Episode #43
For this episode, by buddy Paul (from the Todd Richards episode), joined me in my basement AKA TNSP HQ – we connected with AJ and Chad over Skype. Paul used to ride with Chad in the 90’s – they kick the episode off discussing the good ole days.
Cover photo shot by Chip Proulx
Topics we discuss:
- King Pin & Wild Duck days
- Chad’s dogs Calloway and Chopper
Calloway & Chopper – Love over Money.
- Instagram – Follow Chad here: @chadotterstrom
- Photography – Peep Chad’s professional photography website: www.chadotterstromphoto.com
- Chad’s nickname
- Hard Booting
- Paying attention to the minor details of Chad’s set-up
- Moving from Minnesota to Colorado
- Working at Walmart to ride
- Crews
- Summit County
- First chair at Loveland
- Van life
- Driving the Pacific Coast Highway
- Splitboarding
- Bivy sack camping
- Head tents
- Buy Chad’s $700 North Face Tent
- Following your passion
- The dirt own Connor Manning
- Judging X-Games
- How Chad got into coaching
- Solo missions
4wd Safari Van Life
- Coyotes
- Living in Colorado
- Legal weed
- Avalanches
- Loveland pass
- Snowboarding in India
- Chad’s favorite cheeseburger
- Chad’s primal diet
- Turning 40
- Paul’s rollerskating 40th b-day
- Forty kick-flips for 40
- Chad’s snowboard video archive
- Army of Darkness (AOD crew) and the Hell Cats crew
- Bluebird Snowboards (Smokin & Marty)
- The two year curse
- Making snowboard movies
- Performance enhancing drugs
- Legal weed
- The rumor mill
- Listener questions
- Golfing or lack thereof
Quotes from the episode:
“So my friends started calling me Chopper.”
“Turns out that it’s actually more fun than soft boots (hard boots).”
“It’s fun to do a 360 in hard boots.”
“I did the Damian flip with my hardboots – I call it the iguana flip.”
“Back then you could work at Walmart and make enough to live up here.”
“Working at Walmart is better than working the lift.”
“Last year we had to stand in line for four days (to get first chair at Loveland).”
“I run a straight Safari van, I just took the back seats out and put in a bed… Basically I did it because of my dogs – it’s hard to get rooms with dogs.”
“The van’s good for splitboarding, you can just sleep at the trailhead and get going first thing in the morning.”
“I don’t need a $700 tent.”
“I like to hike mountains to take photos.”
“I take care of my dogs…I’m a part time photographer, part time snowboarder, part time judge, part time snowboard coach – I live in Breckenridge is what I do.”
“People would ask what I’d do when I was done snowboarding – duh you’re like, I’m gonna snowboard.”
“All of sudden you’re forty and you’ve only got five friends left in town.”
“Most snowboard coaches feel like the end all is getting a gold medal in the Olympics, but for me it’s like the beginning… like free riding you know?”
“I always sleep with knife on me – one of these nights I’m gonna have to take on ten coyotes.”
“…especially in Colorado you’re swimming with sharks all the time (in regards to snowpack safety).”
“There’s so many people moving here now that weed is legal – I call them trimagrints.”
“That’s kinda like feeling like a ghost… That morning I heard that five people died on Loveland Pass.”
“I’m itching for next season.”
“You got to Breckenridge and they’re selling $18 cheeseburgers all day.”
“My Primal diet is 100% to beat skiers (up the skin track).”
“Chairlifts really hurt my feelings – I don’t ride em unless it’s a perfect powder day.”
“We were a bunch of diggers at Hood in 98… And then we wear the Hellcats – I was shredding with Devon, he was like we’re the Wildcats.. I went home and I was like guys we can’t be the Hellcats – that’s not gonna work.”
“I live in Breckenridge which is the Red Bull donkey stamp town of the world.”
“Don’t put me on the team and give me a paycheck – or you’ll be out of business in two years.”
“When you get to the Fourth Phase level, that’s when your brain explodes and I don’t think I want to do that.”
“At forty years old I’m a better snowboarder now than I’ve ever been and skateboarder – for sure.”
As mentioned – things got weird on Paul’s 40th. Rollerskates, Leotards, Diapers and Coors Light.
“I live on the highest road in the country and I don’t smoke weed.”
“If I could snowboard for the rest of my life, I’d do that…. But, I’d probably say photography.”
“I haven’t golfed in three years, but I’ve saved a ton of money because of that.”
“Never quitting is such a big thing…. Powder is the answer in the end.”
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