8th Mar, 2009
Bah! I know I’m about 2 days late with this post, but finals went off Saturday despite Ullr not cooperating and everything went more or less according to plan. Some amazing runs were thrown down (especially under the bamboo entrance on the far right of the venue) despite the last minute final’s mountain change and Snowbird’s Cliff Bennett walked away with 1st.
Nik managed to jump from 35th (the last to qualify) all the way to 19th when he decided to send an air huge near the top of the venue and straightline the rest of his run. I bobbled a bit on one of my airs (rolled windows like my car was fire) and dropped to 27th.
It was an awesome event and I’ll have the full finishing lists and some pictures from the sketchy drive home tomorrow with my ‘Day 6′ post. I’ll also post a recap in preparation for the Snowbird event which kicks off Tuesday. Gnar.
7th Mar, 2009
Friday was supposed to be semi-finals with Saturday being finals, but due to weather it had to be canceled.
The bad news: the venue was changed to West Basin from the far superior Kachina Peak
The good news: everyone that qualified made finals :p
I’m wish I could have been doing this hike again instead of West Basin
Finals just went down on West Basin and I’ll have an update/photos/final results later tonight-
5th Mar, 2009
Qualifiers for the Salmon Extreme Freeriding Championships is officially over. Pretty interesting event. Huge winds off the peak made it a pretty sketchy hike up. I actually missed my spot in the order by a few paces because of getting stuck on the ridge in the wind. Didn’t hurt me too bad though, I managed to finish 16th of the 54ish riders. LCC local Daryn Edmunds put down a solid performance and landed in the mid 20s (24th I think) and UofU Math Guru Nik Aksamit worked his magic to beat the cutoff bubble and landed 37th.
We’re all looking forward to tomorrow and hoping for some sunshine to better spot our landings.
I’m going to get some pictures uploaded here in the next day or two so stay tuned!
Jake
4th Mar, 2009
So we managed to roll into town at about midnight and post up at a hotel somewhere near the mouth of the canyon. We made it to the resort this morning and scoped what we thought would be the Day 1 venue, but halfway through the day patrollers announced the first (and likely every day’s) venue would be Kachina Peak. We made the half-hour or so trek up the 12,481′ peak and picked out some lines. Athlete meeting at 6p and then Day 1 of the event tomorrow.
A couple photos from today ->
Entering New Mexico. Bad time for murder mystery reading time.
Weirdo clouds.
There’s skiing in New Mexico?
Nik snapping pics of the old venue
Kachina Peak
3rd Mar, 2009
So the plan is to update from this road, but that may not work for a few reasons:
-I’m lazy
-I’m writing from my phone
-The internet hasn’t been invented in southern Utah yet
—10:30a—
Leaving the SLC way later than we should have
—2:13p—
Some dinky town in Utah near Wellington I think
—4:00p—
Leaving Moab
—5:52p—
Entering CO
—6:47p—
Cortez, CO
—12:02a—
In Taos, no idea where. Going to bed.
——
Leaving the dorms
Leaving SLC
Pryce
Moab
Middle of nowhere UT
Cortez, CO
Somewhere in Taos
