Believe In Sarah

As you may have heard, since it has turned into national news, professional skier Sarah Burke is in a coma at a Salt Lake hospital after a crash in Park City's pipe. After talking to a few people who were there it sounds like a freak accident, since most have said it wasn't an extravagant fall. She landed her trick, caught an edge in the bottom of the pipe, and fell over hitting her head. Unfortunately it twisted her head in the perfect position to tear her vertebral artery causing a brain hemorrhage. She had a successful surgery, but we haven't heard much since.

Sarah is my idol, she has been ever since I started skiing. The last time I saw her was during the with Grand Prix at Copper this year. She was telling to me about how excited she was to go visit her sister and nephews in Denver, and it's hard to know that the Sarah we knew might not be that Sarah anymore... especially because of the impact she has had on the industry. She is, in all actuality, the reason female freeski exists. She is also one of the main reasons female freeski is now in the Olympics, and she pushed so hard because it was her dream to get a gold medal... My heart is breaking for her.

Please take a moment to watch this short excerpt from The Ski Channel's feature film, Winter.





Keep her, Rory (husband), her family, and friends in your prayers! Believe in Sarah!

I have other things I want to blog about, but I felt she deserved an entry all to herself. We love and miss you Sarah, hope you're shredding pow in those dreams. Please wake up soon!

Grand Prix, Dew Tour & Rev Tour

I apologize for the lack of posts this month! Finals with school, work, and skiing have kept me beyond busy. Two weeks ago Copper Mountain held the annual Grand Prix ski and snowboard halfpipe competition. The Visa U.S. Freesking Grand Prix is an Association of Freeskiing Professionals (AFP) "Platinum Level" event and opens the International Ski Federation's (FIS) FIS Freestyle World Cup every season. The World Cup is especially important for skiers this year because it now qualifies you to get on the U.S. Olympic Freeski team. I was actually wanting to compete in the Grand Prix this year, but work, school, and then a couple weeks of Bronchitis kept me off the hill. Fortunately I was able to be there the day of the woman's qualifiers and finals and men's finals. There's something about watching and riding halfpipe that makes me so happy... it's just so FUN!

Breckenridge local and CMC student Duncan Adams in the Men's Final!

Last week was Dew Tour at Breckenridge, which unfortunately wasn't at all like past Dew Tours. The lack of snow and open terrain made the crowds at Breckenridge very congested. The design of the course made it very difficult for spectators to get to viewing spots and the little festival tent area they put up every year was just short of a disaster. On top of that, they took out female freeski again this year, and they were really strict about giving out credentials, so a lot of the female athletes couldn't even get guest athlete passes. I guess you can't win 'em all, I just hope this isn't a trend!
Here's an awesome GoPro video from Dew.

On a brighter note, last Tuesday at Breckenridge Ski Resort was an extremely exciting day for the Ski/Ride community as Kevin Pearce spent his first day back on a snowboard after nearly two years. Kevin was a halfpipe rider and Olympic medal hopeful when he received a TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury) two years ago at Park City, Utah while training. At the time, Kevin was said to be the one who would take the gold from Shaun White. Since then, he has spent his time relearning how to eat, talk, walk, and dealt with seizures, eye surgeries, and balance problems. I saw him quite a bit lapping the park chair. He was like a little kid at Disney World. It was so awesome to see.

The quote "I Ride For Kevin" seen all over the world turned into "Ride With Kevin."

Shortly before his accident in 2009 and first day back on his board in 2011.

There are countless videos about that day, but this is a really good one.




Finally, this week is the USSA Revolution Tour aka Rev Tour at Copper Mountain, which is an amateur version of the Dew Tour. The talent is still insane with a bit younger participant crowd. Copper has done an awesome job with all the competitions and rail jams so far this season, especially with the lack of snow.

Bragging Rights & Blizzards

Sorry that this entry and the last were so close together. Sometimes things just come up and you have to blog about them! So, NOT TRYING TO BRAG OR ANYTHING.... (Okay, yes I am), but my best friend Ashley is A POSTER in December's issue of Freeskier Magazine, and my dear friend Angeli is ON THE COVER of November's Issue of Skiing Magazine. AS IF THAT WASN'T ENOUGH... four of my dearest friends (Ashley Battersby, Grete Eliassen, Keri Herman and Devin Logan) were officially announced as 4 of the 10 members of the first U.S. OLYMPIC FREESKIING SLOPESTYLE TEAM! And Devin was also announced as a member of the halfpipe team, what an accomplishment! Guess I will have to start saving up to go watch them in the 2014 Sochi Olympic Games!

I am BEYOND proud and so so SO honored to have such talented friends!!!

In local news...
If you don't live in Utah, Wyoming, or Colorado you probably didn't hear about the crazy blizzard that has been blowing through since yesterday evening. Up to two feet of snow was supposed to drop in places, yet my drive to the grocery store this morning revealed that we currently have less than we started with, haha! From 9News.com:

"DENVER - After wind gusts reached over 80 mph in some areas on Saturday, it will be another windy day on Sunday, including in the mountains where the wind will combine with snow to create blizzard conditions in some areas. 

9NEWS Meteorologist Ashton Altieri says a second surge of energy on Sunday will create more powerful wind gusts up and down the Front Range.

Saturday afternoon winds hit 99 mph 7 miles northwest of Berthoud in Larimer County and 90 mph at the NCAR Mesa Lab on the south end of Boulder.

Here is a list of the most extreme wind gusts observed in Colorado through early Sunday morning...

Tenmile Peak: 115 mph (5 miles south of Frisco)
Peak 9: 115 mph (Breckenridge Ski Area)
Berthoud Pass: 113 mph
Kenosha Pass: 101 mph
Loveland Pass: 100 mph"
(Read more of this article here.)

There are also three other things I want to mention that are going on in Summit, but I thought I would just link you to The Summit Daily, where they tell the story best!

• Breckenridge Plans 50th Birthday Party For Ski Resort.
• Old CMC Breckenridge Building New Home of Peak School
• A two week old article, the castle has since started coming to life: Ice Castle Coming to Silverthorne

Denver Big Air

This past Tuesday and Wednesday was the first annual Denver Big Air competition in the Civic Center Park in the heart of downtown Denver. I was lucky enough to be apart of the set-up and therefor got the best seat in the house during the skiing competition on Tuesday.

The total purchase of the scaffolding alone was $600,000. The set-up was 300 feet long and 110 feet high. To get to the top of the ramp I had to climb 15 flights of scaffolding stairs. To say the least it gets very disorientating after a few times. There's so many bars going every which way and the constant spinning up the stairs gets to you. Getting the snow on the actual ramp was a process. It consisted of a crane lifting snow to the top and dropping a little down a time. Or the crane would drop snow at the take off down lower and we would bring it up. Someone would hold a piece of ply wood across the ramp to catch the snow. Then lift it up over the pile and the people behind would pat it down. I'm sure this was done at least a hundred times in the course of a few days.

A crane dropping snow off at the base.

This is what 15 flights of scaffolding looks like.

This is what it looks like looking down.

 

 

Here are some views from the top!

In this picture you can see someone with the piece of ply wood on the far right, and someone helping pack snow down in the center of the ramp.

Will had to paint the wood around the take-off. He took the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to claim it!

The best groomed jump I have ever seen!

Tuesday finally came and I got there around 1:00pm to help with a few last minute things. Snowboard practice started at 3:00pm and here's a little footage from that. (You can hear Switchfoot doing their sound check in the background.)

The public was allowed to start rolling in around 3:30, and there was some last minute grooming right around then.

 6-7pm was skier practice and then it was finally time for the show to begin! The guys did some quick grooming before the show began.

Instead of every rider for himself, this was the first ever competition that was battle of the brands. Big ski brands like Armada, Line Skis, Nordica, Full Tilt and others sent 2-3 riders to work as a team. Each round two teams would go up against each other to do the best tricks for the best overall score, and the best team would move on. 

Here's some footage of some of the skiers.

SIDENOTE: During the first round I was standing on the flat part between the take off and the landing. A group of guys came up the stairs and were watching in amazement next to me. They weren't dressed like skiers or snowboarders but I had a peculiar feeling they were important. They introduced themselves and we got talking and they were really, really nice. Jon was the most talkative one. He was asking me a lot of questions about skiing and the event and asked me to explain the tricks to them. After about a half hour a photographer came up to us and goes 

"Oh my gosh, it's so nice to meet you guys! I can't believe it!" 

They talked for a few minutes and after the photographer walked away Jon smiled at me. I paused for a second and go, 

"Youuuuuuu guys are Switchfoot, aren't you?"

"Haha, yeahhh..." He said and smiled. (I later found out that he was the singer.)

Switchfoot has been a pretty big band since I was in middle school, and they were definitely one of my favorite bands in middle school. They were scheduled to play the live show that night for the competition. I'm kicking myself in the BUTT now for not getting a picture with them.

ANYWAYYYY... The competition ended up with two teams left, Armada (my favorite company in the world) and Line Skis. Switchfoot played between the last elimination round and the finals. I got to stand on the landing and get the best seat in the house! It wasn't too warm and wasn't too cold, and right as they started playing it started to snow very gentle but big snow flakes... the perfect setting! It was also so cool to see the state capital light up like that.

Overall it was one of the funnest events of my life and I can't wait for next year!

Dew Tour and Award Shows

To say the least, the last two weeks have been the busiest weeks of my life. I wanted to write about the Grand Prix halfpipe competition at Copper Mountain and my final day of Avalanche Safety, but there's too many other things!

This past week was Dew Tour here in Breckenridge, and it wasn't at all like last year. Unfortunately semester finals and Dew Tour ended up in the same week, so there wasn't a lot of picture taking. The course was also entirely different. The halfpipe was moved to the top of the run and made into a 22 ft pipe instead of an 18 ft pipe. They also added another jump to freeway, making 4 jumps instead of 3, and I swear they had to have made these jumps twice as big!

 

This is the first jump of the four. This jump is also the smallest.

 It was supposed to snow Thursday and Friday, but it ended up being absolutely beautiful for those two days. My very good friend Dania won the halfpipe competition, I'm so proud of her!

Saturday and Sunday a huge snow storm moved in, and instead of taking pictures I ended up riding the slope style course all day which was awesome! Me and my friends Anna and Angeli, who usually compete but are out because of injuries, "slipped" the course and helped move the snow for the competitors. They ended up closing the last two jumps on Saturday because the heavy amount of snow was making speed and visibility impossible.

(There's me at the top in the hot pink and lime green jacket.)

My good friend Keri killing it!

Ashley

Devin

Sunday was finals and Ashley ended up winning and Keri got 2nd! I've never been so proud in my life!

 Somehow during this crazy week I was also able to attend a few different award shows and go out to dinner quite a few times with all my skiing friends. The first was the 1st Annual Summit Film Festival Award Show, where my friend Grete won best performance for female skier, and a movie that a few of my friends were in called Eye Trip won quite a few awards.

Anna, Anais, Ashley, Jen, Me, Angeli, Keri

My friend Anna introducing a movie.

On Thursday we all went out to dinner at Empire Burger and then attended the AFP awards (AFP meaning Association of Freeskiing Professionals) where quite a few more friends won awards.

 Kaya

Roz and Jen

Last night a group of about 18 of us went out to Taipei Tokyo to celebrate everyone's success. I don't have pictures yet because I wasn't the one taking them, but it was definitely a blast. Dania, Angeli, Erica, Ashley, and Emily are all driving back to Utah today so I got to have all their leftovers. Looks like I'm going to be eating Japanese for quite a while!

I'm so proud of all my friends, and watching them compete has really inspired me to push myself more in the park. I really hope to compete in the Dew Tour someday!

Park City

This post in long overdue, and I apologize for that. Time gets away from me now that the year is quickly ending.

This past weekend I went to Park City, Utah. I have been having some nasty health problems and was kind of stressed with school, so I decided a mini vacation would be nice. The drive was very long, and there wasn't much to look at for most of it. I never realized how interesting nothing could be to look at, ha! The 5th Annual Queens Cup was being held in Park City, which is an all female ski and snowboard competition. I stayed at my friend Ashley's house, and her father and his girlfriend were soooooo sweet to all 10 of us girls and 1 boy. They made us delicious meals and welcomed us like we were family. It was really cool to ride a new resort, the terrain was so much different than Breck. And it was even cooler that I didn't have to pay for any lift tickets because PowderCorp owns Park City and Copper, where I work. To say the least, I missed the greenery. The competition was awesome, and all my friends did awesome as well, but after 4 days I was very happy to be back. I wish I had taken more pictures, I guess I was just too caught up having fun!

My friend Ashley in black and my friend Maddie in pink coaching their team before the competition.

Papa bear Mr.Bill Battersby cooking us some breakfast!

Gus, the only guy of the group, hanging in their even in the wee hours of the morning to cheer on his girlfriend Eli! Awwww, what a guy!

The sunset just outside of Steamboat on the drive home. So beautiful!

As you all know yesterday was April Fool's Day, which for Breckenridge locals means "Gaper day". Gapers are what we call tourists who dress, ski and act funny. April Fool's Day is our day to make fun of them. I was in school and had tons of homework, so I didn't get to participate... but I have some awesome photos my friends took. It looked like it was a blast.

From left to right: Kaitlin, Ethan, CJ, Derek, and Ian in their gaper gear! Too funny!

As school is coming to an end I'm realizing how fast this year went by. Most of my friends are moving back home for the summer in a month, and I don't know who is all coming back. It was by far the most fun year of my life, from cliff jumping, to longboarding, to skiing, hikes, and going to the Dew Tour and X Games. This year was way more than I ever expected it to be, and I'd like to thank CMC for that. Our youth goes by so quickly, so why spend all day in school wasting it away when we're going to work the rest of our lives? CMC gave me the freedom to do what I love during the day and go to school in the evening. It was the perfect balance.

I will for sure be coming back next year, because I can't see myself living anywhere else. As the commercial says: "Colorado is the only place you'll see a $2,000 mountain bike on top of a $200 dollar car, and it's the only state where people will drive 2 hours to ride 12 inches of powder, but can't get to work when there's 4." The people here believe in slowing down and enjoying their lives, and not sacrificing that for work. It's no wonder we're the skinniest state in the U.S. And speaking of skinny, I started this new 40 minute pilattes work out, I'm so addicted I do it twice a day! 

As much as I love skiing and school, it will be nice to get a change of pace. I skied all last summer too, so after doing it for a year straight, I'm ready for a break. I'm excited to get home and see my dogs, and my extended family, and get up to our family's summer house for some fishing and jetskiing.

Man, I sure do live a rough life... Ha!

Dew Tour

This past week was definitely one of the funnest weeks of my life. Why? The Dew Tour was in town! Wednesday was practice and Mens and Womens snowboard halfpipe qualifiers. I went over to the Media Center on Peak 9 to get my media credential. The media credential gave me behind the scenes access, and access to the course and halfpipe during competitions to take pictures. The media center was on the same floor as the athlete registration, so that was pretty cool.

Then I went up to the hill to get my first look at the course and halfpipe. This was the picture I took on the way up the chairlift. It was pretty awesome to see it in person. I had always watched it on TV, but this time I was living it for real! As you can see it was still pretty quiet. It was only practice, and not everything was set up yet.

 

Thursday was pretty much the same. All the "village tents" were still being set up, and it was still a lot of practice and qualifiers. Thursday night I got to watch a lot of friends in the Ski Halpipe Open Qualifiers though. I want to congratulate Kolby Ward, Gus Kenworthy, Bobby Brown, Adam Battersby, and all my other friends who killed it! Friday is when the party really started! The "village tents" were all set up, including the CMC tents. There was the Power Bar tent with tons of Power Bars to give away. There was a Tostino's tent giving out Pizza. A Nike tent, a Paul Mitchell tent with free shampoo and hand massages, two Mountain Dew tents, a LibTech snowboards tent... the list goes on forever! (Obviously the best tent of all was the CMC tent!) We had a ton of fun giving away a lot of free stuff and talking to future students!

 

 

 

 

I didn't keep up much on the snowboarding prelims on Friday because I had A LOT of friends in the ski slopestyle open qualifiers that morning, and a few friends in the ski halfpipe prelims that night. Unfortunately my friend Gus broke his collarbone, so he only rode down the halfpipe to get his points. My friend Adam hurt his knee that morning, so sadly he wasn't able to compete at all. (I wish you a quick recovery Adam!) My three friends Colby, Bobby, and Jossi got to compete though. All three qualified for finals last year, but apparently it wasn't the Breck locals best season, because only Jossi ended up making it to finals.

Here is the tent for the riders at the top of the slopestyle run.

 

One of my friends, Jossi Wells, smiles for me after an awesome run.

Colby West, was luckily fine after this!

 

On Saturday they had the Mens and Womens snowboard halpipe finals and Mens ski halfpipe finals. The snowboard finals were during the day, which was nice because it was a beautiful day out!

 

 

 

 

The ski halfpipe finals were at night under the lights. The place was packed full of people who were pumped to see everyone ride. They had the Toyota Yeti there, they were giving away skis, they had the music blasting, and even turned the pipe different colors before it started.

 

 

 

I was very very excited, but at the same time very nervous for my friend Jossi. He hadn't made slopestyle finals only an hour earlier, and as I watched him during practice he kept falling. The competition started though, and his first run he pulled an 86 out of 100, awesome!!!! I was up on the side of the halfpipe for his first run, and was screaming at the top of my lungs in excitement. Everyone around me was laughing and said "you must know him!" "YES I DO!" I bragged. I decided I could no longer stay on the side, so I went down to the front. Thanks to my media badge I was able to get right in front. All of the skiers were pulling amazing tricks and getting so much air.

 

  

When it came time for Jossi's 2nd and final run I could feel myself shaking in excitement and nervousness. He dropped into the pipe and it was almost like the place went silent... And then his first trick was a double Lincoln Loop (a double sideflip, which is hard and rarely done) and the crowd exploded! He landed it PERFECTLY!!! Each trick after that seemed more and more smooth. When he got to the bottom of the pipe he and the entire crowd knew his score would be high. I was screaming at the top of my lungs, I don't think I've ever been more excited in my entire life.

Then the score came in...

HE WAS IN 1st PLACE!!!

Colby West showing some love. As you can see Jossi was ecstatic.

He smiles again for me. I'm glad he's so photogenic for his friends!

Some other awesome riders went and pulled really good scores, but it wasn't until Mike Riddle went that things changed. Mike had a really good run and ended up getting 1st by only 2 points. Jossi was still very satisfied with 2nd, and I was sooooo proud of him! Right after the last rider went I ran around the fence and gave Jossi a hug. Someone took this picture of us at that very moment.

And here is the podium!

 Sunday was the last and final day. I had been so exhausted from the last few days that I didn't wake up until 9:40am, and the men's ski slopestyle finals started at 10:30am! (Thank GOD I live across the street from the gondola.) I don't think I have ever gotten ready so fast in my life! I made it up there just in time to watch all of my friends and take some really good pictures. My friend Sammy took 3rd, so proud of him!! Later that day were the Men's and Women's snowboard slopestyle finals, but I didn't stay very long for those. Obviously I wasn't completely prepared that day, so I was getting pretty cold.

Overall it was a phenomenal week. I got to meet Bobbie Jo, BeckyAurora, and Ben, who are all CMC Bloggers from different campuses. I got to watch a lot of my friends compete, all whom I am SO proud of! I got to see behind the scenes, and get the best views I possibly could... I don't think I could have asked for anything more. (Okay, or I could... for female freeskiers to be able to compete!) But it was definitely a week I will never forget!

Here are some more of my favorite shots I took.

   

My friends Kolby Ward (not to be mistaken with Colby West) and Ashley Battersby.

 

My friend Bobby Brown doing a flip off the top of a rail.

 

My friend Colby West on the last kicker.

 

 

My friend Bobby getting some amazing air!

 

 

My friend Phil Casabon.