January 30th: Nashoba Freeride Series Slopestyle

The third competition of the season was the second round of the Nashoba Freeride Series. The first round was a rail jam, and the second was a slopestyle, so like the USASA competition, every feature in the park was used. As always, I would be taking still shots while Ciampa shot video.

The most noticeable aspect of the competition was the mood. Compared to the USASA slopestyle, this didn't even seem like a competition. The USASA comp started off with the competition director shouting out the rules and regulations, and what to do if you want to get kicked out. At the Freeride Series, the park crew stood in front of the competitors and went over the structure of the competition, told the kids what they were looking at while judging, and told everybody to have fun. Two different worlds.

I spent the day skiing around the park, getting different angles on different features so that Nashoba's websites would have a variety of photos from the competition. I would stand on the edge of features or on the edge of the trail and snap shots of the competitiors, drinking free Red Bull (thank you competition sponsors). Nobody minded that I was riding through the middle of the park in between runs and setting up right next to the features, everybody was just having fun.

January 23rd: USASA Slopestyle

Sunday, January 23rd was the first official USASA (United States of America Snowboard Association) Slopestyle competition. This meant that each competitor would have to be registered with the USASA before the competition, they would have to abide by USASA rules and regulations, they would be judged by official USASA judges, and their points and rankings from the competition would go towards their standings in the national competition. People from all over Massachusetts came to compete, ranging in age from under 10 years old to over 20 years old.

The competition took place in the Sundance Park at Nashoba, and since it was a slopestyle competition, they would be judged on their performance throughout the whole park. I mostly stood by the big jump so that I could get pictures of the really big airs, and it also had a good perspective on the rest of the park features. Every once in a while, I would take a run down to the bottom, ride up and take some pictures on the chairlift, and stop along at different features while I made my way back down to the big jump.

The Nashoba Valley Freestyle Team kids were clearing all of the jumps perfectly, obviously very used to the park setup. As usual, they were horsing around with each other before each drop, and were throwing snowballs at each other and their coaches (the park staff). The Wachusett Xtreme Team kids, however, weren't getting enough speed for the jumps most of the time, and either knuckling the jump or falling. They were having meetings with their coaches after each run to see how they could improve their score, and were dead serious before and after their runs. They were entirely focused on winning, but they weren't even getting enough speed to clear the jumps. At one point, a Wachusett team rider asked a park crew member, "people actually hit this stuff?" The park manager, Keith, brushed it off as a typical quote from a Wachusett rider.

January 16th: Nashoba Freeride Series Rail Jam

              I had heard about the rail jam from Matt Ciampa when I was just skiing for fun earlier in the week. I showed up at Nashoba at 9am ready to work. I went up to the office and saw Ciampa and Jon sitting at the long desk, side-by-side, watching footage for the website. Ciampa is a kid, maybe two or three years out of high school, who is the filmer and video editor for Nashoba's website. He has a similar job as me, only he goes all the time, he actually edits the footage together, and he gets paid to do it. Jon handed me the still camera, handed Ciampa the video camera, and we were off.

                I rode down the park, taking pictures of all of the features in the park so that Jon could update the website. Then I went to the first feature of the rail jam. The kids had an hour to warm up, and then the competition began. I hiked around the box, taking pictures of the competitors as they practiced. Everybody seemed to just be having fun and getting each other stoked; I could hardly believe that it was a competition.

                Once practice was over, the first round of the competitions went down on the flat-down box. There was a large range in age, from about 9-20 something years old, but everybody was throwing down impressive tricks. Obviously there were a fair number of kids who didn't really know what they were doing, but the amount of talent that was there performing was really incredible. I didn't expect to see the caliber of tricks that I ended up seeing at such a small mountain. After that round came round two on the doghouse box, then the final round on the "tank turret."

                After the competition, I took photos of the awards ceremony, where the first place winners were given their prizes, and random prizes were thrown in the air during the product tosses. All of the kids who competed were having a great time, and the park staff that judged the competition was having just as much fun.

                The final part of my day was going back to the office in the lodge to upload the photos to the mountain's server. I ended up taking something like 1200 pictures that day, so I deleted the useless pictures, and kept the good ones. Once I was done with that, the pictures were uploaded onto the official website and the park website.