Hosts
BLAISE ROSENTHAL
Don’t call it a comeback! Bringing his signature ’90s style to the slopes of today, Blaise shreds in the present moment. As an accomplished and regarded top pro for a good long while, he returned several seasons ago from an extended hiatus with a renewed passion and a pursuit of greatness. He’s sponsored by Spring Break Snowboards and shreds the Powder Racer series like only he can.
Blaise’s ability to ride all terrain is respectable. From the peak to the parking lot rails, your host held it down back then, as he does now. And you’re gonna find that he’s a bit of an instigator, and he loves pushing others to progress. You’ll be subtly encouraged, incited to push yourself just a little beyond what’s comfortable, having to keep up but never getting left behind.
ANDY BLUMBERG
These immersive gatherings are the envisioning, curating, staging and storytelling of one person with the personality and pedigree to put them together and pull them off. As the former Editorial Director of TransWorld SNOWboarding, and prior to that tenure as Managing Editor of BLUNT, Andy holds a keen perspective and vested interest in the community and a reflective awareness of where we’ve come from, are, and towards where we can go future-forward …
Sliding sideways since ’93/’94, his level of mediocrity on board is far outweighed and reconciled by passion, matching pros toe-to-toe for his love of riding and its lifestyle. With an appreciation of collective pronouns, i.e. ‘murder of crows’, ‘mischief of rats’, etc., it came to his attention the need for our own proprietary set-term. He landed on the following for the sense of belonging snowboarding provides so many: we’re a ‘binding of snowboarders’; each with a unique quality, brought to the common, hallowed substance of snow.
DYLAN HOPKINS
This Connecticut kid isn’t hard to miss … just look around — he’s the one with the perma-grin. Dylan’s STOKED, SOOO STOKED on snowboarding. A hustler and bustle-r, when he’s not getting shreddy with it, he’s the HYPE man (insert: airhorn), making sure everyone is having a good time; coordinating and executing logistics, accommodating our groups with considerable care.
Having been a park-focused rider when he lived in Vermont, the inevitable move West to Utah and Tahoe brought big mountain more into his focus. Dylan’s been instructing since 2015, coaching at High Cascade in the summer for three years, and now manages HCSC’s adult camps at Mt. Hood. You’ll soon enough come to find he’s gonna be a best buddy at Bear and elsewhere.
KELLIE SPEHAR
Free-spirited, free-range, fun-to-be-around, sweet and humble as pie, patient beyond belief in helping even the most novice riders progress — Kellie is certified and qualified to Host you at Bear Valley.
Idyllwild, California born and raised, she came up as a park kid on the So Cal slopes before heading north to live in Bend, Oregon, to teach at Hoodoo and train at Bachelor; taking her knowledge of transition, inherent jump sense, and feature-flavor learned over the years to new terrain … including her recent ventures into the world of backcountry riding.
While her style is pretty laid back, she has a depth of formal training and experience that allows her to decipher each rider’s small body movements and how they correlate to their movements on a snowboard. Simply put, if you’re just figuring out the shred game, Kellie is here to help you level up!
Dedicated to our community locally and at-large, we’re excited and honored to have her with us, and we look forward to her contribution to what is sure to be another awesome experience for one and all at BV for Blaise Boot Camp™ 2023.
MIKE McDANIEL
With a booming laugh and a perennial smile, Mike McDaniel is a fun and fly guy to shred and hang with. Originally from San Diego, and riding 19 of his 24 years, he moved to Salt Lake for a few to pursue competitive snowboarding … but fell in love with stacking clips instead — an agenda that’s now since taken over. As a self-proclaimed handplant enthusiast, he’s forever seeking a good or novel set-up to get inverted on, if only to wreck-it radical for several seconds upside down.
A credible sponsor list supports his efforts professionally, while a passion for making snowboarding for everyone is at his heart. Having coached at HCSC, he’s hyped to host at these gatherings, sharing in the high vibes among the collective crews; eager to bring his own way to play on the mountain to Bear Valley for the first time this winter.
OLIVER DIXON
Freestyle wild man, one-foot master, excellent Hula Hooper, twerks like a jerk, straight out of Detroit (Pine Knob local, dawg), Oliver might be the most unique human in snowboarding, having made it an art of his own, and if you haven’t yet gathered from all the descriptives here — he’s the life of the party. LET’S GO!
For his sensitive side, he’s a very giving coach with endless patience and really celebrates the victories and accomplishments of his campers. Having turned up at Bear Valley last March, quite unexpectedly mind you, he brought a character and charisma, unmatched and almost unyielding.
While he did receive a stern warning from our resident regulator, Dylan, of “If you get naked … I’m gonna kick your ass”, Oliver abided, keeping his clothes on for the duration, and turned it out nonetheless, amping attendees with his brand of comedy, camaraderie, and capacity for shred.
These upcoming gathering sessions in March actually see him returning to the scene, this time in the invited and formal role of host, with the caveat that that above order hold firm, stands fast.
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