Thursdays Front Page News

Thursday morning started out a bit on the gray side, but by training time in the afternoon it was nothing but sun and fun. The team headed over to the parks at Bear and were joined by a visiting rider from the capital area. Everyone was stoked on the conditions and hit the majority of the features in the park. At one point the team took a run to the Stash park to show Amos what all the hoopla has been about this year with its natural features. After riding the team returned back to the school and had a mild "recovery" spin/stretch/core workout for afternoon sport. The team will be back at it tomorrow preparing for Saturdays slopestyle competition at Whaleback Mountain in the USASA Central Vermont Series.

The boys bring Amos to the entrance of the Stash park

Amos hits the first feature in the Stash

WEDNESDAY WITH WILL

What a killer day in the Dream Maker park... conditions were prime! William Steller from the Killington Ski Club joined the team today for training while Max took time off to work on his studies. William was hitting the C-rail and nailed a sweet nose to nose 180 out on the first box in the park. Eddie seemed to have fur on the bottom of his board and was almost successful at knuckling every jump (jk Ed). Chris went spin city and was spinning off anything with a lip... check out the video below. The team also saved the trampoline, and shoveled off many feet of snow and ice for afternoon sport. Morning sport begins at 7:10 AM tomorrow with training in the afternoon and another new rider.

Will takes off in the Dream Maker park

Will slaying the boxes on Lower Dream Maker

Squint and you will see Eddies #3

Eddie at the top of the Dream Maker park

Chris' boardslide on the C-rail

Chris going crazy big

The Chris Boera Show

Our annual Smith goodie box arrived today!

REV TOUR - MT HOOD, OR - Slopestyle

FOG'N EH!
Well... it was to be expected. The weather did take a turn for the worst which made the course more challenging for sure. Visibility kept the boys slightly grounded and effected the amplitude of their airs. Many riders were crashing out, but the KMS crew were able to stick their landings. Max, Chris and Ed all competed in the first heat but did not make the final cut of 6. There were 70 riders in the field.

Max & Chris ride the lift to practice

The team waits for the men's 1st heat to begin

Max at the top of his slope run

Chris hits the first feature on course

Eddie's nose grab on the first jump

REV TOUR - MT HOOD, OR - Training Day 2

Chris hits a box in the Paradise Park

The team spent the entire day training on the slopestyle course in the Rose City Park for Sunday's competition. A worth while effort since officials at last nights riders meeting decided to only give the competitor's 15 minutes of practice time prior to their one qualifying run(rather than two) due to the weather that will be moving in.

Ed supports the local Girl Scout Troop

OTAY!

Optimum Tanning Angle Yo! The weather was just about perfect yesterday for chilling but led to some course breakdown during the boardercross time trials. Max and Chris both prepped their boards the night before and made sure to have the appropriate rub on goods before their respective runs. Both riders rode their best I have seen to date in the Rev Tour BX events, but just got edged out for the final rounds. Max missed the cut off by three riders and Chris seven. Eddie spent the majority of the day training on the slopestyle course preparing for Sunday's slopestyle competition. All three will be competing in that event. The team regrouped at the condo and drove to downtown Portland to watch an NBA Portland Trail Blazers game. Portland beat Atlanta 108-98.

Chris pulls out of the start in practice

Max at the top of the course during his 2nd time trial

Max(8), Ed(52) & Chris(Camo Hoody) during the National Anthem

REV TOUR - MT HOOD, OR - Training Day

The team headed to Mt Hood Meadows today to train on the boardercross course for tomorrow's competition. The course proved to be a bit less technical than the previous Rev Tour installments, but fun and fast none the less. It looks like proper wax choice will be key tomorrow. The course closed at 1:30 which allowed the riders to check out Sunday's slopestyle set up.

Loaded up and ready to go

View of the bottom half of the BX course

REV TOUR - MT HOOD, OR - Travel Day

Traveling yesterday was about as good as it gets. Everything was running like a fine precision watch from Switzerland... except for when Chris wandered off to buy last minute candy... before boarding BOTH flights. We also had a good laugh when I confused the gate check-in guy by accidentally giving him my previous flight ticket with a phantom seat on it. It caused a bit of panic at first when he said "there is no seat 31F on this plane!". We arrived in Portland with just enough sunlight to grocery shop and make to the plush condo at Government Camp. The team was pumped up with the new digs and went to bed right after dinner. We are currently having some homemade breakfast in preparation for today's boardercross training up at Mt. Hood Meadows. Details and pics from today later.

Chris in the San Francisco Airport

Sleepy sleepy time

Arrival in Portland

5 Hours and counting...

The team will be leaving KMS at 3:45 AM for Logan Airport. Rev Tour stop number 3 is about to begin. Keep posted for updates from Mt. Hood.

President's Day Rail Jam

Chris and Eddie headed to Bear on Sunday for Killington's Presidents Day Rail Jam. Unfortunately Max's header on Friday kept him out of action and resting at home. The weather was perfect and the Park Crew set up three great features for the riders to session on. Although no one from KMS advanced to finals, it was great to see how the competition pushed the team to higher levels in their riding. Free pizza was given out after the competition, including numerous giveaways which both Eddie and Chris walked home with.

Ed and Chris at the start of practice

Eddie on the Red Bull box

One of Chris's many front boards

Some of Chris's progression

FRIDAY

The team was back in action today after yesterdays rain out. Conditions were quite firm since the hill froze up over night. The jumps in the Dreamaker park were a bit unforgiving helping the main focus of boxes and rails in preparation for this Sunday's Rail Jam at Bear. The team took a token run through the Stash and spent most of the day hiking the features that are set up at the bottom of Outer Limits. Chris stayed intact, while Max and Eddie had a couple of boo boo's. Eddie jammed a finger going into the box and Max caught a downhill edge on his last go on the box after a sweet boardslide.

Eddie up

Eddie down

Chris getting up on the wall in the Stash

Chris on the box at Bear

Max pressing

Max on the first feature in the Stash

REV TOUR - MT HOOD, OR - Trip Itinerary

KILLINGTON MOUNTAIN SCHOOL SNOWBOARD TEAM TRIP ITINERARY

COACH: Ian Coates
TEACHER: Kim Gaines

TRANSPORTATION: SUBURBAN

ATHLETES:
Ed Enriquez
Chris Boera
Max Elles

WEDNESDAY
Depart: February 18th, 2009
Return: February 23rd, 2009
Event: USSA Revolution Tour
Location: Mt Hood Meadows
Dates: 2/18/09-2/23-09

FLIGHT INFORMATION
American Airlines
AA183 2/18/09
Boston, MA 8:30am depart
San Francisco, CA 12:10 arrival
AA6871 2/18/09
San Francisco, CA 1:45pm depart
Portland, OR 3:33pm arrival
----------------------------------------
American Airlines
AA7122 2/23/09
Portland, OR 7:20am depart
Boston, MA 3:42pm arrival

LODGING INFORMATION
Collins Lake Resort
87768 E Creek Ridge Rod
Government Camp OR 97028

Depart KMS at 2/18/09 at 3:30 AM
Arrive at KMS 2/23/09 at 7:15 PM

TYPE OF TRIP: Snowboard USSA/FIS

HUMP DAY

Wednesday was your typical "middle of the week business as usual" kinda day. Conditions were soft however due to the warm inclement weather. Riding was quite spring like which helped with working on new tricks. Nursing a sore shoulder, Max stayed within his comfort zone and rode conservative, although he did have a tale of repelling down a rock cliff of some sort?! Unfortunately I was not around to capture that moment with the camera! Chris on the other hand continued working on switch riding and cab spins off the jumps. Both spent time on their spinning in the pipe with the prime conditions. Pictures below show some of the fun. Missing in action was Ed whom is still feeling a bit under the weather.

Mixed Up Tuesday

The team felt like mixing it up a bit Tuesday by switching a couple of boards under foot. Chris gave Max's UnInc a go while Max went with hard boots and a collector's item Factory Prime. Everyone enjoyed watching some of Max's uncertain arc's, but by the end of the session Max was ripping it up with linked toe heel turns all over Bear Mountain. There was even talk that he would try the hard set up at the next slalom race in the USASA Central Vermont Series at Killingon on March 8th.

Max laying out a toe side carve

Ed sky's a nose grab

Chris airs out of the pipe on Max's tray

THE BOYS ARE BACK

Max eyes his first run

The Boys were back in action competing in halfpipe at Killington today.

KILLINGTON

2/8/2009

USASA CENTRAL VERMONT SERIES

Halfpipe #2 & #3

HALFPIPE #2	Place	Points
JUNIORS
Chris Boera	2nd	930
Max Elles	4th	760
JAMS
Ed Enriquez	2nd	920
HALFPIPE #3
JUNIORS
Chris Boera	3rd	820
Max Elles	4th	760
JAMS
Ed Enriquez	2nd	910

KSC's Will Steller brings home the hardware

Ed qualified for Nationals with his two silvers

REV TOUR - BOREAL, CA - Slopestyle

The team is getting ready for the day with a bit of breakfast and packing. We will be headed to the slopestyle competition shortly after. The riders meeting went painfully slow last night, but the good news is that Chris got in. So it will be Chris and Eddie on course while Max rests his little "wingy".

Chris waits for his first run during a snow delay

The event should have been called Boreal Hopestyle. California decided to have some unwanted snow during the day which caused numerous delays. At one point the pull start was even moved to the top of the halfpipe and riders had to start their runs down the deck to get enough speed to make it to the first jump on course. Chris got his two runs in because he was in the first heat. Ed was in the second heat which had even more issues with snowfall. The riders could not get enough speed and the judges had very poor visibility on the course. The officials ended up canceling the entire slopestyle competition because of the unfair advantage that early riders had on the latter group. So in the end, the team hopped in the rental car, drove to the Circus Circus parking garage, changed, packed and got ready for the red eye flight home. The team did however have enough time to play in the kiddie arcade and win enough candy to supply next years local Halloween trick or treater's. We were scheduled to leave at 7:45 pm but ended up with another type of delay, flight delay. Which meant we would have a huge rush to deal with when we arrived at LAX to make our connecting flight. We made it with only minutes to spare! Once in New York JFK we encountered another flight delay. We finally arrived in Albany after 11 am, but with a hitch, our luggage went to Atlanta. So we waited an hour till it arrived in Albany and then we were finally on the last leg home to KMS, arrival time 3 pm. The team will be taking a direct flight back from Portland to Boston when it returns from the third Revolution Tour stop in Oregon on February 23rd.

Chris during a practice run
Snowed out
Changing at Circus Circus
Trick or Treat

Training Day

Last training run of the day

Thursday felt a lot like New England again. A bit on the chilly side and no sunshine. Chris made the best of it and spent the day training on the slopestyle course, even though he is still on the waiting list to compete. We will find out later today if he gets in at the riders meeting. The team will have a busy go of it tomorrow since we go straight to the Reno Airport after the slopestyle competition to our late night journey home. We should be arriving around 2 pm KMS time on Saturday. The team will not have much of a break however since they will be competiting in a USASA halfpipe event at Killington on Sunday.

REV TOUR - BOREAL, CA - Boardercross

The team viewing the earlier riders on course

Boardercross is in the books. The team started the day with breakfast at the hotel, followed by course inspection at 8 AM. The snow conditions were similar to firm east coast groomers until the sun started to hit the course later in the morning. Practice runs went well and everybody survived their Time Trial runs. The team faced some stiff competition with riders from the US and New Zealand/Australian teams in the field. Max had the fastest of the KMS crew but unfortunately missed the time cut by roughly a second. In the afternoon the team trained on the slopestyle course. After a brief stop at the hotel we drove to Incline Village, NV and were given a tour of Sierra Nevada College by fellow Vermonter and now SNCST rider Devon Crowther. After the tour, we drove up Reno for a little Outback Steakhouse and a movie. Tomorrow the team will be back out to Boreal to train more slopestyle for Fridays slope competition.

Max at the top of the boardercross course

Ed going over the table top

Chris ripping around the bank turn before the hip

Time Trial results

Devon, Eddie, Max & Chris in the Prim Library

Reno... makes you miss VT

Happy belly's

BOREAL - DAY 1

Wow... it takes a while to get from here to there sometimes. The team left KMS yesterday morning at 7 AM, and 3 flights later arrived at the hotel in Truckee at 9 PM. It was lucky today was a training day for boardercross with slow moving bodies this morning . The drive to the resort takes about 15 minutes and it is right off the highway. Boreal is the west coast version of New Hampshires Whaleback. It may not be the biggest resort in Tahoe but the venue is set up perfectly for this Revolution Tour stop. The main chair takes you over the slopestyle course and halfpipe, with the boadercross just off to the side. After a long wait in registration, the boys finally got their bibs and tour t-shirts and headed for practice. The course is not to technical as compared to the Copper installment, but it still has a couple of tricky spots, including a hip that I predict will have a few sleds making some visits to. Everyone had plenty of practice time in the course and left the mountain upbeat and ready for tomorrow. The team will be attending a riders meeting tonight and will be ready to go for their time trial tomorrow, starting with course inspection at 8 AM. On another note, congratulations go out to Eddie. He received a call from his dad today saying he got into Weber State... Ya Eddie! The team also plans to do a tour of Sierra Nevada College if time permits.