Had a blast with the Burton crew last week, as you can peep in my hard hitting ESPN report, but sadly one photo didn’t make the final gallery edit. Nah sons, 13th Witness too raw for Disney! But here we could let you fly kid!

My friends Hannah Teter and Gabi Viteri recently took an epic trip to Kenya to help install a water filtration system in the village of Kirindon. If you’re not already familiar, Hannah runs a charity called Hannah’s Gold that funds projects in Africa with the profits from her VT Maple Syrup brand of the same name. Hannah has been concentrating on Kirindon for the last two years and has helped with everything from paying for school fees to setting up home based care kits and trained in-home care for those suffering from HIV and AIDS. That’s pretty rad from a 21 year old snowboarder. Check out some amazing pics after the jump. All photos by Chris Owen.

Feel that sting in the air? To most people here in NY, that burst of icy breeze that came around the corner this week signals that the next five months are open season for bitching and acting like they’ve never heard of winter before. To my crew it means time to shred brah! If you don’t like cold and snow, move to Miami.

Deka - Baker Back Country

In the spirit of what is being rumored to be one of the best impending snow seasons in recent memory I wanted to give some attention to my homie Brian Deka Paupaw. Born and raised in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, Deka grew up about as far away from the snowboarding lifestyle as humanly possible. While kids in the mountains were patiently waiting for powder days, Deka was dodging bullets just trying to make it to middle school. Needless to say, snowboarding was not on the radar. Deka survived growing up in the do or die though, cultivating a talent in art along the way and eventually receiving a scholarship to the prestigious Parsons School of Design.

At Parsons Deka was exposed to an entirely different cross section of society even though he was barely 5 miles away from home across the river in Manhattan. “There were white dudes talking to me about snowboarding like it was the best thing on earth,” Deka tells it, “I was like what the fuck is that?”

But curiosity got the best of him and soon Deka was taking solo missions to Hunter Mountain determined to figure the shit out. Fast forward a decade and Deka is an ill shredder with half the world’s mountains under his belt. Sure enough, I first met homie in Aspen where he was tearing up Snowmass in the Burton x Kidrobot kit that I hadn’t seen anyone rocking yet. Yeah, you could say he’s committed to snowboarding.

As a response to the immeasurable impact snowboarding has had on his life, Deka is producing a documentary film called Hoods To Woods. In it, he tells the story of how snowboarding changed his life while also drawing some too infrequently noticed similarities between the renegade spirits of hip hop and shred cultures.

I got a chance to screen the film at Deka’s lab in Bed Stuy the other night and let me tell you, this dude has had a unique experience. What’s particularly dope is that the deepest moments he’s had in his life come from the people he’s met through snowboarding, even more so than the physical sport itself. Hoods to Woods is being screened now for friends and family but should unspool officially sometime this winter. Watch out for the complete interview then. More after the jump.

Right around the time it gets cold every year and we all start to get bummed about how we didn’t really do shit all summer, a magical group of heads roll into town, show us a ridiculously dope snowboarding movie and tell us to stop our bloodclot cryin’! Well this was that time of year. The movie was It’s Always Snowing Somewhere. Bring on the snow!