Upcoming Events

I think we could say it's officially "pre-season." That wonderful time when it starts to cool off a bit and we try to wait patiently for snow. The staff at Powderhorn knows it's officially "pre-season" when our blood pressure has roughly doubled since this time last month. Oh well, it's all very exciting for us! We have tons of events coming up where you can get your season pass or plus card or just chat with one of our representatives. Here is the full schedule for the next month-

Catch us tonight at the Farmer's Market on Main St. We are helping LiveWell kick off another season of wellness in Mesa County. You can register to win a First Timer ski or snowboard lesson package, pick up a Powderhorn sticker, get season pass/plus card info, and check out some facts about how good skiing snowboarding is for your body!

Sept. 6 & 20
Mesa State College
$250 season pass for students, staff & faculty
MUST have valid MavCard and purchase on those days only to get that price

Sept. 15
Traz
Order your season pass or plus card and check out all the new winter snowboard gear

Sept. 22-23
Color Weekend
Lift rides, season pass photos, live music, Alpine Trader sales, Loki demos/sales, great food at Wildewood Restaurant, BBQ at Sunset Grille, working artist demonstrations, disc golf, mountain biking, hiking, art gallery, and photography demos by 13 Photo & Gallery.

Local Heros

The DNA rail jam at Gene Taylor's last night was amazing! Tons of people came out to watch the locals tear it up. The top 3 riders from last night will move on to the finals in Las Vegas this January. Second and Third place went to two of our favorite Powderhorn riders! Congratulations to Micah and Natasha! Give an extra round of applause to Natasha who is the ONLY girl in the whole country to qualify for finals. Absolutely amazing!


Micah posing with his picture from last season









Waiting to drop in





Natasha gettin it done




Micah and all his smoothness



Thanks to everyone who came out!

Rail Jam Time

There's no snow but that's no big deal. Gene Taylor's is hosting the DNA Evolution Tour rail jam tomorrow night! Practice is from 4-6 and the comp starts at 7. They're having free food and drinks and we'll be there giving away stickers, selling season passes, and hanging out. Call them at 242-8165 for details.

I was in Crested Butte this weekend hiking and happened to catch this event. Here is what you have the opportunity to ride tomorrow night!

Around the Mountain

It may be August and the temperatures in the valley may be flirting with triple digits again but we are in full winter mindset now. There are a lot of projects that have to be done now for everything to flow perfectly as we approach the season.

For example, we just finished the design of the lift tickets. This year's shot features a nice powder day with Andrew Cisneros ripping it up. The Plus Cards have just arrived. They feature a shot of Curt Lincoln breaking through the pillows in the Marshmallow Field. And today we are working on a design for the season passes. If you've ordered a pass, you probably just thought What! You haven't even made them yet?! We're designing them now so that when our ticket office staff comes on in September they can start printing and mailing your passes. You should start seeing your passes by late September. Currently we're having a creative block. I have gone off on a tangent designing a pass that parodies a Colorado Driver's License. We'll see how far I get with that one though.

Another major project is the design of the 07-08 brochures and trail map. This is a tedious but fun project. LOTS of proof-reading involved. It easily makes you go cross-eyed. Our ad agency has come up with a great look....and they probably want to kill me because I keep changing up the photos.

Other things being planned are the season's events, new items & apparel for the Alpine Trader, job fairs, stay & ski packages, ski shows, the list goes on. Look for some cool new tech stuff on the site this year like videos, desktops widgits, and mobile website downloads for your phone. Now if it would just cool off a bit...

Art Classes

This year we are going much bigger than just Color Sunday. Color Week is Sept. 17-23 and will feature tons of activites all over the mesa. Powderhorn will be offering art classes on Monday, Thursday, and Friday of Color Week. We are featuring a Collage Class by Gayle Gerson and a Plein Air Oil Painting class by Diana Woods, both incredible artists.

Collage Class
Monday, September 17
9am-5pm
Cost: $40

Plein Air
Thursday & Friday, September 20-21
10am-4pm
Cost: $185

For more info & materials list click here. To register, call us at 970-268-5700.

On Saturday and Sunday (22-23) there will be lift rides, live music, amazing food at the Wildewood, BBQ at the Sunset Grille, wine & beer tastings, disc golf, mountain biking, hiking, photography demos by 13 Photography, art gallery, sales at the Alpine Trader, season pass photos, and working artist demos by the Brush & Palette Society. Whew! It's going to be a fun weekend!

The Veteran Motor Car Club of America

Powderhorn was flooded with cool old cars today as the VMCCA Chrome Glidden Tour stopped by for some lunch. About 200 people climbed out of 75 amazing cars that sparkled in the sun and added to the views.

Lift Maintenance

Our lift maintenance crew has been busy this summer replacing parts and performing all sorts of safety checks on our lifts. Everything has to be inspected by the time anyone takes a ride. Every cable, grip, chair, wheel, motor, weight, etc gets special attention during the summer to make sure everything checks out.

We refer to our chairlifts as Lift 1, 2, 3 while they have a little snazier names for the public (Take Four, West End, and EZ Rider). Today they are performing some work on top of the towers of chair 3 (EZ Rider).

Judging the Competition

If you've ever watched the X Games or a US Open competition, you understand how big these events have gotten in both skiing and snowboarding. Have you ever wondered how the judges decided what score to give an athlete?

I come from a big ski family. A couple cousins and myself grew up on the 1,000ft vertical Antelope Butte in Wyoming (which has had to close since) and have ended up working in the ski industry in some form or another. My cousin Dan Allen is a freakishly good skier who travels around judging ski competitions in the winter. I asked him to answer a few questions so we could get inside a judge's head.

What competitions have you judged? I have judged the U.S. Open, the
Aspen Open, the Freeski Tour, and the Spring Massive. All these events
consist of slopestyle and halfpipe, while the US Open has a big air
event and the Spring Massive has big benefit rail jam.

What kinds of things are judges looking for? Anymore, skiing is getting
so competitive and so many people can do all the same tricks. So it
comes down to creativity, style, consistency, technicality, grabbing,
going big and of course landing. We really want to see kids spin
multiple directions both switch and forward, and to have good technical
rail tricks, all while having solid grabs and good clean style.

How many judges are typically judging a competition? In big events like
the US open we usually have 6 judges that all work together. It works
out well because it gets broken down into sections. So if someone kills
in the first and second sections, but messes up down in the last section
they aren't going to move on. Consistency is huge.

What all goes into an athlete's score? Well the scores are based out of
100pts, so we have to figure our average run, which is usually around a
50-55 and work from there. If someone has a clean run with technical
spins, solid grabs and good tech rail tricks they are obviously
going to go up from there. If someone goes through the course and spins
9's or 10's all four different ways with different corks, including a
double cork and kills the rails they are going to get somewhere in the
high 90's (Jon Olsson in last year's Open).

What is your favorite competition to judge? Definitely the US Open. It
is cool to see all the up and coming kids and see what they can put
together. I think last year on the 2 qualifying days we watched 600
runs. Also, being able to judge the men's slopestyle finals last year
was nuts, so technical, it was amazing. And then there is the big air,
that's always amazing.

What is the best trick you've seen so far in a comp? That is so hard to
say. I have seen so much cool stuff. TJ's (Schiller) sw 14 high mute 2 years ago in
the open big air was ridiculous. Jon's (Olsson) entire slopestyle run last year
was up there. As watching any run from PK Hunder is always amazing. I
just love smooth stylish spins.

What is most important to you (style, tech, etc)? ha, tech style. PK
Hunder's forward left 9's with a true nose is pretty much the definition
of style. But, I love anything that looks effortless. I would way rather
see someone spin a smooth 5 that they grab the entire thing rather than
someone huck a scary looking 9 or 10. The 5 is going to get way more
points.

Thanks for the info Dan!

A Tough Day on the Job

Yep it's rough having to work in the mountains. They force us to play disc golf sometimes...it's just terrible. A group of us punched out early on Thursday to play the disc golf course. Amazingly only one disc was lost out of 6 people. Although we spent plenty of time in the bushes looking for our discs. But that's to be expected when none of us have really played before.

Alex is the newest member of the PH team...and also the first one to go looking for his disc.

Paul had to climb a tree to retrieve this one!

What a view!

Some have the disc golf thing figured out a little more than the rest of us. That's why our pictures aren't on here.

Autocross at Powderhorn

Sorry for the delay in posts, this was supposed to go up yesterday but got lost in internet la-la-land.

This is what happens when we aren't around on the weekends!

Red Rock Racers


The next race will be September 2nd. Beginners to experts can race or just come watch the action!

Snowcats

The guys at the shop are pretty excited about their new toy. We are getting a new Pisten Bully snowcat this season for your grooming pleasure. These things are very impressive machines! They can move, flatten, and compact tons of snow to keep trails as evenly covered as possible. We have 3 snowcats and operate at least two on any given night during the season.

Watch for streaming video coming this season on the Powderhorn site. We'll feature a ride along with our groomers this winter!

They're Up to Something

The marmots around the resort are plotting something. Maybe they are planning a coup. For the last few mornings I've interrupted what looks like a special marmot meeting as I walk around the corner to my office. All eyes turn and look at me with a there's-the-enemy sort of look. They're not intimidated by me either. They just wait until I pass by and continue their meeting. Last week I found a marmot standing in the entryway to the office area. Maybe he is the scout.

I don't know what's happening but I have my eye on them. If I don't answer my phone maybe someone should come looking for me. Or maybe I'm just paranoid and need another vacation...

Precipitation

Finally, a little rain! It's considerably cooler on the mesa today and from the looks of it, a pretty large storm rolled through last night. It's nice to actually be cold for a change!

The clouds are creeping up on us this morning

Mavericks

I finally have information for you Mesa State shredders out there. We will be on campus 2 days this fall offering you a $250 season pass. Look for our table at the Activities Fair on the quad Sept. 6 and again in the College Center on Sept. 20. Spread the word to all your friends! We know the beginning of the school year can be just a tad stressful so we'll remind you with posters on campus and ads in the Criterion.

If you're looking for a job that allows you to go to school and ski/snowboard while you work then chat with us at one of these events. We'll be looking for ski and snowboard instructors. If you know the difference between a pizza slice and french fries then you're good to go :)

DNA Evolution Tour

Calling all Jib Monkeys! The DNA Evolution Tour is coming to Grand Junction. This is a huge summer rail jam that is travelling the country and they are stopping at Gene Taylor's!
Details:
$100 entry fee (includes $100 worth of DNA streetwear apparel)
Gene Taylor's
August 28
Open session 4-6pm (cost $20)
Competition 7pm

1st place wins $500, 2nd & 3rd place win DNA outerwear jacket. Top 3 are invited to the finals.
If you win the finals you snag a pro contract and $3,000 signing bonus!

www.dnaevolutiontour.com

Video of this event in Ogden, UT



Powderhorn will be selling season passes, giving away stickers, and snapping your pictures for the blog. Even if you don't compete, come out to watch and reunite with everyone!

Poll

From the looks of it, most of you are ready for ski season right now. We don't blame you! If you have not participated in the current poll at http://www.powderhorn.com/ stop by and place your vote. So far 80% of people would ski or snowboard right now if they could. Some of you would rather wait until fall or until the white stuff makes an appearance. That's ok too. There's still plenty of camping, fishing, and 14ers to be had.


For those 80%, here is a picture that will put you in your "happy place" for the day.




Listen to KAFM 88.1 at noon today as I chat with John Rizzo about biking and activities at Powderhorn!