Rolling down a hill without brakes...: Snowskate Roundup 2012

After some "will it or won't it happen" drama, the Roundup went down at Steven's Pass on April 15th. It was the same day as Spring Fest at Steven's, so there were lots of crazy outfits, pond skimming, and cardboard box racing. We however, had our own agenda! Photos courtesy of other people's cameras (Gergis, Brian Wilson, more).

After procuring a group rate via the group sales dude, we headed up to take some cruising runs to get the blood flowing. Then we headed up to the terrain park to familiarize ourselves with obstacles. Due to the "drama" we didn't have any snowskate specific obstacles built, but we quickly dialed in a few items.

The contest format: It evolved into a jam format wherein all the riders would focus on one particular obstacle at a time. Mark showed up to judge even though he was completely wrecked with a broken collarbone. We started with some mellow to moderate kickers. It's hard to recall, but some folks (Ted, Tyler, Jordan, Joachim, others) hit the jumps and others used it like a quarterpipe (Shag, Ted). Tyler and Jordan also hit the big handrail - that thing was gnarly. Good for them - I gave up on rails a long time ago - and I should have listened to my own advice... Here's Jordan killing a rail (not the one I was talking about, but this was butter).

The second obstacle was a larger kicker with a gap. Lots of big air going on with this, but you needed to carry a lot of speed. I was able to get one solid, bolts on landing of an indy air over this gap (see pic). That felt good. Jordan was doing a nice varial air over the gap, too.

The third obstacle was the triangle wall. With some speed, we were doing little wall rides on either side. Here's 3rd Place Tyler doing a creative Acid drop off this thing.

I made the mistake of thinking I could ride up, railslide, then ride down the other side... I went too fast and the board hung up. Epic crash. Ouch.

Fourth obstacle: Picnic table - since I took off to nurse my wounds (advil and Redbull), I will have to let the videos do the talking: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=340052959390430

#5: Updown rail: Ok, the guys were good, but the ladies deserve special credit. They were killing this obstacle while most of us (well, especially me) were flailing all over the place.

Final event - Chinese Downhill! This was a unique downhill since the run that was chosen was steep in one section, but very flat in most of it. With spring conditions in effect, this meant one thing: RUNNING. This was really fun to see and I look forward to posting videos from this.

We all took a cruiser to finish the day and head back to the parking lot for some well deserved drinks and hotdogs. Prizes were awarded and everyone walked away with something. There were many smiles to go around. Special thanks to Victor Zurn for setting this up.

I'll re-post more stuff once all the folks with cameras start posting.

Women's