Westbound Boarder

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.

Tara Dakides, a legend in women’s snowboarding and perhaps the first women to really push the boundaries in the sport for women, will be appearing on “The Daily Habit” on Fuel TV tonight, along with Boris Said, Sal Masekela and the cast of “Frozen.”  The show will air tonight (Wednesday) at 6p.m. PT/9p.m. ET.

From the press release:

Today, X Games gold medal winner and Baja 1000 driver, Tara Dakides is back on the Habit, joined by X Games host Sal Masekela. Plus, NASCAR and Baja 1000 driver Boris Said stops by. Also, actors Shawn Ashmore, Emma Bell and Kevin Zegers are here to tell us about “Frozen,” a thriller that takes place on a ski lift.

Tara Dakides’ sponsors include: Vans, Sessions, Omatic, KMC Wheels, Wide Open. Boris Said’s sponsors include: Spy Optic, No Fear. Sal Masekela’s sponsors include: Quiksilver, Nixon, and Celtek.

Check it out!

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With all five Grand Prix events officially behind us, today, the 2010 US Winter Snowboard Team was finally announced, with one spot on both the women and men up for grabs.  Without further ado, here are the six shredders who will be representing the US in Vancouver next month (the last two will be announced in a press conference Monday afternoon):

Men
Shaun White
Louie Vito
Scotty Lago

Women
Kelly Clark
Gretchen Bleiler
Hannah Teter

Congrats to all, and good luck!  And in case you missed yesterday’s Grand Prix in Park City, you can catch the highlights and full event coverage today at 3pmET on NBC.

UPDATE: Elena Hight and Greg Bretz were added to the half pipe team, rounding it out to a full team of eight riders.  Yeah!

This is an article (the first of many) by Jim Callas, a new contributing writer on the Westbound Boarder staff.  Please join me in welcoming Jim to the team!  Jim has (drum roll, please) 38 years of experience on those sticks we snowboarders commonly refer to as #$&^* … I mean, skis.  (Don’t worry guys, he snowboards too!)  But all resentment aside, Jim is an awesome skier, and devout member of the Mt. Hood Meadows community, so we are totally stoked to have him write for Westbound Boarder.  He will offer a local perspective on the sport (as well as a bit of testosterone).  Now, back to the more important topic - avalanches!

A massive slab avalanche broke free and roared down Heather Canyon from the Wy’east face of Mt. Hood January 17. This amazing event happened around 7:00PM when fortunately everyone was riding on the lit slopes of the other side of the resort. I was skiing the next morning and didn’t even hear about it until I got to the run out and was absolutely awestruck by the devastation. The ski patrol did an amazing job of re-routing all us riders around the path of this giant. When I say this thing was massive, I mean huge! There were chunks of snow and ice the size of cars and trucks scattered about everywhere willy nilly. This slide had so much energy that it literally changed the topography forever. Nature’s landscaping if you will. Had anyone been riding in this area, it had the potential to have very ugly results. Matt Aimonetti, a volunteer with Mt. Hood Ski Patrol, was quoted as saying, “It was breathtaking. It was as if a glacier moved a mile down the mountain. Debris was stacked up as high as 30 feet.”

So, where does this leave us? It leaves us with a renewed sense of respect for the mountain. A humbling experience to be sure and also a reminder that whenever we’re up there riding, we are doing so on Mother Nature’s turf. Right after the avalanche ripped down the canyon, I was riding up the lift single and out of curiosity was asking questions of my fellow riders to see if they had heard what happened. Most folks I talked to had heard of the event but very few had known where it had happened. That’s a good thing as most folks choose to ride in the more conventional areas. After a little research, I have learned that an event of this magnitude only happens on Mt. Hood every 10-20 years according to the experts.

What to do if caught in an avalanche? Well you can certainly try and outrun an avalanche like you see on the Warren Miller movies but more than likely, it’s going faster than you can ride (picture a surfer going over the falls at Waimea) and you will soon be the victim of a hostile takeover. Most big mountain skiers agree that the best strategy is to try your best to ride to the side and let the monster go on its merry way.

Why did it happen this season and not in the recent past? This season has been just plain weird thanks to El Nino’. It started out early and with much promise. In November, the snow was light, cold and without much water content. As the season progressed, we didn’t receive much more snow and in fact, the snow we did receive was fairly wet and weighed down with a significant amount of rain. Yes, the dreaded “R” word. So, here we have heavy dense snow stacked upon a light fluffy base. Think of it like shaved ice stacked upon the top of freshly waxed snowboards and tilted 50 degrees.

One of the things that fascinates me the most about this was that there was a moment that was the tipping point. Was there a subterranean lake formed on top of the soon to be slide and it just got a little too heavy to support all that snow and ice? Was there a small tremor? If an avalanche happens when no one is around does it make any sound? I guess we’ll never know…

This week’s best, from around the snowboard Web:

• Kimmy Fasani Talks Filming: Recently presented with an opportunity by DC to film a part with Standard Films, Kimmy Fasani is on the fast track to film stardom.  Read about her experience!  Kimmy is one of my favorite riders to watch in film parts - I think her moves are so smooth and she has a lot of style - so I’m particularly to see what she is able to create during this immersive experience.
• Surfing Under the Golden Gate Bridge? Yes, it’s true.  California’s insane winter storms are creating waves under the GGB … and some local fellows are using this as an opportunity to catch some serious tube.  Check it out on CNN!
• 2010 Olympics - Learn to Speak Canadian: Fellow WTS blogger at Pretty Tough put together a guide on How to Speak Canadian in preparation for this year’s 2010 Winter Olympics.  So, if a double-double is a coffee with two creams and two sugars, and a triple-triple is, well, do the math … do they call a coffee with one cream and one sugar a single-single?  Sounds like a single shot to me; come on Canada, totally misleading!  I’ll take a triple-triple espresso with a single-single, please.
• Double Mc-What? Just when you thought Shaun White couldn’t pull anything better … he goes and captures an insaine Double Mc-Twist 1260 on video last night at the final Grand Prix practice at Park City, Utah.  Watch it over at Transworld Snow!  Yep, that move’s next on my to do list …
• MICA Minute #5: Some cool stuff from Loren Brinton over at Dan’s blog.

As much as I’ve been enjoying reports of the new two feet of pow here at the SoCal mountains, NorCal is seeing even more.  Check out this awesome shred video from Heavenly at Lake Tahoe!  The only thing missing from this video is the snowboarders

Big Powder Day @ Heavenly - 1.21.10 from Heavenly Mountain on Vimeo.

I know we have all been anxiously waiting to hear who will be riding on this year’s 2010 Olympic Halfpipe team.  This weekend, Park City, Utah will play host to the fifth and final round of the Olympic qualifiers, where 30 riders will be vying for the remaining spots on this year’s team.

The US Snowboarding Grand Prix made stops earlier this year at Copper Mountain and Mammoth Mountain, so Park City will be the third and final stop of the tour where the 2010 Olympic team (four men and four women) will officially be announced.

We know that Shaun White, who has already seen two first place finishes in former qualifying rounds, has already solidified his spot on this year’s US Olympic team in the men’s category.  Louie Vito, with two second place wins, is in good shape as well. Other probable contenders include JJ Thomas, Zach Black, Scotty Lago, and Mason Aguirre, though the last two spots remain somewhat uncertain.

On the women’s side, Kelly Clark’s two earlier wins in qualifying rounds have already secured her a spot on the team, with Gretchen Blieler being a shoe in as well.  Elena Hight and Hannah Teter also have the odds in their favor, though Ellery Hollingsworth will give them a good run for their money.  Between these five ladies, the four open spots up for grabs this weekend in Park City seem fairly predictable.  The only question now is, which one won’t get to see Vancouver this winter?

Catch the US Snowboarding Grand Prix on January 23, 8:30pm ET/5:30pm PT on Fuel TV or via the live stream here: http://www.fuel.tv/USSnowboarding

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