The San Jose Mercury is reporting that snowboard legend Shaun Palmer was arrested at the weekend. He was one of four people arrested over an alleged Fourth of July fight.

Reports say Palmer was trying to break up the fight but was arrested on suspicion of public intoxication.

Click here to read the story.

Just found this awesome video of Roxy’s 8-year-old American rider Maddie Mastro. The movie also features her brother Cameron – an equality precocious snow talent.

Maddie was discovered last year at the USASA nationals. She started skiing when she was two and to part in the nationals on skis when she was just five. She took up snowboarding when she was six.

Check her out on the slopestyle course in the movie below – super smooth style for such a young un!

Cameron and Maddie Mastro 08 from Robert Madrid on Vimeo

pic by Andy Kuljis

Last year Ana Rumiha narrowly missed out on a podium place at the Nikita Chickita contest when she placed fourth. No such problems this year - Ana won the event in Serfaus and picked up 1000 euros and a one-year Nikita contract as a result.

Ana has been talking to Nikita about her day and what winning the even means to her...

"I think I first found out about Nikita Chickita on the Internet last year and four of my friends were ready to go straight away. Last year's contest was the most fun one I've ever been on, so I decided to come back again this year.

Just the night before I was supposed to set off for Serfaus, I was considering not going, due to the bad weather report and pretty high travel expenses, but I woke up next morning full of good energy and I had that travel itch.

I called my friends, Anja and Andy and told them that we had to go. It doesn't take much to convince them. So that was it, three happy friends went to Serfaus.

As the competition morning was kind of cold and snowy I wasn't too motivated to jump around right away, but that's why I love Nikita Chickita. You can ride however and whenever you want, no pressure. In the qualifiers I couldn't do a single trick I wanted to, so I was just hoping to get in to the finals and be able to ride the park for the rest of the day.

pic by Andy Kuljis

And then the sun came out and Nikita Chickita was again the best contest of the year for me. No bibs, no starting positions, no tension. It felt like a normal day in a perfectly shaped park except there were only good girl riders and I could have had the whole park for myself whenever I wanted.

Because of all the positive atmosphere I was relaxed and I had so much fun from the beginning ‘til the end of the contest. I think it's really difficult to make a contest where the riders can have all the freedom they need and can do whatever is on their mind. This one makes me feel free and that's how I comprehend snowboarding.

It was great that we had a snowcat driving us up the hill because the girls had to wait for each other and watch each other ride, so there was a really nice and friendly feeling among us.

I also got to know some great girls there, cuz it's not every day that I meet people with same interests and same passion for snowboarding and skateboarding as me.

So... I had some funny runs in the finals and I guess the judges liked it, but I sure wasn't expecting to win. I have to admit that I was really stoked when I found out, especially when I remebered that I almost nearly didn’t go!

Nikita Chickita is still my favorite contest. I wouldn't even call it a contest, it's more like a gathering for the girls who want to have fun, ride and show each other what's new in the female snowboard world."

We've mentioned before that Hannah Teter is taking part in a Burton-sponsored tour to promote a new novel about a teenage snowboarder called Girl Overboard, by Justina Chen Headley.

What we hadn't realised was that Hannah also has a fine way with words herself. There's a video of her on YouTube reciting a pieve of her work, called Wise Eyes. Check it out:

Tara Dakides has agreed to do an interview for the site. I'd love to use any questions you ladies would like to ask her so if you've any burning questions, please post them in the related thread on the forum:

http://www.powderroom.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5020

We are looking for outgoing, sociable females and males, ages 18-30ish.

Cast members can be from anywhere in the world, profession irrelevant, 

snowboarding or skiing skills not necessary.

This is not a scripted show – no acting required.

Winter travel specialists Inghams must have been following our forum discussion about whether this year is going to be a La Niña winter – and bring a ton of powder with it.

Here are some seriously non-scientific tests Inghams suggest you can do to join the debate:

1.      Inghams Chief Executive, Litsa Constantinou, says that according to the Greek Cypriot old wives tale more wasps buzzing around means a colder, snowier winter ahead and with the abundant numbers spotted in Britain this summer, we hope she is right.

2.      Look at the Rowan or Chestnut trees in your garden. When berries and nuts are plentiful it will be a cold winter and this autumn there is an abundance of fruit and nuts.

3.      Head to your local park and look for squirrels. Apparently when squirrel’s tails are very bushy a hard snowy winter will follow and squirrels gathering nuts in a flurry, will cause snow to gather in a hurry.

4.      Taka a trip to the local farm. The old timers say there's a lot of wool on the sheep when it's going to be a hard winter.

5.      Fondle some onions at the local supermarket. Onion skins very thin, mild winter coming in; onion skins thick and tough, coming winter cold and rough.

6.      Borrow the Doctor’s Tardis and head back in time to the Alps this summer. When the first week in August is unusually warm, the coming winter will be snowy and long.

7.      Buy a bucket and spade and start digging. Some people believe that the wider the brown part of a caterpillar, the colder the winter, while others believe that the wider the black part, the colder the weather. Go figure!

8.      Find a partridge and measure its feathers. They say the severity of winter is determined by how far down the feathers have grown on a partridge's leg.

9.      Stay up for a full moon party on September or October 26. A ring around the moon brings snow.

10.   Visit a garden centre. Flowers bloomin' in late autumn, a sure sign of a bad winter comin'.

My last snowtrip of the season has come and gone and I am sad! I headed to Falls Creek to enjoy my last trip before I head home to Scotland for a few weeks ( by the time I get back all the snow will be gone).

We all snuck out of work early on Friday and were on the road in record time making it to a small place called Mt Beauty(35-40mins from Falls) at about 11pm. Alas the lure of alcoholic beverages kept us up till 1am (not the best prep for hard day of shredding ahead.)

Luckily we missed the awful winds and rain of the day before and we woke to blue ski with not one cloud to be seen. Spring had indeed sprung! Saturday was all about the sugary snow, my fave. I spent most of my day with a couple of friends (Tanya and Elise) who were mastering the art of linking turns so it gave me some time to do some switch riding and generally mess around popping ollies etc.. Just as much fun as hooting down runs I reckon. The girls were progressing nicely..and I even managed to trick them into a blue run. Which they did really well, and insisted on going back to it later in the day! Well done ladies!

After messing around in the park a little we called it a day and kicked back on the balcony with a Corona...watching the sun go down!...ahhhhh

In a bid to stay budget we headed back down the hill to eat dinner and have a few drinks to finish of the day...and wow what a surprise I got. We sat down to our table in the most typical aussie country pub (all plastic flowers and wood veneer walls very tasteful) and I noticed a group of snowboarders opposite. I felt like I recognised a couple of them and then I realised it was none other than.......drumroll please....... Kelly Clark, Elena Hight and Spencer O'Brien as well as some others I couldn't place. OOOH MY....I couldn't believe it, especially as this place was well not what I would have called a pro snowboarder hang out if you catch my drift. I desperately wanted to go and say something but felt a little weird, so I just remained happy in the knowledge that I knew who they were.

I heard on the lift the next day, from a old guy that the day before there had been a helicopter flying really low in the Ruined Castle Park filming...not sure if thats true or not but I am presuming there were up there doing something along those lines. Elena Hight’s blog on Burton said she was doing a photoshoot in Australia at some stage so perhaps that was it!

Anyway, Sunday showed with pretty much the same sun and blue skies, and more of the same sugary conditions. I had a killer day, hitting some bigger boxes than my usual attempts and going of the jumps with confidence...Everyone was progressing and having a ball...the best day to finish the Aussie season. So unless a trip to the northern hemisphere materialises it looks like that's it for me till June next year!

They're two girls I wouldn't imagine ever mentioning in the same sentence, but John Ryan from the San Jose Mercury News seems to think the post-prison Paris resembles the Olympic boardercross silver medalist these days...

http://www.mercextra.com/blogs/buzz/2007/06/27/paris-hilton-future-snowboard-champion/

Shamelessly stolen from Popbitch -  this Pennsylvanian resort has a pretty unfortunate name -  www.blueknob.com

If you don't know why it's funny, ask a Brit...

Welcome to the powderroom.net blog. We’re introducing it as a way of keeping you up to date with the latest events, snow reports and gossip from around the world.

It’s being written by readers all over the place – they’ll be telling us what’s going on at their local mountain, where the best parties are and what we all should be checking out on the web.

To find out more about each writer just click on their name in the heading of each post and you’ll be taken to a page containing all their posts plus a little information about them.

You can also select to read posts by category – just chose from the links in the right hand side.

We’ve got a few posts to get us going but look out for more content from all over the world soon.

If you’re somewhere interesting and want to keep us updated on the snowy happenings where you are, drop me a line at lucie@powderroom.net