Since leaving Argentina and coming back to the states I didn’t really know what to expect from this season. In Argentina we were blessed with an amazing amount of snowfall and tons of powder days. I definitely went into this season with high hopes for pow riding, and not much intention of riding park. In mid November Tahoe was hit with a 5 ft storm that kicked off some really fun early season powder days. I was just getting back into the swing of riding, going hiking in the backcountry for some fun lines, when I got the email that I was invited to do the Winter Dew Tour. With 2 weeks until the contest, I decided to do it. It was a complete 180 from what I had decided to focus on. Without ever going to Argentina though I would never have had a focus in the backcountry, because before Argentina I only really knew park riding with pow days being a second priority.
Dew Tour
I competed in the first stop of the Dew Tour in Breckenridge, CO in December. I got 9th and qualified for the rest of the tour, which ended taking up most of my time for January and February. The January stop was in Killington, VT, at that stop I placed 6th. I made it to finals, but a pretty serious slam in practice made me unable to compete. After that was the February stop and also the championship stop was at Snowbird in Utah. I also got 6th at this stop, putting me in 4th overall for the whole tour.
Dew Tour
After finishing the Dew Tour and getting a pretty nice sum of money for competing, I drove with SGT coworker and coach, Natalie Gough, to Silverton, CO to meet up with the rest of our SGT family. I figured there’s not a better place to get away from the park scene than Silverton. We met up with Skylar Holgate, Kim Grant, and Pete Connelly for a week of some serious fun backcountry riding!
SASS guide Kim Grant prepping us for our heli drop
Silverton Mountain
Since then I have been back home in Tahoe. We had a couple weeks of rain that really brought my season to an all time low, but was quickly followed by 10 feet of fresh snow. With the 10ft of new snow, more on the way, and a lot of our SGT coaches in town things couldn’t be better. I have been working on getting some footage for Peep Show as well as touring in the backcountry with Natalie and Michelle Parker. The next couple weeks should continue to be fun with the amount of snow we have received. After this Michelle and I are headed to Miss Superpark in Colorado that will be followed by an amazing spring in
Tahoe.
Tahoe right now!photo: Terry Ratzlaff – theratphoto.com
photo: Terry Ratzlaff – theratphoto.com