This week on wednesday, as always Windells Academy took a trip into portland. We decided that an educational trip to the zoo would be a great mid week break. We got up close and personal with many of the animals, Maggie got a little TOO close with a few friendly african birds. Check it out! Read the rest of this entry »

BACKYARD BANG RIDER INFO AND EVENT UPDATES

PORTLAND, OR. (OCT. 20, 2009) – The 3^rd Annual Backyard Bang Rail Jam, presented by Salomon Snowboards and the Art Institute, will bring Pro’s and Ams into Portland’s Pearl District for sideways snow sliding, fun games and tons of prizes this Halloween, October 31^st. The event is free to spectators and prizes will be awarded for the best costume.

As well as serving up suds in the VIP area and at the Backyard Bang after-party, Kona Brewing has partnered with the Oahu Visitor’s Bureau and Hawaiian Airlines to grant one lucky winner two free flights from Portland to Oahu, the heart of Hawaii. Also included in this prize package are surf lessons for two with Waikiki Beach Services. Spectators can pick up a lei and experience some aloha in the Kona Brewing tent while registering to win during the event. For more info, go to www.visit-oahu.com or www.konabrewingco.com

For more event information check out: www.salomonsnowboard.com/community and www.artinstitute-portland.com

The Backyard Bang is hosted by Salomon Snowboards and the Art Institute of Portland and supported by Bonfire Snowboarding, Windells Camp, Skull Candy, Mt Hood Meadows, Exit Real World, US Outdoor Store and Kona Brewing Company.

The students of Windells Academy were more than happy when they woke up tuesday morning to hear about the fresh powder up at Mt. Hood.  Everyone got into the van quick after breakfast and headed up to the mountain for a great day of adventure and powder runs. It continued to snow all day long and into the night resulting in 20 more inches by wednesday morning. Stay tuned for more updates!

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Mt Hood has been recently blanketed with over 2 feet of Fresh Snow.  With Winter knocking at our doorsteps, campers of all ages and abilities have started signing up for Windells Holiday Camp. (December 26th thru Jan 2nd) There are still spots open but we encourage everyone to act fast to take advantage of an Early Bird Discount.

Check out the three resorts that campers attend in the Winter!

http://www.timberlinelodge.com/conditions/

http://skibowl.com/index.php?page=conditions

http://www.skihood.com/The-Mountain/Conditions

As Halloween approaches, the students of Windells Academy have been desiring to pick up their yearly pumpkin to carve. We thought, where would be a better place to get a pumpkin than the Roloff farm! For those of you that don’t know, Matt Roloff, father of the TLC hit series Little People Big World (http://tlc.discovery.com/fansites/lpbw/lpbw.html), Started a large farm with his family. The farm includes a pumpkin patch, tractor rides, carmel apples, cider, a hay maize, petting zoo, baby lion, play castle, “the old town”, soccer field, volley ball court, car restoring  garage, gift shop, and of course… their new home. You can read all about Matt’s family and their farm here (http://mattroloff.com/). The film crew and producer were at the farm filming for the show, and the students had the opportunity to meet both the oldest and youngest brothers (Jeremy and Jacob), as well as their sister (Molly). Everyone had a great time and we got a few awesome pumpkins too!

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Check out what students have been up to so far this semester!  LIVE.LEARN.RIDE

“Day in the Life” at Windells Academy from Windells Academy on Vimeo.

Windells Founder On Summer Camps And A Changing Industry

By: Shannon Johnson

For the past two decades, Tim Windell has been at the forefront of our industry’s progression with the development of  camps designed to push action sports to new heights. Now action sports and education can go hand-in-hand with the launch of the Windells Academy, giving athletes year round access to terrain, education and the industry. We caught up with Tim Windell to find out how the summer camps were impacted, his plans for the Windells Academy and adapting to the changing industry.

Continue Reading This Interview.

Here at Windells Academy, every Wednesday the students take a field trip. Sometimes it is an educational field tip, and others it has to do with the ski and snowboard industry. This past Wednesday  the students of Windells Academy were lucky enough to check out Nike headquarters. In our first half of the tour, we learned how nike was created from 2 men and only $1000 dollars.  The first Nike shoe sales were out of the back of a car at local track meets. Once Nike grew large enough to hire on employees, their first ever employee came up with the name “Nike”. He said that a company name should be short with a hard consonant, like a k, that makes it rememberable. Now nike has almost 6,000 employees, just at their headquarters! This year alone, Nike sold 275 million pairs of shoes, they are #1 on the charts for shoe sales, owning 40% of the market share. Our second half of the tour was run by Bobby Meeks, ex pro snowboarder and head of the Nike snowboard department. Bobby was kind enough to show us the boot and outerwear design offices, and we dropped by Danny Kass’ cubical to see what was on his agenda for the year.

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Yesterday, the top freeskiers in the World swung by Windells Camp, for a private sesh, to take advantage of BOB, our 15 thousand square foot rec center.  Sammy Carlson, Eric Pollard, Dylan Hood, Josh Larkins and Tommy Ellingson were skating, jumping on tramp and filming  in BOB.  Who knows, maybe some of the footy might show up in a Nimbus Webisode this year?

While Sammy was here, we discussed a series of comps at Windells next Summer so please stay tuned!  Sammy sure was pumped on Windells, ” Im freaking stoked on this place, it changes every time I am here.  I’m loving what you guys are doing !”