Dear diary,
I'd wanted to participate in a big mountain snowboarding competition ever since the Masters series started a few years ago. Last winter I had a great early season which gave me a lot of confidence leading up to the Masters competition, but a hip injury several weeks before the competition stopped me from going to Snowbird in '09.
As the year passed, I started to realize that I'm not getting any younger and I knew this could be my last chance to step it up and ride with the big boys. I made myself commit this year by signing up for Snowbird when registration opened up in December.
I had absolutely no idea how I'd stack up against riders from other ski resorts like Jackson and Squaw so I decided that there was only one way for me to find out... Jump right into the fire.
Oh look, its a couple of Tahoe and Jackson boys right there. Travis Rice reaching into his pocket full of tricks while Tom Burt cuddles with his TB pro 172. Humbling to say the least, but just another day at Snowbird.
Everything about Snowbird is amazing. The people are laid back and friendly, the peaks are steep, and ski patrol allows access to just about anything you have the balls to ski down or jump off.
My goal on the first day riding at the 'bird was to scope out the venue that would be used for the qualification round of the competition. Since I had never been to Snowbird before I felt like I had a lot of work to do in order to dial in a perfect line for the comp.
This was my first glimpse of the Silver Fox venue. Due to the weather, it turns out this was the best view I'd get before the competition.
I also found the High Baldy traverse and ended up doing some laps over on the finals venue when I should have been riding Silver Fox.
It turned out to be a good thing I got some Baldy laps in on Wednesday because it was closed for the rest of my vacation. This picture was taken at the end of the day on Thursday during a brief break from the storm.
The next day I finally took some time to try to link up a line in Silver Fox for the comp.
This is at the top of a 40' drop with a scrappy little alternate chute that I was thinking about poking my way through during the comp. I took this picture so I could remember the spruce tree as my landmark. I think this might be the cliff that Travis Rice hucked during his run.
A little farther skiers right and near the bottom of the venue. This time my landmark is the group of saplings just skiers right of the chute, I used them to get me lined up for the 25' drop that sends you back into the chute.
Self portrait from near the bottom of the venue. Way off in the background you can see the landing zone of the big drop that I linked into my line.
At the end of the afternoon the competition organizers held an athlete meeting and discussed the possibility of the competition taking place on Saturday given the forecast for 3' FEET of new snow by Saturday afternoon. We were told to be ready to go just in case we had a break in the weather.
Competition day 1- qualification round
After making it up the canyon before 6am to miss the road closure I spent the next 3 or 4 hours locked down in inter-lodge while ski patrol conducted avalanche control work.
There was definitely a lot of nervous energy in the air and a lot of competitors were anxiously fidgeting with their gear.
Saturday's snowfall forecast had been downgraded from the original prediction of 20"-30" new DAYTIME accumulation, to a much more conservative 5"-8" daytime accumulation total.
With the downgraded forecast there was a slight chance that the competition might not get postponed due to weather.
The tram finally opened to public, but the weather was not cooperating so the competition was postponed until Sunday.
With the pressure off for the day I just did some freeriding on the cirque traverse.
While ski patrol was doing avalanche control work in Silver Fox, a fairly large avalanche ripped to the ground and ruined half the venue.
Heres a shot of north chute after it ripped to the ground.
and here is the nasty pile of debris it left in the apron.
Ski patrol kept most the mountain closed that day due to the high avalanche danger. The only steep terrain open was the cirque traverse so most people were sticking to the tram. This made for a ridiculously long tram line that took nearly an hour to get through every lap.
Busy would be an understatement. The Sheriff eventually had to close the canyon to uphill traffic because there was no parking spots left anywhere in the canyon.
Later that afternoon, Snowbird made an announcement that the canyon was closing at midnight due to avalanche danger and said it wouldn't reopen until UDOT finished their control work at 8 or 9 am. I figured I'd have time to go down to SLC and have dinner with Jess before looking for a cheap(ish) hotel room at Snowbird and heading back up the LCC before the midnight closure.
Down to the big city I went. I was getting pretty used to this traffic jam shit in the LCC.
I had dinner in Salt Lake but the cheapest room I could find at Snowbird was over $300 dollars so I just stayed down in the city for the night. It turns out that the Sheriff closed the canyon at 9pm anyway so I wouldn't have made it up the canyon in time even if I'd booked the $300 dollar room.
Competition day 2- another weather day
UDOT got the canyon open on Sunday morning for 36 minutes before having to close it again for more avalanche control work. I was waiting in the line of traffic to get up but I was still miles away from the base of the canyon and I didn't make it up the canyon before the second closure.
When the announcement was made that the competition had been postponed for another day I decided I didn't want to deal with the weekend shitshow, so I went back to SLC and checked out the Outdoor Retailer trade show instead.
I had never been to a trade show before and it was really cool to be able to see Jess at work in the Smartwool booth.
I also got to see some cool products while I wandered around the maze of booths and I had a great chat about splitboarding products with Mark Christopherson. Mark is the production manager at Voile and he seemed quite fascinated to hear about my Dynafit touring setup on my splitboard. Mark and Voile seem genuinely committed to the splitboard community and I cant wait to see the new innovations they can contribute to the sport.
It took a lot of will power but I managed to walk out of the trade show without spending any money on gear.
Competition day 3- Weather contingency day
When I arrived at the 'bird in the morning it was foggy and snowing so things weren't looking good for the competition.
The organizers decided they wanted to make the competition happen regardless of the weather and lack of visibility so they placed judges throughout the venue so they could see the athletes through the fog.
We took the first tram up the mountain and went to the warming hut to start the waiting game.
I headed down to the bottom of the venue to watch the start of the comp. There were a bunch of spectators partying and people throwing fireworks off the chairlift.
The ladies started their runs around 10am. They had prime powder conditions since the venue had been closed for nearly 48 hours. After the ladies finished their runs I made my way to the top of the tram to wait for my turn to go, it took almost an hour to get through the tram line and up to the warming hut.
Then I did a bunch of waiting around. I was afraid that it would take too long to do another lap on the tram and I would miss my run, so I just kept waiting.
...and waiting. Did I mention that I was nearly the last athlete on the start list?
By 3pm it was getting close to time for my run. I was surprisingly calm while I was waiting in the start area for my turn to go, in fact it was actually relaxing to know I was finally going to get to ride.
Minutes before my run the Wasatch Powderbird's were flying around the canyon and throwing bombs out of a helo. It was an impressive sight to see but I didn't have my camera in my pocket and I was a little too focused on the competition to fully enjoy watching the control work.
The guy going ahead of me named Ian Bigley is so steezy that he doesn't wear gloves, and waiting behind me were Badasses John Makens from Jackson, Ryland Bell from Tahoe, and Scott Sheer from mammoth. I felt pretty insignificant standing around with the crew.
Ian drops in and I make my way to the start, I can see a foggy cloud working its way up the ski area towards the venue and I hear organizers on the radio shouting to hurry things along. I'm ready to ride but there is a delay, I start to get anxious again while I watch the fog work its way closer to me.
Finally I hear the organizers over the radio shouting rider ready, 3, 2.. and I was out. I turned around and gave a shout to all the other athletes as I pulled away from the cirque traverse and heard them cheering back to me while I started down Silver Fox.
There were still enough powder patches left for me to hop around and play in some soft snow. I blindly dropped off of one fresh looking roller and ended up landing in the middle of a rock garden. I got pretty squirrelly when I landed but the judges couldn't see me because I was fully engulfed in the whiteroom. I was mad at myself for switching up my line and hitting a big pile of rocks instead of going for a nice rock drop that I had been looking at all week, but I tried to stay focused and I continued to gas it down the fall line towards my final air.
I figured that the landing for my big air was going to be packed in from the other 90 athletes that went before me but I stayed focused and confident while I worked my way around the last few saplings before the take off.
I nailed the drop at the tallest spot and braced myself for a firm landing. I was in the whiteroom while I was in the air and went into my landing totally blind. It turns out that I landed in a fresh patch of powder and I ended up bombholing several feet deep on impact. It took me a few seconds to scoot myself out of the hot tub I left and I know the judges deducted a ton of points from my run for the sloppy landing.
After my final air it was just a low angle powder apron down to the finish area. I was moving along pretty slow and I just tried to finish off my run as quick as possible.
I heard one or maybe two people cheer and clap as I made it to the bottom of the venue which is pretty much what I expected.
I was glad to have nailed my line and called Jess to let her know I was alive. I watched John and Ryland ride before having to hurry down to catch the last tram of the day so I could get my backpack from the warming hut at the top of the tram.
With a minute to spare I hopped on the last tram and ran into Gene, a former Steamboat resident that lives at Snowbird now. I grabbed my pack and got to show Gene a new line that I had learned by following around TB and Andy Hetzel earlier in the week.
I made it down to the base of the tram and got to hang out with some really nice athletes from around the world while we waited for the award ceremony.
You could see a few little point releases across the canyon on Superior.
Here are the real Masters of snowboarding. The judges discussing the results.
If you're interested in the results they can be found here at the Masters website.
My trip was awesome and I am glad that I finally got to compete in a big mountain competition. I met some great people and I hope I will get a chance to go ride with them at their local resorts. Unfortunately I dont have the time or money to travel around for the whole Masters series because I would love do another big mountain competition.
I dont know if I can make it to Kirkwood at the end of February but I'm definitely going for a top 20 finish next year at Snowbird.
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