Chris Galvin driving the ship to good old Utah!!
January 21, 2010
The trip to the North Face Master in Snowbird, UT. Well after driving for about eight and half hours through rain and snow the whole way from Reno,NV to Salt Lake City, UT, Chris Galvin and I have arrived. After looking at the snowbird website for a week before we went and they had about 144 inches which is not a lot when you think of snowbird Utah in the middle of January. Chris and I were a little worried about leaving Tahoe after it's been hammering for a week of perfect snow and conditions, but come to find out that it has been snowing all day up on the mountain, that was good to hear!
January 22, 2010
After sleeping in till about 10:00 am and along drive, it was time to get up on the mountain and register for the contest, plus check out the venue. when we arrived in the parking lot were their was a couple feet of fresh snow, SO HAPPY!!
The visibility was poor… as you can see.
After ridding all day, it was time to find out where we were going to stay for the time being in Snowbird, so i called Ralph to see what his plan was. He says that Patrick from Unofficial got us two rooms at the cliff lodge right their at the base of the mountain. NO WAY!! I was so happy to know that, because we where going to stay with a friend in the valley and he lived in down town part of the city which is about a 45 min. drive to the mountain. Not so good when you have to be at the mountain for ridders meeting at 8:00 am and load the tram at 8:30 am, plus you don't know if the road is going to be open or not, due to the high avalanche risk on the mountain road. After finding out about the rooms,i asked Ralph were he was at and if he had left Tahoe yet, he answered no we are just now leave Tahoe,it was about 3:30 in the afternoon. so i asked can I check in? Yeah, your name is on the room as well. Sweet!!! Thanks Patrick and Unofficialsquaw!!
the view out the window of the room looking straight out towards the mountain.
January 23, 2010
It's 7:00 am on the dot. Booooom Boooooom the avalanche bombs where going off every where. I get up and look out the window, it's still snowing, theirs is about two more feet of fresh utah snow out on the road again and visibility was horrible you couldn't see two hundred feet in front of you. It's about 8:00 am now and the bombs are still going off, we can't leave the hotel because they have to keep all guest in the hotel till ski patrol is down bombing and the mountain is safe. So i call ralph to see if he made it to the hotel last night, plus to see if he had any info about when we could leave the hotel, he did plus come to find out he is in the room right next to me. It's 8:45 am we can finally leave the hotel to see what the call was on the contest. i see Patrick the contest director, i asked what's the plan man? North Chute on the venue slid to dirt and rocks this morning so it's a weather day so get out their and enjoy the pow, plus we are going to send some film crews out with some groups of people to film and have a good time exploring the mountain.
thanks Lance! it was a blast.
January 24, 2010
It's the same thing as the day before, 7 am bombs, but on this day the snowbird ski patrol is having a little problem, there was two slides the went over the mountain road in two different spots and plus there was three ski patrol that had been berried in a avalanche at Alta (the sister resort to snowbird). Its right around 9:00 am and we get the word that they are not going to let anyone out of Altas hotel it was on lock down. So it was another weather day and another day of two feet of fresh snow that feel the night before again. Alta finally let people out of the hotel at around 11:30 and the road was back open, but Alta was closed for the day and only the tram and a couple other lifts were turning at snowbird. So I got together with Ryland, Ralph, Chris Galvin, and Ryland friend Nelson. For a great day of exploring.
January 25, 2010
7:00 am the bombs start, It's the last day of the contest, we have used all the days hopping for a good day to get the contest off and running. It's going to be one run winner take all! look out the window and its socked in again. Noooo! but the visibility was good enough to have the contest. It was going to be a 10:00 am start time. oh yeah and the venue was closed the day before, so it had but two to three feet of fresh.
So the judges have decided to put two of the judges about half way down and two at the bottom. Do to the visibility at the top of mountain.
Then about then about a quarter the way through the men the clouds started the break and the sun and blue skies started to shine.
so all in all it was a good contest and trip to Utah. Thanks everyone at The North Face Masters for get the contest off and to Unofficialsquaw.com! Congratulations to Mark Carter, Ryland Bell, and Ralph Backsrtom way to kill it and yeah Chris Galvin had a super sick run he stomped. I on the other hand not so good i feel on the second to last air, no good. The POV will be coming soon. look at Ralph's stance it's great.
