I just got back from shooting with Justin Wiegand at Nimbus Indenpendent right in his backyard also known as Mt Hood! Justin and I got in touch a few months back. He wanted to film some ski BASE jumping off Mississippi Head – a 250 ft cliff on the south side of the mountain. After trying to coordinate it for a few months, we finally got a window and everything fell into place!

This jump is one of my favorite because this is where I did my first ski BASE ever. Moreover, the scenery is amazing with Portland on the west and Mt Jefferson on the east. All this made me think about Shane one more time. It hadn’t been long since we lost THE MAN. Shane actually came here last year after we opened this cliff and ski BASEd it a few times with his best bro Miles Daisher. He showed us what could be done and if any of us skiers are ski BASE jumping now it is because of him. He gave me some very valuable pointers in the past such as “don’t die” or “don’t turn on the sink with your wipe hand” and everytime I jump, he is on my mind. We lost the master but the art is not dead and we have to keep pushing it.

Hanging out with Justin was awesome. He is one of the most passionate person I have met about the mountains. We also had a very deep conversation about his recuring dream of being chased in the forrest by werewolves and other magical creatures, jumping off a cliff to escape and stomping his landing everytime! In fact, his dream keeps getting better and better over the years. Everytime the werewolf is chasing him, he doesn’t even bother outrunning it, he goes straight for the cliff because it is just too much fun to fall. This requires skills. In fact, his skills are soooooo great that I am pretty sure Napolean Dynamite was referring to him when he was explaining how girls like guys with skills – werewolf fighting skills, cliff jumping skills, computer skills, editing skills, snowboarding skills, sledding skills, snowball throwing skills – I could go on and on…

Anyway, the point is: keep checking these updates, watch these webisodes and new movie coming out called “Contrast” because shooting with these guys is a BLAST and Nimbus Independent makes some of the best movies out there. You can feel the stoke, the energy and it will make you want to go fight a werewolf with your bare hands.

Nimbus Independent: http://www.nimbusindependent.com/blogs/detail/A-ski-base-with-Matthias-Giraud/66.html