Portland, Oregon snowboarder Levi Krukowski, 19, was found dead at the base of a 40 foot cliff at Mt. Hood Meadows on Monday, March 22, 2010. He had been reported missing an hour early according to a story in the Salem News.
“He had been with friends when he went missing near an area marked as a hazard. The hazard area was marked with a rope. . . “The Mt. Hood Meadows Ski Patrol located Levi rukowski’s body in a creek near the bottom of a waterfall. The creek was within the hazard area and required crossing the rope boundary to access.
His death is being investigated as an accident, according to the story, and an autopsy is scheduled for today. Our thoughts are with Levi’s family and friends.
Method Magazine is kicking off a new snowboard photography show titled 5×5 = 25 Years of Snowboard Photography Exhibition. Included in the show will be photos from Mark Gallup, Calle Ericsson, Vincent Skoglund, Bud Fawcett and Frode Sandbech. The show will tour Europe for the next 12 months. to “tell the rich history of snowboarding.”
5×5 opens this Friday March 26, 2010 at 8:30 PM at the arl.rock Sport-park & Restaurant – Bahnhofstrasse 1 – 6580 St. Anton am Arlberg. According to the flyer Terje Haakonsen and Gigi Rüf will be in attendance.
Nothing gets our blood pumping in the morning like a good website launch press release. Thank you Jeremy Jones Snowboards for hitting us up with all the details of your new digital, online catalog. Amazing! Follow the jump for all the sweaty, stinky, backcountry powder, deep wilderness treking details. . . [click to continue…]
Jake Burton discusses his daily shred and the 2010 Olympic snowboard uniforms with USA Today. The Gore-Tex pants (but not the jacket) will go on sale next October for $250.
From the placings in the Ultimate Boarder events it appeared to be a six way tie between Chad Shetler, Mike Morrissey, Kristian Philips, Bryce Young, and Aaron Astorga but after some tie-breaking and taking “highest placing” into account the win was split between last year’s winner Chad Shetler and Mike Morrisey. They both scored a first, a thirteenth, and a twenty-second in the three events and ended up splitting the $30,000 prize purse.
“It’s an honor to share the stage with Mike and compete alongside these other highly talented athletes,” said Chad Shetler. “I was humbled to win the event last year and it means a lot being able to repeat my performance.”
First off, Shaun White did not compete in the 28th US Open Halfpipe today. Crazy, we know. There were varying reports. Snowboard Canada tweeted that “he was exhausted.” And we’re not going to argue. We’re exhausted just from watching the grueling media marathon Shaun has been on since winning his second Olympic gold medal, and we did it all from the couch.
While it would have been nice if he had taken a little rest a week ago so we could have watched him ride Stratton, whatever Shaun wants to do now is fine with us. Go, to it. Write a book. Read some poetry. Snowboarding will still be here when you get back.
Secondly, three runs in a halfpipe final is silly. Two runs is enough to sort out the champions. As usual, there were really no significant place changes in that third run. Kelly Clark nailed her 94.7 in the first run and Kazuhiro Kokubo got his 97.17 in the second run when he stole the lead away from Louie Vito.
We often feel that something is lost in translation, but Kazu is always a gracious winner. “It was so great to win here, especially because my good friends Mikkel Bang and Charles Reid also won titles, which made my win feel even better,” said Kazuhiro Kokubo.
Kelly Clark has won the Open so many times her quotes are nearly canned. ““It’s amazing that it’s my fourth US Open halfpipe title,” said Kelly Clark. “It’s so great to come home after such a long season and win here.”
For the rest of the story, including results, follow the jump. [click to continue…]
On Friday evening, March 19, 2010 Red Bull hosted one of their 2010 Butter Cup series events at Boreal Mountain Resortat the summit top of California’s Donner Summit. Nearly 150 people jibbed for the judges trying to get “tapped in” to the 10 man finals. It looked a little like this.
It looks like Team Hosoi (made up of Rob Machado, Brandon Cocard, and Christian Hosoi) might have the Ultimate Boarder team competition all wrapped up. Machado won the surf, today Brandon Cocard (pictured above) won the team snow event, and tomorrow Christian Hosoi has a pretty good shot at the skate competition.
In the individual competition 16-year-old Mammoth ripper Trevor Jacob took it over Shane Pospisil and Todd Richards.
The 28th annual US Open Snowboarding Championships got off to a solid start today as Norway’s Mikkel Bang and Switzerland’s Sina Candrian took the Slopesytle event. Mikkel did it with a Cab 1080, switch backside 1260 indy and a frontside 1080.
“It’s my seventh year coming here to the US Open and the first time I’ve made it to the slopestyle podium,” says Mikkel Bang. “All of the top riders are here, which makes it even more special to win. This really is the perfect ending of the season for me.”
Candrian laid down a Cab 540, frontside 720 and a backside 360 in her third run.
“Today was really my day because my runs kept getting better and better,” said Sina Candrian. “The features were perfectly shaped and the course was fun to ride – it’s amazing to win here and I’m so happy that it put me in the lead for the women’s TTR title.”
Arianna Huffington likes to talk about how she gets so many amazing people to write for her for free. And apparently, it works. The latest addition to her unpaid writers’ stable: Jake Burton. His topic for the Huffington Post is the Burton US Open. Not surprisingly, he loves it.
. . . once the Olympics are done, it feels good to come home and know that the next time I see the best snowboarders in the world compete will be in Vermont, where snowboarding has a rich heritage, at the US Open, going down from March 19-21 at Stratton Mountain Resort. Compared to the Olympics, where everything is under the control of a ski federation, the Open has been run by snowboarders, for snowboarders since 1982. It is snowboarding’s oldest active competition, and year after year, it’s the home of the sport’s most progressive riding. This week at Stratton, five out of the six 2010 Olympic halfpipe medalists, including Shaun White, Peetu Piiroinen, Scotty Lago, Hannah Teter, and Kelly Clark are slated to compete.
It’s good to know that Jake still likes his event. He is not alone.
