I WANT TO DO THIS!!!

Video: Ski BASE Jumping + A Class 5 Avalanche + A GoPro = #Winning - France, Teton Gravity Research Blog post

STRAIGHT UP AWESOME!!! AHHHHHH!!! :)

USASA Nationals @ Copper

Saturday was the practice day for Nationals at Copper. I registered and then met up with Stephen to check out the course. We looked at all of the different features and discussed the best way to hit everything:

 

I was pretty confident about the course and I was stoked to hit it...I met up with Christine and Rascha (2 rad girls from Boston that were in town for the comp) and Charles and Papa Joe and we took a few runs together :) By the time 2pm rolled around I was sooooo ready to hit the course!! I hit the course and had an issue with the Wu-Tang at the beginning and I didn't know why...then I realized my boot was loose which made riding the course difficult even though it was just practice! When I got to the bottom of the course, I realized that my boot wasn't just loose, my Boa system was completely broken!! What great timing...

 

Needless to say the next practice run didn't go too well and I was left very frustrated....thank goodness for meeting up with AJ & Ryan & company to party that night because my day was not fun!!

Sunday was an awesome powder day (after 11am) at Beaver Creek and my last day of work there...bittersweet! Vail pass was closed for a while so I chilled with Clay for a while and then headed home to pass out :)

Monday was the big day, very exciting!! I got up to the course and inspected the course on my LibTech (I race on my UnInc) and I felt super comfortable on the Lib...which was strange because when I practiced on the Steamboat course on my Lib it was waaaayyyyy too poppy but it just seemed right for some reason for the Copper course?! I called Stephen and told him I was feelin' the Lib but that I wasn't sure...I mean he waxed the UnInc the night before to get it ready and the Lib hadn't been waxed for a few days...and not with racing wax...Stephen told me to take a run on the UnInc and then decide. I took a practice run on the UnInc and decided that the LibTec was the one! Stephen crayoned on some of the White Gold Hertel wax ($100/oz) that AJE Promotions hooked me up with, corked it in, brushed it, scraped it, and I was ready to ride!!

 

Team Kick Ass...ready to rock and ride!! I am so happy to have so many people show up to support our team!!

 

Me hugging Papa Joe before the race

 

Me & Acker

 

Denise (on crutches), Dave & Acker

My awesome "slash" :)

Our team is small but mighty!! We have 1 "slash" as I like to call Stephen because he's our coach slash wax tech slash photographer and we have 5 riders (as far as I know) : Autumn, Charles, Denise (injured), Skyler (injured), & me. I met all of the girls in my comp group and we waited around until they were ready for our group (a lot of groups were ahead of us) to do our time trials :) The way they set up our comp groups' bracket was that all 6 of us were going to race (6 at a time) 3 times. 1st place got 1 point, 2nd place 2 points, 3rd place...you get the picture. To figure out the winner they would add our scores from all 3 races and the one with the lowest points wins and so forth. We lined up for time trials and Justine started feeling sick so she peaced out (despite our best efforts to get her to race) and we were down to 5 competitors...

 

Elaine, Me, Ale, Ali, & Katy

Time trials went pretty well...I got a time of 76.99 which was the top seed, the girl behind (Ali) me was close with a 78.66. Getting the top seed in time trials means that you get first pick for gate choice. Some people are very particular on which gate they want but I generally just prefer an inside gate in general. I picked the 3rd hole (3rd gate from right out of 6) for the race. Here are some pics from the first of the 3 races at the top of the course (thanks to Acker):

 

Waiting...

 

In the start gates...

 

I really need to work on my starts...arm work outs during the off season it is!!

 

Rocked my ass over the Wu-Tang this time and really reached (thanks to Stephen's great coaching) to get over this feature in 2nd place...

I got 1st place in the first race and watched Autumn come in 1st in her only race...she knew she had the Gold right away...as for me, 2 more races...

 

"Champion Sandwich" as Acker called it :P

I managed to take 1st in all 3 races so I went home with the Gold, pretty sweet, huh? Oh yeah, then it was Pizza Carlo time to begin the celebration of course!! After Carlo's was the ceremony where I got my sweet medal (and of course got a bit overwhelmed and went up on the podium from the wrong side, forgot to take my goggs off, etc. lmao 

 

Sick, medal, right?!

From the moment I stepped up onto the podium it was like woah, paparazzi!! I got off and got on another photo op podium and then made it back to my friends where I thought the pictures were due to subside...uh, negative. Flash, flash, flash!

The Turneys (family friends I went to church with when I was growing up) were out on vacation from Atlana and though they didn't get to see my race they did make it to the awards and took me out for a beer after, it was great to catch up :)

Went to Storm King for sushi with Tony, Alex, and ?Tyler? and as soon as I walked in the rest of the crew (Dave, Autumn, Denise, Brad, Acker, Charles, Papa Joe, Stephen, Olivia, etc.) left for Incline so I joined them after a bit :) Great day it was!!

 

"Hello, can't you see I need a beer?!?"

 

Little Boomhower!!! <3

 

Friendsssssss!!!

Well that's all she wrote for today...I'm headed out to Boulder to see some old friends, since I've been so busy competing and working 3 jobs I haven't been to the front range in I'm guessing 2 months!! Have a good night, y'all :)

xoxox Summer

Photos from Taos :)

Ok...I suck, I promised a post about Taos by Wednesday night and...epic fail!!! I blame it on Mr. Jim Beam!! I was planning on having a PBR and then the keg was blown -- Buck's went through 5 kegs in 4 nights (damn you bro brah spring breakers!!!) -- so Jim and that was early in the night...I'm riding tomorrow morning (yay!!) at the Beav before I have to work (day 18 in a row -- and 9 of those 18 nights on top of the days!) in the "afternoon" at 11.15am :) Double black moguls here I come!! Oh yes, there is a shirt I really wanted from Taos (that I didn't end up getting) that said "Black Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend" -- love it!! Ullr, pleassse bless us with more snow again!! Looking forward to shredding the gnar, seeing Kim at Red Tail Camp for lunch, and just being at the Beav in general :) So no real post from me as I'm gonna go back to sleep for another hour or so but I did take time to get pics up!!! Enjoy my pics from Taos and a real post is coming soon :) The bruise pic you see in the lot is before the bruise fully developed so be looking forward to the story and here's the picture of my bruise and of part of my board (before the wonderful Stephen fixed it) to keep you on your toes!!

Accident happened on Saturday, this pic is from Sunday...

 

And this pic was taken Monday... 

 

And here's the core shot...

 

Oh yes, Herman really enjoyed coming along! <3 ya, buddy :)

 

And here's a pic of the first sunrise I saw in Taos:

Ta-ta for now and enjoy the albulm of pics I posted!!!

xoxox Summer

USASA BX @ WINTER PARK: PHOTOS!!

BX photos from Winter Park!!

Enjoy, closure of Taos update to come before tomorrow night (I promise!) :)

xoxox Summer

So excitied for USASA Nationals!!!

Just got my USASA BX Nationals invitation, going to the website to register now!!

If you're interested in coming to watch, the event is held at Copper and the dates for my comp group (Senior Women BX) are:

Practice Day: Saturday, April 2nd

Competition Day: Monday, April 4th

Winter Park USASA BX Day 2: Saturday 2.27

Sorry it's taken so long, life has been crazy!! Today is day 9 in a row of work and my next day "off" is April 2nd which is practice for BX nationals!!

Just a few pics from Day 1:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is the last paragraph of my 2nd to last post (Winter Park BX Day 1) and the recap of the 2nd day of competition:

As the next morning arrived all too soon I found out that Autumn's knee and lower leg were in immense pain. We all had waffles for breakfast (and yours truly of course made a huge mess and ruckus -- though I didn't burn my waffles!!) and then Stephen and I left for the mountain.

Stephen and I managed to go down the wrong run once we got there -- which meant I was too late to do an inspection run. I talked to the other competitors and the main thing I heard about the course is that it was faster than Saturday, which made sense since there was less snow overnight.

Stephen waxed my board and had me do some stretching before time trials. I slept on my hip and shoulder funny the previous weekend and the hot tub seemed to have (finally) made my hip feel better. As for my shoulder it was hurting when pulling out of the gates and even just while I was racing...ugh! Anyways...I was amped about time trials and then as I headed down course I realized that the lighting was sooooooo flat!! I was doing a lot of speed checking this time because seriously I couldn't hardly see the snow; rollers were popping out of nowhere!! I made it down the course alright until the very end where I washed out on the very last roller and slid to the finish line on my ass. I was really worried about the flat light...as awesome as my goggles are, I still couldn't see the snow!! They really needed to spray more blue on the turns, burms, and rollers and I don't know why they didn't!?!

 

 

 

 

Hung out in the lodge with the crew until race time and then headed to the top of the course. Thankfully they not only added blue to mark the snow but the sun came out enough so that we could see the course. The race was intense...at the bottom of the first hill Denise and I crashed, here's the sequence:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I took a nice "ass-ripper" as we call it (self explanatory) and even ripped my favourite PJ pants (bottom layer) ;(

Not to mention that my ass hurt for...well...until my next fall (stay tuned). Denise bumped her head pretty hard and we had to get back up and on course which was tough because we crashed in a relatively flat spot. The rest of the race I was in front but I had no idea by how much, I always assume the people are right on my ass. Pushing the pain aside I charged on and then when I got to the finish line I realized Denise wasn't directly behind me and I didn't know why she wasn't right behind me...turns out where I'd fallen in time trials is just about where she fell...Tib Fib....and instead of getting pow turns at the end of the day DH went down in a sled and I spent the afternoon in the clinic with her :\ She got surgery about a week ago and has something like 3 plates and mad screws in her ankle! So sad we won't be racing each other at nationals ;(

 

 

 

 

  

Time to have a good night...work tomorrow at 8am...long crazy days working in a ski town over spring break!!


xoxox Summ