This past weekend I was invited up to check out the US Open Snowboarding Championships at Stratton VT curtsey of Burton, Anon, and RED. I shot up Thursday night, got hardly any sleep, and was on the mountain by an early 11. Conditions weren't the best due to a killer ice storm the night before then warm temps and some rain moving in for the day. Despite the conditions the group of us had no lack of motivation to go out and shred. Taking the six-pack up we noticed the set up for that night rail jam. At first glance I thought who in their right mind would build something so gnarly! It was the biggest gnarliest set up I had ever seen with a massive hip, two quarter pipes, a kink rail, down box, and a huge close-out rail to drop. Seeing this we were all stoked for the night to come. We ended up riding for a good portion of the afternoon on soft but fast conditions taking runs along side the gigantic slopestyle course, and through the mini-park making the best of crap conditions. We went back to the condo to grab some food and relax before the rail jam later that evening. Walking up to the venue as practice was underway the music was blasting and I saw one of the riders boost a huge front 3 off the massive hip and knew then the contest was going to be insane. For me to describe what went on in the jam would do no justice so ill just let you all watch the video from the contest. Some of the Riders included top names from the East Coast like: Dylan Dragotta, Mike Rav, Johnny O'Connor, Riley Nickerson, Yale Cousino, Shaun Murphy, John Murphy, and Luke Haddock. After the contest we went back, got changed, and went out for the night to the psychedelic themed Burton Party. We made it home later that night and made it up the next morning for the days events. Pipe finals were on the agenda for the day and those guys were going huge. The biggest names in snowboarding were competing in the finals like: Louie Vito, Scotty Lago, Luke Mitrani, Kazuhiro Kokubo, Kelly Clark, and Hannah Teter. The mountain was pretty hard and icy in spots, so after riding and watching pipe finals all day we headed back in for some much needed rest. Again that night would result in another Burton Party this time funkadelic themed and yet another great time. By Sunday we were all pretty wiped out and the only contest that day was the Junior Jam so we had a mellow day of spring riding in the sun before leaving to come home to CT. Overall it was an awesome weekend, got to see some incredible riding from top pros, and was pretty well taken care of thanks to the guys over at Burton, Anon, and RED so a big shout out to them!
Here are the complete results.
Men US Open Rail Jam Results: 1. Charles Reid 2. Jason Dubois 3. Yale Cousino
Women:
1. Kjersti Buass
2. Jamie Anderson
3. Spencer O’Brien
Men’s US Open Slopestyle Finals Results
1. Eric Willett (USA) QUIKSILVER 90.40
2. Mark McMorris (CAN) BURTON 87.80
3. Chas Guldemond (USA) ROCKSTAR 87.20
Women’s US Open Slopestyle Finals Results
1. Enni Rukajärvi (FIN) BURTON 86.50
2. Jamie Anderson (USA) BILLABONG 84.80
3. Silje Norendal (NOR) NIKE6.0 78.70
Men’s 2011 US Open Pipe Results:
1. Kazuhiro Kokubo
2. Iouri Podladtchikov
3. Kohei Kudo
Women 2011 US Open Pipe Results:
1. Kelly Clark
2. Hannah Teter
3. Gretchen Bleiler
