TransAM at Winter Park

I signed up to do the TransAM at Winter Park, and like the Nikita Chickita competition, this was another one I had never done before. It costs $10 to register, and the registration was full after I got in. You know what though, I probably could had just not registered and saved myself the $10 AND the $30-something it cost for my lift ticket since no one even checked for my "Registered Ripper" pass or my lift ticket. The set up was right at the base, so no need for the chair lift. I don't know why they said lift tickets were required. Next time I'll go check before getting myself a ticket... haha. I scoped out the set up and ugh... side-approach rails. I'm still not confident on those and they were higher than what I normally hit, and they were also higher than the ones at Nikita Chickita. Fortunately they had a couch in between the rails you could hit, and I figured I'd just do the couch and hopefully throw down on the bottom features. One of those bottom features was a VOLCANO! A real, live volcano with smoke coming out of it and probably magma in it.

The set-up. Picture (and all others below) from Winter Park's facebook

The big tube at the bottom was also set up for side-approach, but for some reason I felt way comfortable hitting that than a rail. I don't know why, probably because I broke my board on a side-approach rail before.

Riders meeting went down, blah blah blah, I didn't know what was going on. I did meet another deaf girl who was doing the TransAM, how awesome is that?!?! We just signed to each other about us not knowing what the hell was going on, and how we couldn't hear shit... hahaha. My boyfriend came by and said that practice was going to start now, so goooooo. UGGGGGGGGH hiking sucks!! Some really nice guy shoveled out stairs though, so it wasn't that bad! I'm jealous of Buck Hill, their TransAM had a rope tow... I go forever when there's a rope tow in a park.

As I got to the top and strapped in, I realized how chaotic TransAM was. Everyone were dropping in at the same time, and people kept sitting in front of me to strap in as I was about to drop in (umm, hello, do you not see me?). I finally dropped in and started off by hitting the couch feature, did a front 180 over it then a boardslide to fakie on the big tube. Yeahhhhh I loved the tube!! It was still practice, I don't like to hit rails until the actual comp because what if I do something cool during practice and I'm unable to do it in the comp? Haha. Anyways, I was riding pretty mellow, just having some fun until I noticed a judge giving away t-shirts to the finalists. What the hell? Since when did practice end? I thought to myself, "Oh crap... go go go" and I went to strap in behind people because I'm nice like that, and people still sat in front of me making me wait a little longer to drop in... sigh. I need to stop being so nice. My friend told me there was 15 minutes left, WTF, how did it go from practice to 15 mins left? Ahhhh I hate being deaf sometimes. I tried to hit the side-approach rail (single tube) but freaked out and just did an ollie next to it. Yeah, awesome, huh? I saw people still hiking so I figured the comp was still going on, so I ran back up and decided to try the other rail (3 tubes together). Strapped in, stood up, shook off the nervousness, and went for it. I was so stoked I got on it and did the whole thing! YAY!

Paige Rainear going over the couch

The rail I freaked out on, and the tube I loved

Emily Blewitt on the triple-tube rail that I did, yeah! Love her hat.

Only too bad the competition was over when I hit that rail. WTF WTF WTF. My friend told me 15 minutes left 5 minutes ago! Plus there were people still hiking so I thought it was still going on. I wish competitions would be more visual, like a traffic light system. That wouldn't benefit only me, but everyone else too since lots of people wear headphones these days or they don't hear the judges. Red - stop, Yellow - practice or 5 minutes left, Green- go!! Simple, right? Doesn't even have to be a real traffic light, they can use colored paper or even a whiteboard and write down what's up and how many minutes left.

I did not get the coveted finalist t-shirt because I didn't hit the rail until the last minute... yeah, I'm lame. Haaa. I'm kind of glad I didn't get in the finals because I was exhausted by the time the comp was over. I watched the finals though and watched my friends crush the course, it was exciting from a spectator's point of view.

Once finals ended, we waited for like seriously 2 hours for them to announce the winners... why do they always take so long to do that? Not just TransAM but at other rail jams too.

The winners!

Emily Blewitt - 2nd, Paige Rainear - 1st, ???? - 3rd

???????????????????? The dude winners. I don't know their names.

All in all, it was a pretty fun rail jam and holy crap, the winners won so much crap. I also met some rad people. Now that I know how TransAM works, I won't be so nice at the next one in California. I'm going to freaking sit in front of other people like they did to me at Winter Park and get all confused if someone tries to bitch at me. Did you know that I only dropped in 9 times? Damn people, and damn me for being so nice. And I'm going to hit those rails anyways, during practice too because it seems like it goes from practice to finals.

NIKITA CHICKITA - Feb 20, 2010

Everyone woke up early today to get to Brighton to register for Nikita Chickita and once again I got to park in the front row. SWEET! I love awesome parking spots. Haaaaaaha. I went and registered, and received a goodie bag and a free breakfast coupon. Nikita Chickita provided a free breakfast AND free lift tickets to all competitors!! AWESOME!! The goodie bag consisted of a sweet lime-green Nikita slap bracelet, some stickers, a music CD, and little knick-knacks like Pom Pom lip balm, FuelTV pins, etc. We all went up to eat some breakfast and waited for the riders meeting to go down. Of course, I am still deaf, so I just kinda sat there and I was told that the guy talking at the meeting was basically reading off the schedule for the day. It also kinda sucked because everyone were in their own little groups talking to each other and I couldn't hear shit so I felt like a major creeper. Haaaaa. The guy finally announced that practice will start now, so go ahead and hit the lifts. I was also stoked to find out that there was no hiking, just take the lift. I did enough hiking the day before for sure.

As I took the lift up, I saw the course for Nikita Chickita (how did they get it set up so fast??). There were 2 side-approach down rails next to each other, then 2 boxes next to each other (one flat, one jump box), a super fat and super long box with a big gap to the landing, then 2 jumps. It was kinda weird because the boxes were on the steep part of the run and the jumps were on the flat part. After the jumps, you could hit either the big Gatorade feature (tube on its side) or a wall ride thing. I didn't know that those 2 features were included in the competition, but fortunately I still hit them during the comp.

Practice ended, and all the girls had to go and line up at the gate and tell the guy who they were. It was going to be a jam format, all pros and amateurs go together but everyone drops in one at a time. The line to drop in was LONG, but moved pretty quick. I don't feel very confident about hitting side-approach rails so I was getting kind of nervous, but just went for it anyways. I tried the double-barrel down-flat rail first, and got on it, yaaaaaaay! However, second time I hit it, I almost died hitting the flat part, but landed it anyways, so I avoided that rail after that... haha. Just went and hit the other side-approach down rail instead. Before I knew it, practice was over so I hung out with some of my friends and my boyfriend just having a good time and meeting new friends.

It finally came time for the finalists to be announced, and as each name was read off, everyone started cheering. All of a sudden, my boyfriend got all excited and raised my hand and cheered, and I was like, "What??" Hahaha... apparently I made it into the finals... SWEET!! Each finalist got 2 runs, and this time the line to drop in was much much shorter. Another thing that changed too was the weather... lame! It was all sunny and warm during the qualifying round, but then got cloudy and icy for the final runs. I hit the side-approach rail a bit too fast, and as I speed checked before hitting the box, I went over ice and slid out a bit... ugh. It was kind of discouraging but I was still able to hit the box and everything else after that.

Nikita Chickita Slopestyle Contest from Cole Taylor on Vimeo.

I appear at :15 seconds, in the purple puffy jacket! Featured Tundra Wookie Baby Jessi is in there too, she does a bad ass crail.


The competition ended and the winners were announced:

Winner AMs:
1st Place - Jessica Jensen, Idaho
2nd Place - Midori Oatari, Japan
3rd Place - Ranae Palma, Massachusetts

And then there was a surprising twist... Jessica Jensen who was in the AM division also won the PRO division!

Winner Pros:
1st Place - Jessica Jensen, Idaho
2nd Place - Lynn Neill, Utah
3rd Place – Colleen Quigley, Massachusetts

Not a bad way to win $1,000 and a Nikita contract. The rest of the winners got tons of swag. I'm not gonna lie, I'm kind of jealous. Just kidding. Nikita also listed the top 10 riders in each division on their website, and I was listed in there... stoked!!

Top ten AMs:
Jessica Jensen
Midori Oatari
Anouck Gran
Lauren Weibert
Ariel Freidman
Renae Palma
Halo Wilson
Jessi Higgi
Kirra Kotsenburg
Oliyvia Weston

Top ten PROs:
Lynn Niell
Colleen Quigley (Nikita)
Steph Luxton
Lajawn Allen
Ashley Thornton (Nikita)
Kaitlyn Farrington (Nikita)
Gabby Maiden (Nikita)
Kara Rennie (Nikita)
Paige Rainear
Sandra Hillen

Check out some good photos of Nikita Chickita here! Yeah, they all have "proof" over them, sorry about that, but I'm not the photographer! I can't find any other pictures even though there were like 10 photographers at Brighton... anyone find any, please feel free to leave a link to photos in the comments section. Thanks!

Brighton, Utah - Feb 19, 2010

On Feb 18th, my boyfriend Adrian, my friend and teammate Emily, and myself packed my WRX and made the drive from Summit County to Salt Lake City, Utah for Nikita Chickita, the all-girl competition. I had never done that competition before, so I was pretty excited. I was also lucky that the drive was very easy, the only snow I encountered was over Vail Pass. Once I passed Vail, it was sunny with blue skies and clear roads all the way to Salt Lake City. Did you know that there's a gap between the Colorado and Utah state lines? What is that, limbo?


Limbo. You can see the "Welcome to Utah" sign above the car ahead of me.
I got a killer deal on two hotel rooms through priceline.com; Adrian, Emily, and I were going to have 1 room, and my 3 other friends who were coming later that day got the other room. The rooms were normally $130 a night, but we got it for $49 a night! The thing though, is on priceline, you can only choose the general area you want to stay in so I had NO idea what hotel it was going to give me. Kinda sketchy because it was my first time using priceline, but I was SUPER stoked to see our hotel was really nice... and the best part, it had a WATERPARK!!!! Yeah, a waterpark, complete with waterslides and a hot tub!! Even had a movie theater, but we never used it. We arrived to the hotel at about 8:00pm, it was a 7 hour drive with an average speed of 80mph. I couldn't do 120 because we had snowboards on the rack. Damn.

We crashed for the night and woke up in the morning, ate some yummy free breakfast (hell yeah), and made our way to Brighton. I was stoked yet again to see we were only 15 miles away from there. We had to drive 5 miles to the road Brighton was off on, and that road is 10 miles long. So cool, because Brighton is like, right there next to a major city. I wish Denver was that close to the mountains. I got to park in the front row, bought discounted lift tickets thanks to my deafness ($58 for 3 tickets), and we finally got on the chairlift. It was SNOWING!! The weather was awesome, warm but still snowy!


Snow at Brighton. Yaaaay! I parked in that row in front of that building, YAY!
We took our first run down and just rode all over, checking out what Brighton has to offer. Lots of really FUN natural terrain, I was surprised. We didn't even hit the park once all day. We took another chairlift and saw an open gate when we got off that you could hike to get to some powder. We decided to go check it out, and oh man. It was INCREDIBLE. It was probably noon at this point, and there was so much untracked powder!! Waist deep, almost to my chesticles! I'm 5'2, so for you taller folks, that's probably merely knee deep. Hahaha. It was so good we went again, this time we hiked higher and it was even better. I rode through some trees and found a wide open space with freshies all over, so I went and slashed the snow!! Probably the best powder day I've had all year, Utah needs to share their snow with Colorado!!

Brighton is just a really fun place, we found another gate and went through it and found even more powder and little natural jumps and a really fun 25 ft cliff to drop. We hiked and rode so much powder that by 3pm, we were totally EXHAUSTED and decided to call it a day. There wasn't much of a park (just some really big tubes) and I didn't see anything that looked like it would be for Nikita Chickita the next day. The suspense is killing me!!


My boyfriend and I on the lift


Emily, Dawn, Sandra, Ariel. SNOW!


Dawn and I are stoked. My boyfriend looks pissed haha


Hiking


Our second hike. We are super stoked because the first hike yielded awesome powder and we're doing it again!!!


My boyfriend standing on a packed-down trail, imagine how deep the snow is once you get off that trail


Freshies everywherrrrrrrre and yes, face shots at every turn


Dawn all stoked after our run down.. oh and we're only halfway down. Snow on my lens.


Ladies at the end of the day. Smiles all around. Good day for sure.

2011 Betty Rides

Alright, so I originally was planning on putting up pictures of my catalog to show you what Betty Rides will have for the 2010-2011 season (I didn't even think about taking pics during my appointment.. haha), but my friend Shannon over at shayboarder.com already put up pictures, and they are way better than looking at a catalog. Click on the picture below to go see her post!

Featured Tundra Wookie: Jessi Huege

That's right, I'm going to start having Featured Tundra Wookies on here. I'm going to start off with all of my friends I know, so you, the readers, can get to know who I roll with. First off we have my ride-or-die homie, Jessi Huege!


Jessi Huege
Lauren: Do you have a name other than JWOWW?
Jessi: Yes, I also go by Baby Gracie, Baby Jessi, The Franchise, and Jezzy.

Lauren: How old are you?
Jessi: 15, but I'll be 16 on Feb 15th!

Lauren: Represent your home mountain!
Jessi: Raging buffalo used to be, but now I'm in P.CITY!

Lauren: How did you get started snowboarding?
Jessi: My brother told me to try it, and he inspires me to still ride.



Lauren: You ride for Roxy's AM team. What is that like?
Jessi: It's pretty awesome, I feel kinda cool. kidding.

Lauren: Any other sponsors?
Jessi: Grenade, Smith, and 720 BOARDSHOP!!

Lauren: You broke your left foot back in 2009. Has it impacted your snowboarding today?
Jessi: Yea, I can't do all the tricks I used to, and I can't hit jumps because impact hurts it real bad. It is also hard to ride pipe.

Lauren: How did you break your foot in the first place anyways?
Jessi: I was doin a front 9 in the pipe, and popped too hard off the wall and landed in the bottom tranny.

Lauren: I would had never guessed it was hard for you to ride pipe- didn't you just recently win 1st place for pipe? Burton AM, right? How was that?
Jessi: Yeah, I try not to think of it but it's just more difficult now. I did, it was awesome. the day was perfect and i went to the contest with a positive attitude.



Lauren: It seems like you are everywhere; Utah, Colorado, etc. Where do you actually live?
Jessi: Well, I actually live in Illinois, but right now I'm in Utah til April.

Lauren: Will you be staying home for the summer or are you going to chase the snow?
Jessi: I'll be home from April until like July, I think I'm goin to hood for the month of july and maybe argentina!

Lauren: Do you miss being home?
Jessi: Yes I do miss home. but I love having the freedom out here!

Lauren: You recently had a dreamcatcher woven into your hair. Why did you choose that over, say, a brass knuckle?
Jessi: hahah, I would love a brass knuckle in my hair, but I like having the gypsy look in my hair, seeing that my hair is over 2 feet long

Lauren: Who would win in a fight, a gangster or a gypsy? The gypsy is not allowed to use magic, by the way.
Jessi: Oh definitely a gangster, you don't mess with em. I will say, ima thug so i'll side with them (:

Lauren: Speaking of hair, is your hair real?
Jessi: Yep
Lauren: Girl, that's a weave!



Lauren: Dudes grow mustaches and wear tight pants to ride better. Obviously us girls can't grow staches, so what can we do?
Jessi: We have to bend our knees more, and make it look like we have style, cause no girls do!

Lauren: Did you learn any new tricks this year, and what are some other tricks you would like to add to your bag of tricks?
Jessi: I've learned a ton of rail tricks. but I want to get 180, 270, and cab 270 onto down rails.

Lauren: Any shout outs?
Jessi: my girl breezy!

There you have it, that was Jessi Huege, everyone. Can't get enough of her?? Peep this video clip of her 08-09 season!

LOVE IT: Cilla Base Layers

At the beginning of the 2008-2009 season, I first heard about Cilla base layers and was immediately intrigued. Cilla is a company that makes tall-tees for girls and they actually look good! They're fitted, waterproof, and keeps your bum dry. I was stoked to find out that Loveland Ski Resort's shop carried Cilla; there's not a lot of shops that carries them, probably because it's a fairly new company (started in 2007 by Priscilla Levac and her mother) and is from Canada. I went in that shop and tried some tops on and ended up getting the June top on sale. The June top has fleece on the torso and jersey-like sleeves with thumb holes at the end. It seemed like it would be a nice, warm base layer and boy, was I right. I've worn that top with just a puffy jacket on a -25F day and I was totally fine. If I wore a hoodie with it under my puffy jacket, I was too warm!

Priscilla Levac wearing the June top
(I have that same color, what a coinky-dink!)

Another thing that I want to applaud Cilla on is their fantastic customer service. You see, after I wore my June top for about 10 days, I grew concerned because the stitching was coming out at the ends of the sleeves, and on my hip area, the waterproof band looked like it was getting holes in it, like from something rubbing against it. I emailed Cilla about it, and I don't remember exactly what they told me (this was a year ago after all), but I think they said to send the top to them and they would mail me a brand new one. I declined because that was my only base layer top I had and didn't want to be without one for who knows how long. I cut off the threads that were hanging out of the sleeves and I thought maybe the way I was carrying my snowboard was rubbing off the hip area on the waterproof band so I stopped carrying my board so close, and ever since then, it's held up FANTASTIC.

I had around 250 days last season, and I probably wore that top like 180 days. I am still wearing it this season, and I already have 80 days, probably 60 of those days were with the top on. As you can probably imagine, I do wash it quite often! I don't put it in the dryer, I just wash it and hang dry and there's no negative effects from millions of cycles in the washer. I would definitely buy more of these tops, and I STRONGLY recommend it to all of my girlfriends and strangers who ask me about it. Yes, it's a bit pricey, (I think mine was $90 on sale?) but in my opinion, worth every penny. I bet you my current top will last another two years easy.

Another really cool thing about Cilla is that they take tremendous effort to be green. Not only are their materials eco, but they also roll up their clothes and tie them with hemp strings instead of packaging them in individual plastic bags before shipping them to stores. Click here to read more about their environmental commitment.

I picked up a 2010-2011 Cilla catalog from SIA and will post the new stuff soon, so keep checking back! Here's a hint though, if you want bright colors, you better hurry and buy some this year! Don't worry though, next year's still looks great!!

Want to buy some Cilla? Check your local shops or scope them out online:

• Eternal Snow
• Shredding Betty
• Dogfunk
  

Check it!

The shop I snowboard for, 720 Boardshop, decided to do a Rider Profile on me. I don't have a lot of great pictures on there, I wish I had a photographer following me all the time.. haha. Click on the picture of me doing a nose grab off the tube (er, well, about to do a nose grab) below to check it out!

SIA 2010

The SIA madness in Denver is over!!!! I only went for the first two days because I missed snowboarding so much, so I just skipped out the last 2 days to get some much needed snowboarding time in.... yeah, I know, 2 days no snowboarding *shrieks* the horror! I took some pictures, snagged a whole bunch of catalogs, saw rad friends, and met some new rad people. Without any further ado, here are my highlights from the 2010 SIA:


Capita Space Metal Fantasy
Meh, I liked this year's graphics better; then again, it pretty much is impossible to top a unicorn.


Roxy Envi and Roxy Ollie Pop
Both boards will have C2 in addition to Banana and Magnetraction. RAD!



Rome Madison
My favorite bindings EVER! For the 2011 season, the baseplates will flex with your snowboard, more on that later.


Rome LoFi with rocker in the middle, and regular LoFi on the right. I think that's the Detail on the left.


Bern has carbon fiber helmets?!


Some of the women's Bern helmets


Dragon Rogue goggles, ORANGE!


Skullcandy had artists at their booths painting throughout the day


Forum Spinster Chillydog, another really fun snowboard that I rode before


Flux has glitter!!!!!


Holden jacket for the ladies


Lakota is on Ride's booth wall!!


Some of the womens Technine hardgoods

Yeah, I know, I didn't take a lot of pictures, but consider these a sneak preview. I will be posting up some of the catalogs I have throughout the week, so stay tuned!

BOXZILLA!!!!!

To celebrate World Snowboard Day, terrian park manager at The Canyons in Utah, Steve Duke, decided to get all of his 2-feet wide boxes and line them up, forming a 196 foot long box dubbed BOXZILLA!

Click on picture to see article

Apparently the whole thing was a "Flat-Up-EuroGap-Flat-Down-Flat-Whoopty-Whoop-Whoopty-Flat-Down-Flat-Flat-Flat-Flat-C." SOUNDS FUN!! I don't know if this thing is still set up or it was a one-day only thing, but shit, that looks fun. I would had loved to try that behemoth. I'm jealous of my friends out in Utah right now. Apparently Ted Borland of The Levitation Project nose pressed the whole damn thing, and there's footy somewhere.

A brave soul attempting Boxzilla, I don't know if he made it or got devoured

The man responsible for Boxzilla - Steve Duke on left. Brilliant man.

Deaf Fox Rescued

Okay, I know this isn't related to snowboarding at all (well, it could be... there's lots of foxes out here!!) but it definitely is related to deafness. Basically, a fox got rescued and it was discovered that the fox was hearing-impaired, so a deaf woman adopted it and taught it sign language. Click on the picture below to read the full article, it's pretty cool!


I never thought that a fox could learn sign language so this was pretty cool to me. My dogs all know sign language, but none of them are deaf. They don't know a lot of signs; then again, they don't know a lot of tricks. Haaa. I use the ASL sign for "sit" to get them to sit, and I snap and point at the ground to get them to lay down. The snapping is to get their attention, I sometimes think my husky has ADD. I wave my hand towards myself to get the dogs to come, and use an open hand (palm outwards, like the universal sign for stop) to get them to stay. I'm trying to teach them the sign for "hungry" right now, which is something I usually say before I feed them. It's hard because when I say that, the dogs go crazy and look down at their bowls and not at me signing, "hungry." Hahaha.