16 inches and 70mph winds on top...

More of the same riding wise today. The wind kept the second chair from opening until 1 pm which made for longer lift line at american flyer lift a bit slower. That crowd was gone by 10:30 and the lap speed came right back up. The snow was bumped but soft soft soft. 50% of the pro-am group is has a flip variation-all day long. Halfpipe rookie Kevin Mattice is going is big as anyone and adding a trick every run. Haffner mctwists. Perle lands ten alley-oop back rodeos. You can not tell Emily P is riding switch in the bumps. Scotty J is claiming young female pipe rippers in the dev posse....These are obviously just a few and random sample of the hightlights.
On the practical information side of things for those of you at home. Again today there were no injuries. We did have a young rider awaken to some symptoms of altitude sickness. It was a tough headache, sore throat and dryheaves. Bummer yes but the doctor here at the clinic will not call it "Altitude sickness" without a noticeably high heart/pulse rate. He administered some o2 and prescribed an in-room tank. The child is feeling fine and riding tomorrow unless things turn around. That is the procedure for these symptoms. The fix is easy and there is no need for extra worry if it comes up again. By the way you would already know if it is your son or daughter. The breck crew is likely taking tomorrow and the copper crew will ride two more days and then break.

Day one of Copper Camp

It was a long night of checking in following three months of dryland training, a long day of driving flying and driving again in snow but we made it. We straightened out some faulty room keys and went back for the keys we didn't get the first time but the underclassmen ate by 8:00 pm here at copper and the upperclassmen found their new home for a month in Breckenridge. We are finally on snow and it's still snowing out there. Conditions have been pretty dry here lately but the snowmakers and groomers have built a great halfpipe and it has been snowing since yesterday aftenoon.
The snowtotal of seven inches this morning matched the last months total and made for a fun day of warming up and checking out our gear. More than one local has thanked me today for bringing the snow. Some riders were charging along like midseason as a result of long summers and recent days at home. Others like me need to build slowly. Each training group pretty much had the same fun and easy warm up plan for day one. Slash around, do some switch riding try out some boxes.
I slammed one pretty good, Alex Bayer dinged up a new board pretty well. Cam Howe greased a frontside boardslide through the flat-down-flat box and James Haffner did a frontside rodeo 540 out of the bottom of the snowy halfpipe.
Beside the snow in the pipe the shape is great and when the snow eases up we will have the training we count on here. In the meantime the fluffy snow is a great way to have fun getting our legs and minds snowboarding again. Everyone is healthy in the altitude and getting their rest right now. Tomorrow we will will have more highlights and the progression will surely expand and deepen.

Winter Hits in October! It's official. Snow and ice have arrived before Halloween this year and caused our final county rd loop run to be canceled. The kids have been loving that three mile sunrise run but sadly we returned to indoor activity this am. We did a short jogging warm-up in the b-ball gym and followed with fifteen rounds of sun salutations. It's a good progressively graduating routine that stretches more as the muscles and joints warm more. Warm-ups are the most under rated aspect of fitness training. We have been trying to emphasize that all fall. You may also have been hearing about the line drills and movement training. Like the warm-up these are more important than weight routines or cardio training. Both of those more popular aspects of training become injury training rather than injury prevention training if an athletes movement patterns are unsound. Please back that up at home if it makes sense to you and shoot me an email if you don't follow.
I'm putting out some shots of recent training sessions and some proof of the weather. The kids have had a dense season of dryland training, skating and bouncing. Some of our snowboard athletes have held down varsity sport roster spots as well during the same stretch of time. This group tested as well in september as any group I can find data on here in the office. That is searching through some years and more than a few famous snowboarders. Huge support for these athletes. We are testing again on the week of nov 10. Then thanksgiving break will roll into fall and winter camps. It is an unprecedented amount of travel and widespread responsibilty for the athletes, coaches, teaching staff and parents involved. It will take constant and flexible oversight by us all to help make this time work out as intended for this team. Enjoy and stay in touch. Thanks again from the coaching staff.

SMS Skatecomp

This Sunday we held a skateboarding jam at Stratton Mt School. The SMS team competed against the Gould Academy team and local skaters. The scene was classic skate-style with music, jam formats, and a BBQ. The skaters competed in street and mini-ramp with advanced and really advanced divisions. Mike Tallone from DNA kicked down decks and tech decks for prizes and an $8 entry fee funded prize money. Standout skaters included Gould's entire team, SMS's James Haffner and Chris Tierney, and local rulers Dave Moul, Forrest Bailey and Will Bateman. Trick highlights included Pete from Gould's airwalk to fakie, Dave Moul's kickflip front board, and Forrest's noseblunt slide. That's just a taste, tons of bangers went down. Forrest left with most of the prize money, but others proffited as well and a good time was had by all.

The Jump Off

Shredders, SMS community, parents, industry heads,
Welcome to the Stratton Mt School Snowboard Team Blog. In a attempt to get with the times we are starting a blog to document our amazing team, their travels and triumphs. As I am new to the world of blogging, please have patience, this site will be banging soon!
As I write the team is one month into fall dryland. On a daily basis they are developing strength, agility, cardio, plyometric power and SKATING A TON! SMS was cool enough to make skateboarding a fall and spring sport. Under the unspoken leadership of James Haffner, the team is progressing each day and getting super creative. Anyone who skates and visits the area has to come check out our indoor park.
Our coaching staff has been together for 4 years now and has truly hit its stride as a team. Led by Mike Mallon, we have Rick Shimpeno, Dave Redden, Ian Kirk and Scott Johnston working hard to develop the next generation of ripping riders. These dudes have years of riding, coaching and industry experience under their belts and have worked closely with some of todays top pros, including Hannah Teter, Kelly Clark, Danny Davis, Louie Vito, Kevin Pearce, Goldy, Mary Sallah, Shayne Pospisil and Lucas Magoon. The future looks bright for current SMS standouts Ellery Hollingsworth, Lizzy Beerman, Eric Beauchemin, and Randall Stacy.
Stay tuned for more updates as we head into the winter. Make sure to check romesnowboards.com to see the footage of Randall Stacy surviving an avalanche in Argentina this summer and wish him well. He is healing up quite well.
More soon,
Ian Kirk