With the last of our cars rolling in an hour before the 7 am competition start and only one close call with an oncoming semi truck our team was assembled and ready for registration and inspection. 6 cms overnight wasn’t enough to fiddle our diddles but our pow starved diddles were ready to fiddle just about anything diddle fliddlingable… Ya know. To our surprise 6cms of cold smoke in Red Mountain acts like 30 and tends to hit you in the face. Repeatedly. We went coastal on that bitch.
To our gross disappointment, we remembered the purpose of this trip and the course inspection pulled our diddles out of the woods and onto Links Lane. The venue, which had been roped off and gathering a weeks worth of storm snow provided some of the best pow of the year. Inspecting turned into shredding as we systematically farmed all the pow on the venue much to the dismay of the other competitors. Turns out that’s not proper shrediquette…Woops.
With no good snow left on the venue we continued exploring Red’s endless trees stopping to take a few shots along the way.
In the evening, the riders met for an introductory meeting run by Rossland’s version of ‘The Dude’, Jeff, and his ‘right hand man’, Lief. The palpable tension of the riders was subdued by The Dude’s calming voice and reassuring speeches; “Competition… it’s like just a word, man. This whole thing, this vibe, its more of an event than anything else. man.” UBC Freeride rode The Dude’s high all the way home and promptly switched gears to nude and rude. Caribou’s flowed like wine and the team instinctively flocked to the drunk-jenga like salmon to the Cappa Strana.
The night rounded out nicely with your typical bearskin, man on man, photo shoot. With alarms set for 6 am, MOST OF US, were ready for qualifiers.
