Westbound Boarder

A couple weeks ago (March 25 – 28) top female snowboarders from around the world all came together for the sixth annual Roxy Chicken Jam at Mammoth Mountain, CA.  The Roxy Chicken Jam is one of the premiere industry events for females, and it plays a huge role in raising the profile for women in the snowboard industry.  And in case you missed the event live, no worries, because you can catch the recap on FUEL TV (schedule below).

The Roxy Chicken Jam women only snowboard contest gathers the world’s best pro riders to compete in both a slopestyle and superpipe competition at Mammoth Mountain. With more than 100 girls from around the world, Olympic gold medalist Kelly Clark, Rana Okada, Olympian Elena Hight, X Games gold medalist Jamie Anderson and Cheryl Mass all compete for a chance at $15,000.

“ROXY CHICKEN JAM 2010″ Air Dates:
Monday, 5/10/2010 8:00 PM ET / 5:00PM PT
Monday, 5/10/2010 11:00 PM ET /8:00PM PT
Wednesday, 5/12/2010 12:30 PM ET / 9:30 AM PT
Friday, 5/14/2010 12:00 PM ET / 9:00 AM PT
Saturday, 5/15/2010 3:00 PM ET / 12:00 PM PT
Sunday, 5/16/2010 11:30 AM ET / 8:30 AM PT
Monday, 5/17/2010 3:30 AM ET / 12:30 PM PT
Wednesday, 5/19/2010 6:30 PM ET / 3:30 PM PT
Saturday, 5/22/2010 12:00 PM ET / 9:00 AM PT
Sunday, 5/23/2010 9:00 AM ET / 6:00 AM PT
Tuesday, 5/25/2010 8:00 PM ET / 5:00 PM PT
Tuesday, 5/25/2010 11:00 PM ET / 8:00 PM PT
Friday, 5/28/2010 2:30 AM ET / 11:30 PM PT
Saturday, 5/29/2010 9:00 AM ET / 6:00 AM PT
Tuesday, 6/1/2010 3:00 PM ET / 12:00 PM PT
Wednesday, 6/2/2010 12:30 AM ET / 9:30 PM PT
Monday, 6/7/2010 3:30 AM ET / 12:30 AM PT
Tuesday, 6/8/2010 9:30 PM ET / 6:30 PM PT
Wednesday, 6/16/2010 6:30 PM ET / 3:30 PM PT
Monday, 6/28/2010 12:30 PM ET / 9:30 AM PT

Unfortunately, it has come and gone already. No, not the winter season, the Mt. Hood Meadows Sno Kona Pond Skim, and my absolute favorite event of the year. The Skim took place for the fourth year in a row last Saturday and this event is only getting betting with age; with more beer (courtesy of Kona Brewing Co.), more creativity and more skin? That is right, skin. With the winner of the contest bearing it all this year, each and every spectator saw more than one may have bargained for….

Let me rewind for those of you who are out of the loop. Each year Mt. Hood Meadows hosts a Pond Skim. What is a pond skim you ask…? (Come on, really???) Put a 94 foot ice cold pond in the snow, dare everyone to garb up, dangle a trip to Hawaii under their nose and you can only imagine what people will come up with. So, each skimmer gets one chance to cross this years’  94 foot pond. If you successfully cross it your first attempt you advance to the ‘skim-off’ for a chance to win a trip to Hawaii, but only if your steez is up to par…if not second and third place comes down to best showmanship and best crowd reaction.

This years’ skim started with a typical PacNW weathered day; wind, rain and poor visibility on the hill. But yours truly, Matt Zaffino, promised it would turn around and the pond skimming would prevail. Thankfully, Zaffino was right and in spite of the occasional wind burst and snow flurry the weather worked out perfectly for the contest. The snow was fast and that only means one thing, awesome falls. Put your hands together (high speed meets a 94 foot pond) and what do you get? Superman’s, water burns, torn corns, lost tops, soggy people with ice cold bodies…try getting that mental picture out of your head.

We saw skimming brides, Richard Simmons, corporate stooges, Elvis, Speedos, Ms. Piggy, the list goes on.  But back to the skin I was telling you all about… Third place went to “King Kamehameha” (who took third place last year, for the same costume, which was a little strange). But first and second place were the two best of the show, between the man who can walk on water, “Jesus” and the man who has no shame, “Borat.” See for yourself!

The weather was good, the Hawaiian brews were great, and the entertainment was out of control. Thank you Mt. Hood Meadows, Kona Brewing, Co. and All About Hawaii Travel for another successful Pond Skim, it was one to remember.

Insider Tips:

• Craving a Kona Brew? Check them out locally at Bamboo Grove (my personal FAV), Salvador Molly’s and Henry’s 12^th Street Tavern. Know of any more Local Kona stashes? Let us know!
• It is done running for this season, but keep it in mind for the next. We took up the Grease Bus with the Kona Brewing, Co. Crew for the skim and had one hell of a time. The bus is super comfortable, shows snowboard videos your whole ride up to the hill, it runs off of vegatable oil and is only $10 round trip. Want more FAQ’s? cHeCK eM oUt.

My favorite time of year has finally arrived…you know spring riding, corn snow and the 4th Annual Mt. Hood Meadows SnoKona. This is the event of the season and the event I have been waiting all year for.  Don’t believe me? Check out my recap from this event last spring. The Pond Skim is the absolute funniest, entertaining event; with great costumes, 100 shred heads skimming for their lives (and a free trip to Hawaii) across a 90 foot rigid pond, you are guaranteed a great time.

The deets: The 4th Annual Spring Splash Pond Skimming Competition will be here this Saturday, April 24th (or the 25th depending on Saturday’s weather!). This event is brought to you by Kona Brewing Co. and All About Hawaii Travel, which means, Hawaiian music, drinks, food and costumes

The Rules: All participants will receive one attempt to cross the 90 foot pond successfully, those who do so will advance to the ’skim-off,’ where if more than one contestant makes it to the other side during the ’skim-off’ the winner will be based upon the following: best skim style, best Hawaiian costume, best showmanship and best Best crowd reaction. First place is a trip for two to Hawaii. Second place winners will take home their very own Kona Prize Pack which includes two beach chairs, a skimboard, a backpack cooler, a Kona beach towel and a set of 12 Kona glasses. Third place will be treated to a $50 gift certificate from bamboo grove.

Haven’t convinced you yet? Well leave it to the grand prize. The top three skimmers, the best splash, best impression made by a women contestant, and best Hawaiian costume will walk home with a prize, one of which is a round trip vacation for two to Hawai’i!

Registration is $25 and includes your comp fee and a Sno-Kona towel, so hurry up as space is limited to 100 participants! I will be there, Kona brew in hand covering the event (not competing this year, wonder why? check out our event recap from last year!)  So let me know if you plan on attending the event by leaving a comment or shooting me an email, (westboundboarder@gmail.com) because we would love to see you there!

I’m always stoked to see women-only snowboard comps. which is why the Covergirl Snow Angels Invitational (as well as last weekend’s Roxy Chicken Jam) is hot on our radar.  This year’s event will once again be held at Snowmass this coming weekend, April 2 – 4, and it will feature some of the industry’s best talent.  Competing athletes include Olympic athletes Gretchen Bleiler, Kelly Clark, and Elena Hight, as well as Sarah Conrad, Ellery Hollingsworth, Mercedes Nicoll, Linn Haug, Maddy Schaffrick, Haruna Matsumoto, Soko Yamaoka, Sophie Rodriguez, Kelly Marren, Palmer Taylor, Paulina Ligocka and Ursina Holler.  The event will feature a Superpipe contest on Saturday, April 3 in Snowmass. In addition, there will be several lifestyle activities for the riders including a spa day, yoga classes and a girl’s night out on the town.  The girls will all vie for $20,000 in prize money at the superpipe competition in Snowmass on April 3.

This year’s event will feature several new twists on past year’s activities, including the Barbie Little Air (open to the public) where participants 13-years-old and younger will compete on a small jump at the base of Snowmass for prizes from Barbie (totally cute! I wish I could go watch!), an autograph session with the athletes at Spider Sabich below the Snowmass Superpipe, free snowboard demo from K2 Snowboard’s 2011 product and poolside après party at the Viceroy Resorts and Residences.

This event is awesome and so perfect for the female audience because it shows that its okay for women to be hardcore snowboarders while still embracing their inner feminine beauty, despite the fact that action sports is a male-dominated industry.  It’s also a neat way to integrate a non-endemic brand into the snowboard industry.  Kudos!

Catch the full event schedule below, and stay tuned for the highlights!

Thursday, April 1st
9 am – 4 pm: K2 Snowboard Demo – Snowmass Village Mall

Friday, April 2nd
9 am – 4 pm: K2 Snowboard Demo, Oakley and ContourHD demo – Snowmass Village Mall
10 am – 1 pm: Film, photo shoot & freeride day – Snowmass Superpipe
3 pm – 4 pm: Barbie Little Air – Snowmass Fanny Hill

Saturday, April 3rd
9 am – 4 pm: K2 Snowboard Demo, Oakley and ContourHD demo – Snowmass Village Mall
9:30 am – 2 pm: Free superpipe viewing access for foot-passengers – Burlingame lift
10 am: Superpipe practice – Snowmass Superpipe
11:30 am – 12:45 pm: Superpipe Jam Session Competition – Snowmass Superpipe
12 – 2 pm: Lunch specials – Spider Sabich Cabin
1 – 1:30pm: COVERGIRL Snow Angel athlete autograph session – Spider Sabich Cabin
4 – 6 pm: Poolside après party – Viceroy Pool

Sunday April 4th
9 am – 4 pm: Oakley and ContourHD demo – Snowmass Village Mall
10 am – 1 pm: Film, photo shoot & freeride – Snowmass Superpipe
9 pm – 12 am: COVERGIRL Snow Angel night out featuring Danger Kitty – Belly Up Aspen

Some Friday news tid bits for you today; enjoy!

Links to Surf

• Surf + Travel + Documentary + Timmy Curran = Awesome! Timmy Curran’s newest venture “The Union Express,” a documentary that follows him along the California coast as he checks out the major surf spots, is set to be released on iTunes April 14.  Check out the trailer over at HUCK; I’m buying this one for sure!
• Win a 14-Day Trip To Greece: Wait a minute… say what?  This just in – Contiki Vacations, Diane’s Beachwear and FOAM Magazine are offering a chance to win a fourteen-day trip to Greece. The vacation package includes visits to Athens, Mykonos, Santorini and Ios, and a shopping spree at Diane’s to find that perfect bikini for sunbathing and island-hopping in style.  Sweepstakes candidates can submit their entries here.  The contest runs through April 2010 and the winner will be announced on Foam’s website May 5, 2010. The winner will receive one Contiki Greek Island Hopping trip which includes hotel accommodations, meals, a dedicated crew to show the sights and a $200 gift certificate to Diane’s Beachwear.

News Bits

• Check out Spring-A-Ma-Jig at Mt. High this Saturday: Not only is it Louie Vite ride day at High, its also the first annual 9of three) Spring-A-Ma-Jig rail jam and pond skim! (Apparently Vito’s a guest judge for the bikini contest).  Deets over at Mt. High’s Web site.
• The Dew Tour selects Las Vegas to host the final stop of the 2010 season: Action sports… Vegas… Best of both worlds! (Where can I sign up?)  Last week, the Alliance of Action Sports announced that it selected las Vegas to host the Dew Tour Championships (the fifth and final stop of the Tour), as well as the final awards ceremony.  The tour will commence October 14 – 17, 2010 at Hard Rock Hotel and Casino.  Tickets for the 2010 Dew Tour will be on sale soon and will be available via Ticketmaster.com and Ticketmaster box offices.  Visit allisports.com for more information.  Full tour schedule:
  • Skate Open, ISF Skateboarding World Championships: June 25-26 Boston, Mass. – TD Garden
  • Nike 6.0 BMX Open: July 23-24 Chicago, Ill. – Museum Campus
  • Wendy’s Invitational: Aug. 12-15 Portland, Ore. – Rose Quarter
  • Toyota Challenge: Sept. 16-19 Salt Lake City, Utah – EnergySolutions Arena
  • Dew Tour Championships: Oct. 14-17 Las Vegas, Nev. – Hard Rock Hotel & Casino

It’s always fun to watch unsponsored amateur riders throw down, and this season some of them threw down hard during the Gatorade Free Flow Tour for a chance at the big leagues.

I was lucky enough to catch 2 Gatorade Free Flow stops this season – one at Vail and one at Mt. High.  The lovely folks at FUEL TV put together a recap vid so you can watch highlights from the 10 stop tour event.  Below are air dates and times.  Check it out and let us know your favorite riders in the comments below!

“Gatorade Free Flow Tour Winter 2009″ Air Dates:

Tuesday, 3/23/2010 8:00 PM ET / 5:00 PM PT in Snow Pack
Tuesday, 3/23/2010 11:00 PM ET / 8:00 PM PT
Saturday, 3/27/2010 9:00 AM ET / 6:00 AM PT
Tuesday, 3/30/2010 1:00 PM ET / 10:00 AM PT
Wednesday, 3/31/2010 4:00 PM ET / 1:00 PM PT
Tuesday, 4/6/2010 3:00 PM ET / 12:00 PM PT
Saturday, 4/10/2010 1:30 PM ET / 10:30 AM PT
Wednesday, 4/14/2010 6:30 PM ET / 3:30 PM PT
Tuesday, 4/20/2010 9:30 PM ET / 6:30 PM PT
Saturday 4/24/2010 1:30 PM ET / 10:30 AM PT

This past weekend, the Mavericks Surf Competition at Half-Moon Bay (NorCal) took an unexpected turn when what some media outlets are calling a “rogue wave” (although they were not technically rogue waves, as rogues typically occur offshore) came and wiped out spectators.  More than 12 people were injured in the accident, according to CNN, and 3 people were hospitalized with broken bones.  From CNN:

They were “sneaker waves,” waves near the shore that are unexpectedly and significantly larger than others occurring at the time, said Larry Smith, a National Weather Service meteorologist based in Monterey, California…

Saturday’s sneaker waves were the result of several factors, including a storm in the Gulf of Alaska, Smith said. The storm, many hundreds of miles north of Princeton-by-the-Sea, was kicking up high waves — 18 to 22 feet — well off California’s shore.

Don’t believe me?  Check out the video for yourself!  It sucks that three people were hospitalized; otherwise, it is kind of funny (and ironic?) if you think about it.  Perhaps fate played a part here, and wanted to give everyone a chance to take part in the comp. 

Weather forecast?  Freezing.  Swell?  EPIC!!! The Mavericks Surf Contest, presented by Sony Ericsson, will be going on throughout the day today near Half Moon Bay, CA, and in case you can’t catch the action live … no worries!  Ustream (one of my clients) will be streaming the event live all day long.  The stream is below!  The first heat will begin around 8:00a.m. PT, with the finals anticipated to conclude at 2:45p.m. PT.  You can also check out live event updates via their Facebook Fan page.

Online video chat by Ustream

The Winter X Games is one of the largest annual contests of the year and is notorious for pushing its competitors to the next level and raising industry standards year after year.  This year was no exception, especially since the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver B.C. are right around the corner. The X Games are a great opportunity for women snowboarders to showcase their skills, while raising the bar for womens snowboarding. There were three female snowboard competitions during this past weekend’s event.  Snowboard Cross, a treacherous, windy, and super fast, five person race, the Slopestyle park comp, and of course the 22′ Super Pipe. The super pipe contest was awesome this year, and the U.S. girls ripped it up. In fact, the girls who podiumed where all on the U.S. woman’s Olympic team. First place went to Gretchen Bleiler, a Colorado local, second was Kelly Clark, and third was Hannah Teeter. Kelly was the only girl to do a 900 and absolutely popped the highest out of the pipe, but it was Gretchen Bleiler who had her trademarked crippler 720, which is sort of like a rodeo, but more inverted and stylish. Hannah Teeter had a great bag of tricks with perfect 540′s as well. Unfortunately, one of my favorite riders, Elena Hight, didn’t medal, though she did kill the Dew tour stop at Snow Basin (Ogden, UT), getting first in the woman’s Super Pipe.

Slopestyle was impressive this year, with a few different riders than the Super Pipe and plenty of tricks to go with them. The slopestyle course was made up of a rail garden and three giant jumps, stretching from 50′ to almost 70′ to finish off the run. Jenny Jones from Great Brittan won the Gold, Jamie Anderson won the Silver, and Janna Meyen-Weatherby won Bronze. Janna has been tearing up contests for years – she’s 32 years old and making it look effortless over the jumps. She was also the only girl to stick a 900. Jamie Anderson was great on the rails, doing a 360 nose bonk, and she killed it on the jumps with clean 7′s all around. It was Jones, though, with her perfect run with big air and style over all of the jumps pulling the consecutive 540′s with no sketchy landings, who conquered. Also have to give credit to Eero Ettala for the mens, stomping the best run I’ve ever seen in a contest. His first slopestyle run consisted of the double cork 1080, double backside rodeo 900, and then a double back flip. I knew this guy was good, but wow, taking a safe gold with no one even coming close to his score.

Once again, our favorite “must reads” from around the Web.  Make sure you check out the ESPN X Games going on right now and through the weekend in Aspen!  Oh, and if you haven’t already entered our socks giveaway, make sure you do so!

• 15-Year-Old Snowboarder Named to Austrailian Olympic Team: I love seeing and meeting young shredders, but this is unreal!  In Austrailia, a 15-year-old snowboarder was named to the Aussie Olympic Team.  Rad!
• Teter for Haiti: We all know Hannah Teter is an awesome snowboarder, but she’s also an awesome person.  She typically donates all of her prize money to a clean water charity, however, this year she donated her winnings from the US Snowboarding Grand Prix to Haiti.
• Preparation is key to ski trip success: Great advice from the New York Times on taking family ski trips.  Key theme?  Efficiency!
• Snowboarding Postage Stamp Revealed: Wow.  You know snowboarding has made an impact when they release a postage stamp with a snowboarder on the face.  Very cool!  Bummer that it is only available at Park City post office locations, though.
• Will Bright be the First Female to Crack The Double Cork Code? Well, I can’t exactly answer that question, but she sure does hope so!  FYI, love her training schedule – eat, sleep, and snowboard.

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