Daron's Blog

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That was the question I never thought I'd ever hear, but for the people in Dubai that's what they asked. Chad my Spyder Team Manager and I landed in Dubai at 1:30am. It was 96 degrees and the air was dripping wet. IT was so thick and hot you had to gulp down each inhale. How do they live in these conditions? Well I didn't ever give myself a chance to try. Out of two days I spent about 15mins outside. The rest of the time I was either in the hotel, car, mall or skiing. Walking into Ski Dubai and stepping onto the snow blew me away. It's huge for an indoor ski hill. The snow is as close to natural snow as you could get in this climate controled facility. At -6 C during the night they turn on the water from the ceiling and it turns into snowflakes adding 3-5inches of fresh snow a day. They have snow cats that groom the two runs and every morning is a blue bird packed powder day. I was brought out by Spyder to help with a ski camp that Simon, Spyder's distributer in Dubai put on for kids and adults. Wednesday I skied with the Spyder Camp and set a GS course to practice on. Thursday was race day. Chad and I went in the morning to cruise around and have some fun. We spent our day walking around the mall and that night we had the race. Being inside you loose track of time. It actually went by pretty quick and the boots came off around 9:30pm. We had a good time and the Spyder Camp was a success for the first annual with 27 attendies.

http://www.firsttracksonline.com/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=4739

Early Monday morning I and a crew of skiers, snowboarders and surfers took to the water on stand up paddle boards with the goal to paddle from Camp Richardson to Kings Beach. 21.6 miles, 4hr50min and 23,000 strokes later I made it to the other side. It was all to raise awarness for the Bob Woodruff Family Foundation that supports war vets from Iraq and Afganistan with Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). Dave Kalama big wave surfer lead the group with his experience on the water. Other athletes involved were Ken "Skindog" Collins big wave surfer, Jeremy Jones big mtn snowboarder, Nate Holland Snowboard Cross, Arne Backstrom, Juliann Carr and Tyson Buldoc skiers, Chuck Patterson and many more took the challenge to cross Tahoe. It was a beautiful day with no winds to battle, but a lot of distance to cover. I got a good rythm and just kept paddling till I touched the sand at Kings Beach. It was my second time on a SUP board, the first experience being Thursday going around Donner Lake. I enjoyed the time on the water and the solitude I felt on my own out there on top of the dark blue water. Every stroke was symbolic in a way that it will take many little efforts for our war vets to make a good recovery from their life changing experiences they must deal with. I'm not an endurance athlete nor do I seek out these sort of challenges, but I took it stroke by stroke and made it to the other side along with every one who started our journey that day. Thanks to Naish SUP boards for supplying the equipment to get us safely to the other side with not much struggle. IT took a long time to get there and a persistent attitude. Well that attitude lasted for 4hrs then it sort of went into the tank. Think I prefer to ride waves on boards instead of almost 5 hrs of standing and paddling over and over. Next time I get on that SUP it will be for a short mission close to shore! check out this link for more: http://www.tahoebonanza.com/article/20080813/NEWS/902047957/1051 D