So the competition season is here. This past week there have been competitions all over the country: from Grand Prix, to Rails to Riches, to Dew Tour, to Revolution Tour.

NYSEF was represented in the Revolution Tour at Copper, CO by Stephanie Lawee, John Wilkins, KC Brousseau, and myself (JP). The Revolution Tour is a place for armature freeride ski and snowboard athletes from all over the country to come together and compete for a place on the world cup circuit in the disciplines of slope style and halfpipe.

We departed from Albany on December 10^th in route to Denver. Anticipation and stoke levels were at an all time high. We were all very excited to leave the east and go ride where there was “actually” snow.

As it turned out there was plenty of it. We hopped on a shuttle at the airport in Denver that took us from the sunny weather in Denver up I 70 into a blizzard. By the time we had come out on the western side of the Loveland Tunnel it was snowing harder than it had all year so far back east.

It snowed hard all night. So hard that summit county closed the interstate between the Loveland Tunnel and Vail for about three hours. By the Way, this just so happened to be at the time that we had gone to Frisco to get groceries for the week. If you ask anyone from our crew they will tell you about how we got stranded on the bus in Frisco due to the snowstorm; but hey, it left us with lots of powder skiing the following day!

Needles to say John, Steph and I were thoroughly happy and whooped after the day.

The following day we decided to get down to business and we went to Keystone Mt to train on their terrain park features. They had so much to offer and we had a great day.

John @ Keystone: John got his head stuck for about a minutes

This is what Keystone looked like:

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On Monday we were joined by fellow teammate KC Brousseau. As the week went on the level of enthusiasm grew amongst the team. This was only magnified when the weather continued to get more and more sunny throughout the week. The halfpipe and slopestyle courses were in awesome shape. Every competitor was wanting and willing to give the competition their all.

The Half Pipe

Steph got 11th place overall in women's halfpipe

The view on the way to the slopestyle course

First two features in the Slopestyle course:
Left – up box, Right – Cannon Box

First Jump

Second Jump

Third Jump

Last Two Features:
Flat Rail

Or a Down Flat Down Rail

Although the enthusiasm was everywhere, it had no way to safe guard us from injury. KC had a bummed ankle from when he arived, John knuckled the second jump on a Back side cork 7 and hurt his knee, and Steph had severe shin bang. Also, Steph's lip and her pole got into a fight on the landing of the second jump in the slopestyle course.

Steph’s Lip

Everyone on the team felt somewhat skunked, but instead of letting it get us down it fueled a fire deep inside everyone’s competitive spirit. The consensus is that we did not represent our fullest potential at this revolution tour stop. Also there is still a long season ahead of us. We are all determined to work hard and dedicate more training time before the next revolution tour stop at Mt Hood Meadows.

Team Hardway + Santa

We all had a great time in Copper and are eagerly awaiting the Rev Tour at Mt Hood. Stay posted, and Happy Holidays.

- JP