Serena Shaw Wins Hood Rev Tour

Its been a wild start to the SMS Hood Rev Trip. We arrived for two cold, windy and crowded days at Mt Hood Meadows. When I say crowded I mean it. Traffic backed up for miles, 45 minute drives taking 2 hours, parking in the outer lots and waiting in line 15 minutes to load a bus, no seats in the cafe.......
Practice went alright yesterday and there were some great pow turns to be had. Today was the Halfpipe event and slope practice. The slope course needs some work for tomorrow, but the pipe was decent today (albeit a bit icy). The girls attacked the pipe first.
Serena Shaw was on point from the start of practice until the end of the day when she stood atop the podium. She won practice, qualified for finals 3 points ahead of the next rider and finished 4 points ahead of the second place finisher. She is nailing her frontside 720s and rode with confidence and power.




Phoebe Novello also made finals and broke out of the contest slump she has been in. Her coaches have recognized her talent for years now, and it was great to hear onlookers taking notice and other riders talking about how good she is as she dropped in. She is the only girl who spun in all four directions in her run although she fell on her switch back 3 at the end of her first run and missed the frontside 3 to cab 3 combo in her second run. She just missed landing her finals runs and placed 6th, but this is an amazing and much needed finish for this girl. The run she was going for (and landing in practice) was front 5, back 5, front 3, cab 3, ally oop, back 3, switch back 3. She is ripping slope too and should have a good showing tomorrow.
Makalya Tierney threw some of the biggest front 5s of the day in the girls division, but slipped out on both runs. Tough break, but she is boosting and riding with great style.
Hunter Wood, Mike Perle and Graduate James Haffner all rode well in practice, and James and Hunter made finals. Mike Perle's first practice run would have been a podium run if were in finals, but he too slipped out in his runs. Hunter had the eye of the tiger in finals and charged the pipe with great amplitude. By no fault of his own he slipped out on both finals runs but kept his chin up. James Haffner handled the icy walls and stomped big spins to stand on the podium in 2nd place. This has been a long time coming and James is on fire this year.
Josh Cohen landed both his qualifying runs, both runs including a frontside 720. When he adds a backside spin to the run he should be turning some heads.
Ezra Racine was crushed by the redesigned slope course as he had been killing it the day before. The change to the second jump that was made overnight threw many riders off and he was especially insulted. This did not stop him from charging his HP runs, both of which included sick backside handplants to fakie (a Kirk-pleasing trick).



Amidst all this action there was another interesting story. Quincy Korte-King snapped her board in half when she decked out on a crippler attempt. For a 90lb girl to break her board in half on the lip of the icy pipe and ride away unscathed was astounding. She was bummed, but its hard to keep a smile off this girl's face. The poor thing rode down to the base to grab her slope board for practice only to find that some dirtbag had stolen it off the rack!!! These events would dishearten me to say the least, but she took it all in stride which reinforces the respect and fondness I have developed for our Canadian shredder.

COACH POWERS SURVEYS QUINCY'S SITUATION