Boyne's Spring Board Meeting

About a week and a half ago we went to the Boyne Highland's Spring Board Meeting. This is the last time we can ride the terrain park and pipe around here before they close. The weather on Saturday was not very spring like, but the weather on Sunday was amazing. Here are a couple pictures.

Pictures from 2008 US Snowboard Nationals

Here are some great pictures of Spencer at the Nationals.

Slopestyle:
Boardercross:
Slalom:

Giant Slalom:


Superpipe:

2008 Snowboard Nationals - Followup

Well the USASA Snowboard Nationals at Copper are all done and we made it back home safely. Spencer and I had a great time there. The conditions and events were great. As I mentioned in the previous post Spencer did a great job.

Spencer finished the week in a great position. Especially being his first year in this age group. A summary of the major accomplishment are:
- 5th out of 50 for Slopestyle
- 3rd in boardercross
- 12th out of 42 for superpipe. This is great considering Spencer hardly rides pipe since we do not have one near our home.
- Overall Freestyle (ranking based on pipe and slopestyle) is 5th
- Overall Rank (based on all 5 events) is 4th.

So Spencer is Nationally ranked 4th in his age class. He has told me he plans on improving that even more next year. We already can't wait until next Snowboard season.

On our off time we continued to do some more free riding. Spencer did some more tree runs. Also, Spencer did a 15 foot cliff drop. This was amazing to see. He just snowboarded off a cliff that was approx 15 feet high and landed in the powder below, and kept going. I wish I had a camera to capture this.

Spencer also entered into a rail jam. It had no age class and was very cool to see.

I should be getting some more pictures next week to show some of the event shots for Spencer. I will try to post some as I get them.

Well, still trying to catch up at work. Have fun all.

At USASA Nationals at Copper

Well it has been a very busy week so far and we are only half through it. Spencer and arrived at Copper March 27 and started to board on the 28th. The first competition did not start until March 30 so we had some time to practice and just free ride. The conditions here are great. We had one day where we got 8" of new powder.

Sunday was Spencer's first event, slopestyle. For those of you that do not know what that is, it is rails and jumps. The event is judged. Spencer did great. Especially since he moved up to this age group this year and there were 50 kids competing in the event. Spencer took 5th place out of 50. He hit the 25' jumps and did big air with some great grabs. Then he hit the hard rails and did some board slides. It was very impressive to watch.

On Monday Spencer's event was boardercross. This is one of Spencer's favorites. Spencer took a Silver last year against 25 kids. We did not know what to expect in his new age group. But after 4 heats he took 3rd out of 40 kids. Spencer was very excited since he got to go up on stage and receive the bronze medal.

On Tuesday Spencer and I decided to go back country riding and do some tree runs with some friends. It was a great time. There was lots of powder and the runs were great. Although I got stuck a few times and it was quite a workout to get going again. But Spencer kept going without any problems. He was dodging between trees and ducking under some fallen trees. It was fun. Later in the day we decided to go to Breckenridge and do some pipe riding to practice for Friday's Superpipe event. Spencer was working on his back to back 360's.

Today, Wednesday, was for Slalom for both Spencer and I. It was a very tight course and was fast. Unfortunately I fell on my first run and did a hand check on my second run. I did not check the unofficial results to see how I did but I assume I am near the bottom. Spencer did well on his first run but slipped on his second run. This cost him his speed and impacted his time. We have not seen the official results but assume he is somewhere in the middle of the pack of 35 kids.

Tomorrow Spencer and I will be doing Giant Slalom, which we both enjoy more. On Friday we both do Superpipe. I will try to post our ranking after we do those.

Well I am off to watch Spencer in a rail jam. I have not had a lot of time to take pictures of the events but did take a few pics of the great conditions and view (see below).