Rage Films tours Europe!

On February 16 the I Pods were charged and Tommy Ellingson boarded his flight from Portland, OR, Taylor Felton in Boston, MA, and Kyler Cooley and Tim Durtschi in Salt Lake City; these guys were going to spend the next few weeks with RAGE Films in Europe exploiting the natural tranees, street rails, sewage waste dump pillow lines, discos, rental cars, hotels, community toilets, and most of all: the powder, which would pound the Austian area of Damuls for a week straight.

We arrived early moring in Zurich Switzerland, Tim sporting his favorite unwashed pair of Saga Outerwear basketball shorts while Taylor’s luggage let us know that he had been living out of it for what seemed an entire season. As the crew claimed bags we noticed US native Nick Greener visiting Europe for a big mountain competition (and from what I hear has made the choice to lose himself in the area). A floor above us yielded yet another US partial citizen Greta Elliason; she was gearing up for an Oakley shoot in St. Anton. Conversations were held while I made the shitty but necessary decision to rent a cell phone; what the hell it’s only $1.16 a minute, a call, a declined call, and a missed call (should run RAGE about a G, sorry Sky).

After renting one costly item the time had come to go rent another; a car. Tommy and I took a cab (it’s cheaper to rent outside the airport) to Hertz where the reserved foreign car was waiting; a small dung pile that would barely hold Tim’s stash of Swiss chocolate. We declined the initial car and opted for a Toyota Previa minivan. We waited four hours at Hertz for the car to show up and when she did she was a beaut. The Previa had tinted power windows, sliding passenger doors, seating for five, sonar for backing up and letting you know you just hit something, great sound, storage for stashes, killer tires, an incredible E-Brake, chaines (which were a godsend), she had everything and we would need it.

We rallied the Previa back to the airport, kissed Greta good-bye, and headed to Austria. After a suggested three-hour tour turned into eight, we found the rustic and friendly town of Bezau. Our accommodations were being made possible through three different avenues. First, two guys from the Austrian clothing company Sub Industries. They opened the door to every place we went. What was their incentive? We were shooting three of their team riders Fabio Studer, Seth Warner, and Lucci (let you know the spelling of his last name in the movie), and they are just generally nice people. The second avenue, a guy named Jurgen Kipperer from a company named Scouts Marketing. His job is to market resorts throughout Europe, in our case, a resort named Diedams Kopf. The third avenue to make the first leg of our journey possible was a joint effort from the resort Diedams Kopf (their manager’s name is Klaus Nubbaumer) and a ski shop called Sihas.

Once groceries were purchased, beds were claimed, poops were left, and bedtime stories were being told by European Olympic TV sports reporters, the time had come to dream about building perfect jumps in the Austrian Alps.

Kyler and I awoke to the neighboring sounds of Tim’s roommate Taylor snoring. We eagerly put our gear on and headed down to the customary free breakfast. This aint no Holiday Inn Sugar smacks continental breakfast, but rather fresh OJ, various fresh cheeses, fresh Tea, fresh breads, fresh milk (trust me, I saw the next door neighbor squeezing the cows tit in the morning), and other goodies to make our young huckers full.

After my typical bitching about hurrying, the car was packed and we were headed off to a ski resort we had never heard; Diedams Kopf. We gained our lift tickets, boarded the gondola, and headed up. This place was small, but full of various natural tranees with new snow. We immediately headed to a ridge that was crying “slay me, slay me”. As the boys began the easy traverse, cornices began to break off underneath them and tumble to the groomed runs; not good. They opted not to ski the chosen spot and instead made turns down where they were immediately greeted by the ski patrol stating a bunch of foreign terms; the crew was able to make out the general idea: we were in an out of bounds avalanche area and if we went again we would be banned from the mountain (nuf said).

With our first run experience over; each individual scoped the land to find a spot to build a jump. Although spots were numerous in every direction, Tim spotted an area where we all agreed to head towards. We looked here we looked there and finally chose an area to build next to an old ass historic cabin. We built the jump, everyone hit it once, and we waited for the following day and sunlight.

Between the following morning and the first built jump we came up with the idea to build a massive ravine gap jump. We estimated the gap distance at 90+ feet and the peak height off the ground at over 35+ feet; this jump was fucking huge.

The next day we sessioned the 1^st jump, it was dope and the boys were stoked. Taylor: ginormous right side 3s. Tim: beautiful cork underflip sw5s. Kyler: perfect right 7s. Tommy: huge double back flips.

With the 1^st jump laying in ruins we walked a measly 100 ft. behind us to the ravine gap jump. This thing was intimidating: high speed, narrow channel, and certain death if you came up short. Taylor was all about guinea pigging it. He has guts like I’ve never seen before; I truly believe he would hit ANY jump you put in front of him and this one was no exception. I climbed up a tree to break branches and widen the path of flight meanwhile Taylor and the gang made a few speed checks.

I found the spot to shoot from and Taylor was at the top of the in-run. He called his drop and I waited eagerly to see the massive lip spit him out. Boom he was off and the young Mr. Felton set a quite glonday air forth….he cleared the gap and stomped the landing; this gap had just been proved doable. Kyler was up next, scared and always prefers spinning to a straight air (he doesn’t have to watch a miscalculation as long). He called his drop, time passed, and he was off spinning a massive three into the trees. Kyler ripped through the branches muscling his way to the landing. He must have knocked off a Christmas’ wreath worth of branches; the boys were thankful he made it out of there with a smile. Tim was up next, he was scared shitless and had not hit a gap since his mishap over the creek in Booter Crunk (too bad this gap was 4 times the distance and height; so much for working up gradually). He called the drop, sent it, and the tails of his skis knuckled the landing; he was fine. Tommy and Fabio both quelled their fears and hit the gap; everyone was safe and now it time to see who could land some sort of tech trick. Taylor ended up with another perfect right side 3, Tommy had the biggest air of the day with a front flip, and Tim ended up with the most tech; a right side 180.

This aricle is getting way too long. So here are some pictures of the entire trip. One last note: Damuls in Austria has the highest annual snowfall total for the last ten years in the world. We were lucky enough to experience an 8-day pounding of 8 ft. new snow while in the Damuls area (Seth Warner was on hand for the entire snow choking experience).

RAGE would like to thank everyone who made this three-week adventure possible. Teddy, although my friendship with you was brief, you will always be remembered as one of the few people in the industry who treated me kindly. May you, your friends and family be well

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