Freedom Fries in Austria

JAMES BUGGIN OUT


Day one could not have gone over better! As I mentioned in the last post, yesterday was a bit overcast. Today's skies were clear and blue, giving us breathtaking views of the Alps. What a contrast to New England riding! The Austrian Alps are awe-inspiring. Massive, sheer rock faces with hanging glaciers and granite spires tower over us.
Veronika, the lady who runs our hotel, made us a great breakfast and the chatter was positive and entertaining. We then hit registration where we were told we were the US representatives for this event. We made sure to mention that we are the SMS Americans. The media folk loved the crew and requested an interview session at 5 tonight (10 minutes away).
The drive to the resort was really cool. Quaint villages, livestock, churches and clean streets, fields and rivers. The road up is a bit hairy as its curvy and narrow. As we drove up the road we spotted a building perched atop an intimidating granite peak. It was scary just to look up at it. We soon realized that it was the gondola building and the cable ran exposed up to it, over a thousand-foot drop. Needless to say the ride up was intense!
GONDOLA RIDE WITH SERENA



Lets get to the snowboarding part, right? The course is mellow, but fun (butter box, 3 jump line, wallride). James and Eric stepped right to it and have lines planned already. I took the girls to warm up on a small 3 jump line. There was some evident rust in our skills, but we diamond stoned it right off. After getting some style and spins back we headed to the comp line. I had the girls ride through while I checked the speed. Right when the girls were reved up to hit the line, they closed it for maintenance. Oh well, they will have no problem with the line tomorrow. We spent the next hour or so running the mini parks and filming rails.
MAKAYLA TIERNEY

Clouds rolled in by that time the crew was full of snowboard action so we headed to the lodge perched on the precipice to enjoy this team's favorite food, Freedom Fries!