Good Morning USOPEN...Southern VT Wraps It Up

This morning's weather made for a stop and go at the Open as once again the Snowboarding-world-at-large is treated to another dose of classic VT weather. Heavy rain overnight and well into the morning turned to sleet for a couple hrs and settled into a windy rain as all HP practice was canceled, wmn's Slope Q's canceled, and the Mens Slope Pre-Q's were delayed four hrs, and then bunched together into one 75 Man Heat that may or may not have just started practicing at Noon...Good Luck and great Patience to all riders. Man I wanted to see that crew ride the slope course after watching the beautiful riding from Mammoth on the blog. I can hardly believe how well everyone is riding and I've been watching these guys for a while.

Over the weekend our local crew got their US Open-bad-weather-training in the form of the Final Weekend of the 2011 Southern VT Series. Okemo Mtn and SVSS hosted a slopestyle on saturday and a Halfpipe on Sunday.
 While the slopestyle had its share of fog and visibility issues I have to agree with Scott Palmer who said that sunday "may very well (have been) the worst weather in the 11 year history of the series." during the HP contest. I have been colder. I may have been wetter but not by much and I definitely have never seen such poor visibilty. Or never not seen so much! Photos from the weekend are foggy but the camera is drying and they will be up shortly along with an Open Weather Update. Full results are posted on the SVSS site through USASA.org but there were some strong highlights to note.
Top dog Tanner Barret was a double winner. Some people ride just as hard in little to no visibility and bumpy snow as they do in the sun. That's cold blooded and I love it. Huge airs in the Pipe like something from a pirate/ghost movie or fevered dreams.

Tanner Barret. Big mute.

Mike Perle's air-air-alley-oop-back-nine-frost seven was tough enough to win Open Class Mens Pipe but I couldnt see a lick of it from the start gate. Luckily for me I know how sick that looks on him. Josh Cohen's amplitude may have been his best yet. I'm guessing the judges had a harder time seeing Maverick and Marian's run's yesterday. I thought they both did a little better than the guys whose opinions counted at the time. Strong efforts nonetheless.
Xander Raith put up another particularly man sized effort in the slopestyle saturday to take first and clinch a series slope title. Peter and Kyle both killed the down flat down so dead in practice there was no where to go but down from there.

Karen Kobayashi took a beating on the Gatorade rail in practice and bounced back to win her for the youth wmn in solid style... The list goes on and as always I apologize to anyone I'm leaving out but thanks to everyone who came and rode and watched this weekend and all season long. SVSS is The Breeding Ground of Great East Coast Riders year after year and it's a great thing to be part of.

P.S. "huge moves" award to JP McArdle. JP had a hard time in slope on saturday so, having already secured a Nationals worthy ranking in HP, he and his dad drove over to Hunter Mtn Early sunday am and JP took the slope contest over there to boost his national slope ranking to somewhere around 40th place and most likely well within the National invite list. Congrats on making that drive count.

Marc Shaw came through in the clutch with a hot box o' coffee.

P.P.S  The Open did not Open this morning or this afternoon...