ESPN Snowboarding

Kicking off on the lover's holiday, February 14th, the second day of the Northface Masters at Crested Butte found competitors battling inclement weather, and each other, for a victory on the notorious "Staircase" slope.

Straight down from the start gate, riders had their pick of a skiers left area, "Staircase Proper," with a series of pillows called the "Handrail," and further left more pillows called the "Slot Cliffs." To the riders right sat a cliff-strewn apron called "Body Bag," with another nasty piece further right called "Dead End," and finally a cliff launch dubbed the "Cheese Burger." With death and food metaphors abound, and milk-bird conditions, both the men's and women's field laid down serious tracks in the first round of the finals, racing for a cut that left five women and fifteen men for the super-duper finals.

With the sun gracing the sky finally, the scent of BBQ-ing cow from The North Face Jimmy Hopper grill, and a crazed character named Spencer Moon wandering around with a pirate flag draped cape-style about his neck, the real action of the super-duper finals got under way.

Eben Wight/MSI

Competitor Mark Koelker lays one back at Crested Butte.

Continue reading "Masters at Crested Butte":

Squaw Valley shredder Iris Lazzareschi set the bar with a smooth and speedy run down to the Dead End area. She lined up a nasty, snow-barren sliver of a chute that no guy had yet tackled, and sent it without hesitation, garnering the most crowd appreciation of the women's field. "I got to my line and saw how every dude had exposed the rock in it," says Lazzareschi. "So I said, 'I'll just have to point it, here we go.'"

Notably, the riders were all allowed only one inspection run, meaning that if you got into the finals and changed your line up, like Lazzareschi did, you'd better have scoped it out well from the bottom. The rest of the women followed suit, scraping out turns through the Body Bag area—well battered by the 20-odd number of runs taken through it by the men's preliminary field.

The men caught a snatch of bluebird before the squall closed in again, enough time for Paul Gemignai to send the hugest backflip of the day; Kyle Anderson to follow up on a botched drop in the Body Bag area with a clean stomp; and Aaron Robinson to tear the whole rider's left section a new one with the fastest top-to-bottom run of the day. "I rode fresh snow the whole way down," says Robinson. "It was way fun. I figured I had to step it up for this run so I just soul shredded it, and went where my snowboard would take me."

But all eyes were on the last two shreds: Clif Dimon, the Crested Butte loc who just missed first at Snowbird, and Matt Annetts, who took the sword at the first stop. With the start list going in reverse order, and Annetts coming into the super duper finals with a six-point lead, Dimon dropped first.

Tearing it up in typical style, Dimon worked the severely-pitched and nearly snowless face of the Deadend area, scratched his way over to the Cheeseburger rock and tossed a huge front flip. "I knew that after the first run I had to take it bigger and faster, and hopefully the judges liked it," says Dimon. "I had to make a couple small checks but hopefully I did it."

Annetts did not disappoint, flying down to the same Deadend area with smooth and calculated speed, setting himself up for a tight and peppered straight line. But with just a few hundred feet left before getting there, he hung up some unexpectedly soft snow, tomahawking above some sketchy and exposed rocks. "I saw a little pillow that I could turn on, but my nose dug in and I had my momentum going down too much," says Annetts. "Not the best place to pull a somersault."

Annetts cleaned up his fall in time to avoid disaster, and it was hard to tell who'd come out on top.

Fast forward a few fun runs later, and the judges let us know—Dimon's efforts paid off with a first, and fellow CB loc Susan Mol took her place at the top as well.

"It feels really good to stomp it in your home town, that's for sure," says Mol, who too third at the Bird. "You've got your homies yelling, it makes a big difference." Mary Boddigton took third, as well as the Young Gun prize for the event, and Lazzareschi's high-speed shredding scored her third.

In the men's field, Annetts landed in second, and Aaron Robinson's soul shred scooped him third.

"It feels great, it was really close," says Dimon. "I was psyched to pull it off. It took everything I had—those guys are so good, and everybody stepped it up so big."

There you go. In-n-out weather, and everybody taking it up notches. It's crazy what you'll do on Valentines Day.

Results:

Men:

1 Clif Dimon, Crested Butte
2 Matt Annetts, Stowe
3 Aaron Robinson, Big Mountain
4 Gareth Van Dyk, Crested Butte
5 Kyle Anderson, Crested Butte

Women: 1 Susan Mol, Crested Butte
2 Mary Boddington, Crested Butte
3 Iris Lazzareschi, Squaw Valley
4 Shannan Yates, Snowbird
5 Laura Dewey, Snowbird

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