Wonder Lake Ski Team,
Food and Beer donated by Champs Sports Bar & Grill

Nikita 10th Year Anniversary

Nikita Clothing was founded in 2000 by a girl named Heida Birgisdottir in a small shop she had in downtown Reykjavik Iceland.

Heida has always been a very active rider and searched for a long time some female street clothing that fitted her lifestyle. Since she never really found the right clothes she decided to start her own clothing line, being a clothing designer herself, she thought it made sense!

Today, Nikita is available in selected stores in 30 countries around the world and represented by the coolest girls on the planet! Nikita participates in all kind of happenings around the world, encouraging girls to live an active lifestyle.

RVCA!!!

RVCA is the brainchild of company Founder and Creative Director, PM Tenore. Transcending the boundaries of traditional action sports apparel, RVCA is a design-driven lifestyle brand free from passing trends. Appearing as a natural on the shelves of boutiques as on those of a local skate shop, RVCA is brought together by a group of likeminded individuals from various subcultures, a collaboration of sorts, a lifestyle within itself.

PM Tenore’s intention from the very beginning has been to create a platform for RVCA, which combines art, music, fashion and a modern lifestyle in an original way. At the forefront of this vision has been RVCA’s Artist Network Program (ANP) – a venture established to showcase the talents of accomplished as well as unknown artists who inspire our generation and push the boundaries of creative excellence.

Established to promote the genuine integrity of RVCA’s subcultures while simultaneously giving back to the community, RVCA in essence is redefining the way the market views art and fashion as represented through the balance of opposites and how they coexist: water, oil; air, land; destruction, industrialization; art, science; foreign, domestic; order, anarchy; past, present.

For RVCA, it is about today, tomorrow and life as the big picture. It is about inspiring our generation, providing something of substance and culture and above all doing it with integrity and as a united family, a close-knit community.

It could take months to stop the leak - which is now covering more than 1,800 square miles of the Gulf of Mexico.

Last week the oil rig Deepwater Horizon caught fire and sank off the coast of Louisiana. Eleven lives were lost in the disaster. According to U.S. Coast Guard officials, two separate leaks at the accident site are now emitting approximately 42,000 gallons of oil a day. Worse, because of the depth of the leaks, the Minerals Management Service says that they may take weeks or even months to cap. In the meantime, Coast Guard officials are reporting that a massive oil slick is now headed toward the Gulf coast. "This type of accident is certainly one of the worst-case scenarios you can imagine," said Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal.

Surf and Service

You might not ever think to put the words “surf” and “change the world” together in the same sentence; surfing, you’d say, is a diversion. A sport. A recreational activity. Changing the world? A deliberate act of altruism. No sports, diversions, or recreation involved.

In 2008, surfer dude Sam Bailey changed all of that. Sam had recently returned home from traveling through Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica and Nicaragua. He was jarred by the loss of culture resulting from foreign investment and monopoly in many once small and stable fishing villages. So he did something about it. He created Eco Surf Volunteers.

Now, a vacation isn’t just a vacation for Sam. Sam Bailey has taken the concept of volun-tourism and made it cool. Like surfer-dude cool. Combining volunteer work with tourism, Sam says, is becoming more popular as more people become aware of our environment’s fragile state. “But people want to learn something as well,” Sam says. “It’s not just, ‘Hey let’s go down and build a classroom. It’s about forming a relationship and respect, both with the people and with the culture.’”

The current goal of Eco Surf Volunteers is to use their manpower in Canoa, Ecuador to work with community leader Daniel Velasco to create a local foundation run entirely by native residents. The foundation, which would be targeted at high-school aged natives, hopes to create a four-year program for students to learn to achieve success in the hospitality industry, allowing kids to take ownership of local hostels, restaurants or surf shops. Upon completion of the program, Sam hopes to award each student a full scholarship to an Ecuadorian University.

“I’ve heard that volunteering is ‘so cliché,’ ‘one man’s effort to save the world.’ But hearing the children ask us when we’ll return is not cliché. Seeing the tears well up in the eyes of our volunteers as we drive out of town, kids lining the streets waving good-bye, is definitely not cliché…There’s nothing cliché about what we’re doing. This is all very real,” says Sam.

And change is indeed being made. With help from Sam and his troupe of volunteers, Canoans receive a little more help every time another wave hits the shore.

Surprisingly enough, most of the participants in Sam’s program have never even set foot on a board. “I figured most of our volunteers would come from major surfing backgrounds, but it’s been the other way around. We typically get about 75 percent beginners and 25 percent experienced surfers, which is a great mix…Experienced surfers enjoy the empty line-up while the rest take advantage of daily surf lessons.”

Eco Surf Volunteers is proving, every day, that a vacation doesn’t have to mean sitting around on a beach tanning all day, daiquiri in hand, but also that volunteer work doesn’t have to be—and shouldn’t be—a grueling, unpleasant experience. If you’re willing, it’s not hard to kill those two birds with one stone. “You know, there’s that classic scene in Good Will Hunting where Robin Williams says how Matt Damon could probably say a whole lot about Michelangelo and his…works, but he couldn’t tell him what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. It’s so simple but so true - the learning opportunities made possible from cultural immersion experiences are impossible to re-create,” says Sam.

Swim over to the Eco Surf website to find out more information and apply for one of the Eco Surf Volunteers’ many projects.