We pulled out yet another collab in time for the Mighty Midwest Snowboard Camp Tour this year.  This time our friend's over at Purl Wax cranked out some Submarines.  Available in 3 colors, Blue, Yellow and Purple, campers who signed up were able to get their hands on this limited run of sub-shaped wax goodies.  

We went into the tour this year with the vision of expanding the Mighty Midwest Snowboard Camps into Japan, but we were up against the barriers of language differences along with figuring out ways we could interact with the kids without speaking.  Luckily, Milbery has been to Japan a handful of times to visit, film video parts and work with different Snowboard Publications, his network of friends and snowboard connections could really come in handy. 

 
We collaborated on this tour stop with The Allian Snowboard folks from Advance Distribution, which really helped out with finding the right resort to host camp and also to promote the very FIRST line of snowboards specifically designed for kids and getting the younger generation snowboarding.  The new line of Allian kid’s boards are designed by Ingemar Bachman & Pat Milbery.   So far, they have been quite popular with kids.  Check them out!

So, the way to communicate with the 20 Japanese campers we had attend camp was an idea Milbery brainstormed up and it worked.  We have a series of SO-GNAR monsters we design and we figured everyone loves Art, so why not come together during lunch and let the kids design their own So-GNAR monster.   The kids loved it and they had so much fun personalizing their desired SG monster.  We all had a ton of fun snowboarding together, but this was way of connecting with the kids indirectly through our love for art.  Here is a recap of our art session, some of their creations and the fun we had during our Japanese tour stop.  In the animated world of Japan, the kids certainly have quite the imagination!  Click Here for more...

Our thoughts go out to the wonderful islands of Japan.  We've spent the morning reaching out to many of our friends across Japan.  So far, most everyone is OK.  However, it seems some have lost a lot, from property to homes and businesses.  Japan is a magical place and it kills us to see something of this magnitude happen.  Fresh off our last trip to Japan, we were once again astounded to see what a beautiful and welcoming place it is.  We are so thankful to everyone that has helped us out over the years on our numerous trips to Japan.  There's no way we can ever fully repay everyone for how much they have given us.  We love you, and we can't thank you enough. Japan is our favorite place on the planet.  To those friend's and their families that we haven't gotten a hold of, we hope you are well...and safe.  Please feel free to drop us a line at any time to  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it  to let us know you are OK.  

We still think POW makes the best gloves around. I snowboard with Pow mitts, they are the only gloves I wear.  Milbs got me hooked on the High-5's.  I use those for biking around town when its a bit chilly.  Needless to say, we jumped at the opportunity to do a So-Gnar // POW Glove collaboration. Walla!  Here they are, complete with the So-Gnar Monster collage and the So-Gnar 3-stripe color scheme that we run on EVERYTHING.  These gloves also come in the mitt version as well.  All of these will be available for next year...2011!!!