Aspen Open

After many years of trying, I was finally able to compete in the Aspen Open. To finally hit the X Games course, and see if I could hold my own against some of the best skiers in the game. This was a very fun and much needed experience for me since I’ve never hit a slope course that big, and so close together. When I say close together, I mean how you would land one jump and in a manner of seconds you would be going off another jump.

The Slopestyle course

For the practice days I tried to get used to the jumps and hot lap the course as much as I could. By the end of the second day practice day I felt like I had a good run down. On the first qualifier day we got over 8 inches of fresh powder, sadly this was my first pow day of the whole year.

Psyched after getting my first 69 bib

As we reached the top of the course with the wind blowing and the mass accumulations of snow everywhere to be seen there was a feeling that the comp might not happen. The first run through the course only a total of 3 or 4 people were able to actually clear every jump. So the event organizers decided to postpone the comp till the next day.

Misty 6 Sequence of me by: Henrik Lampert

On the actual qualifier day everyone was much happier to see sun as we reached the course. Then as soon as the competition started the bad weather started to roll in. The first heat wasn’t affected much by this, but the second, and third heats were. I was able to land my first run and that put me in 5th place for my heat, and enough to get me to Semi-finals.

Top of the course 

Semi-finals were held the very next day, and this turned out to be the best day for me. For once I was able to clear every jump with plenty of speed and the landings were much softer than earlier in the week.  Happily I was able to set down a run and that put me through to finals in the 6th place spot. Then in finals I decided to try and take my run up a notch. Sadly I wasn’t able to land my desired run and had troubles with my 3rd jump.

Nicky Keefer before dropping in - Photo by: Me

Maroon Bells on the backside of Buttermilk

Even though I wasn’t able to put down the run I wanted this was such a good experience for me, and motivates me to learn bigger and better tricks so I’ll be ready for the next competition.

-Noah

TSP Premiere for Act Natural and Park City

A few weeks ago I headed over to Bozeman for the premiere of Toy Soldier Productions movie Act Natural.

The Journey over to Bozeman was definitely one of the more interesting adventures I’ve had on a road trip.  This adventure started off in Coeur D’Alene where I met up with Dash Kamp, Pete Arneson, Cali Doefler, Todd Tucker, Garrett Jurach, Noah Curry, Jon Susman, and Jake the Yellow Lab. For the first hour of our journey we were living the high life, and feeling like we were on cloud 9. But soon realized that was much to early to assume. As we were driving up Lookout Pass felt the car leap on one side. Thinking immediately that we had popped a tire, only to realize we blew the suspension instead.

After we were fortunate enough to get up to the top of the pass we ended up staying there for rest of the day. Then after a series of events we continued on our journey much later that evening, and stayed in Missoula for the night.   

The next morning started off with a much needed free continental breakfast before heading over to the Missoula skate park for a little bit.

Once everyone was tired out from skating we hopped back into the cars and finished the journey to Bozeman with plenty of time to spare for the premiere.

This is the premiere I have been looking forward for so long because of a few reasons. First of all the people in Bozeman amazing, and that makes for the best premiere crowd I’ve ever seen. Always love hanging out in Bozeman and end up having some of the best times of my year there.

The rest of the weekend was spent hanging out with some good friends, doing a barbeque, shooting some bb guns, and having as much fun as we can.   

After enjoying such a fun weekend in Bozeman it was back to Spokane for a few days to hang out with some good friends and my parents.Then on Thursday I flew out to Salt Lake City for a weekend of water ramping at the Utah Olympic Park and hanging out with some friends from Park City. Utah Olymic Park Water Ramps

Thankfully the weather was great the entire weekend, and I got my fair share of jumps in with Park City Freestyle to work on some new tricks, get better at my air awareness, and met a few cool moguls kids from Tahoe, Canada, and Colorado.     

Friday after ramps I got to go check out the new Poor Boyz movie WE: A Collection of Individuals in Salt Lake. Pretty sweet to see Joss, Schlopy, and Karl slay it in that movie.

Rest of the weekend I just stayed up in Park City ramping and hanging out with Joss, Brita, Sage, Torin, Earl, and Devin. So glad I was able to make the trip down there. Park City is so beautiful, and the ramps were much needed. 

While I was ramping the International Freeskiing Film Festival also known as IF3 was happening in Montreal. And Toy Soldier Productions movie took home “Best North American AM Film”, and was also mentioned in a Powder Magazine article as the “Feel Good” movie of the festival.  So glad to see how many people are stoked on the new movie, and hope everyone gets a chance to check it out! For other articles about Toy Soldier Productions premiere and at IF3 click on the links below.

David Steele article on the World Premiere

Freeskier article on Day 2 of IF3

Newschoolers article on Day 2 of IF3

Now I’m back in Walla Walla starting up school and trying to stay busy till I can ski again. Since it’s premiere season I’ll be heading off to a bunch more ski premieres for the rest of the fall until I can head down to Colorado in November. Cannot wait for this winter, and I know it'll be here soon!

A special thanks goes out to all the guys at TSP for such a fun premiere weekend, Joss for letting me crash at your place, Brita for giving me a lift to the airport, and to Tim for hooking it up at the PBP premiere! Till the next adventure. 

Noah