Summer living in Boston with Austin Smith, Cole Navin, and The North Face
Don’t use snowboarding as a copout to not enjoy the best days of the year.
words: Jens Heig
This winter was all time. It really was. There are talks of snowboarding for 12 straight months in California, and there was enough pow during the season to get face shots nearly every single day.
But now it’s summer. Beers, beaches, bikes, skateboards, sun. The dog days are upon us. Time is ripe to take advantage of them.
This past weekend, I had the fortune of joining Austin Smith, Cole Navin, and a truly eclectic group of individuals from The North Face for a strike mission to Boston. It centered around a trail running event, the Endurance Challenge Series, where I battled with my first 10K while Cole and Austin drank some beers at the finish line. Moral support. We camped, and Cole guided us to his go-to swimming hole.
Then we went to Boston. We wandered around the Seaport District in search of a bar without a line or a cover, landing at Biddy Early’s. Turns out, you always have to wait in line at the pub. The next day we caught the Sox game at Fenway. Austin took his shoes off and waved around a foam finger. We drank beer and sweat our way through eight innings of 90 degree heat and humidity. We were completely lost in the East Coast summer.
And that’s the point. Don’t use snowboarding as a copout to not enjoy the best days of the year.
A generous thank you to The North Face for hosting us, to Hal Koerner and Tim Olson for pushing the limits of the human body, and to Boston for being Boston.
This is Cole. After I got out of the tent in this morning, I walked over and asked him if he slept with the cover pulled over the truck bed, but he slept under the stars. As it should be. He’s new to the TNF team, soft spoken, polite, and incredibly talented on a snowboard.Joe Consavage was the chef at Camp TNF. His kitchen doubled as Austin’s bedroom, a reminder that was given at 5:30am when Joe started to whip up some breaky.The Him Suit keeps climbers alive on Mt. Everest, and it keeps Austin warm during cold nights in the firetruck.Definitely not used to this kind of view from a chairlift. Trail and ultra running is a totally foreign, but incredible world.My time in Boston was limited, but I had to take some time to wander around Beacon Hill. I’m partial for photos of doors, and this was a prime door-viewing spot.Acorn Street is allegedly the most photographed street in the United States. I can see why. Here’s one more.If you have time to kill before a Red Sox game, head to the Bleacher Bar that sits within the Green Monster. Get there early though, the bar fills with bros pretty damn quickly. And apparently there’s a no camera rule. So much for that.It was 95 degrees and beyond humid on Sunday but Austin had finally managed to change his shirt from the weekend. He had been living Baja life in Mexico for ten days before this trip, so I don’t blame him.This is Austin and Nicole Schmiedl, who runs the live social channels for TNF. She had Austin gathering content for the Endurance Challenge. We haven’t seen the photos and videos yet, but if it’s anything like the firetruck approach, it’s going to be good.The “fanorak” is a new jacket from The North Face that rolls itself into a fanny pack. This one is red, white, and blue, which helped Austin fit in perfectly well in the heart of Boston.How many levels can we go down in a selfie? Cue Inception horn…Get a sausage before the game. It’s cheaper, a guy with a thick Boston accent will ask you about onions and peppers, and it will taste great. Who gives a shit what it’s actually made of anyway.The poor woman in front of Austin had to deal with this for about three innings. Fortunately, Smartwool socks don’t really stink. | Photo: Cole NavinOn June 3rd, climber and TNF athlete Alex Honnond made the first free-solo climb of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park, arguably one of the most incredible feats in outdoor history. 3,198 miles away, he was celebrated for about three seconds on a screen at Fenway. | Photo: Cole Navin
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