Now I know that this post is a bit late (about a week) but I’ve been busy with other items and have not had time. Though for those who are interested I had the opportunity to be an accredited photographer not only at the LG FIS WorldCup 2009 Boardercross but I also was able to attend the Half-Pipe event which was held on the following Saturday (February 14th). A snowboard Half-Pipe event is usually the most exciting and most popular out of all the snowboarding events, or at least in my opinion.

What Is A Half-Pipe?

A Snowboard Half-Pipe is a pretty large structure and in the case of the LG FIS WorldCup 2009 event it was a monster 170 metres in length with a crazy height of 22 feet. Not to mention it has the incline of an 18 degree angle. I definitely wouldn’t want to accidentally slip off the deck to drop down 22 feet on solid ice.

Snowboarders (or riders) perform aerobatic jumps, twist, and tricks on this massive half-cylinder structure as they make their way from the top to the bottom. Did I mention is is usually hard packed (like ice) type snow? Something I wouldn’t really want to fall onto after clearing the deck by like 15 feet!

Inverted Shaun White

The tricks that the riders perform can be pretty insane to watch as well. There is the straight-air, grabs, rotations (which can go up to 1080 or even higher!), switches, frontsides, backsides and even inverted. The riders have to put together a routine while traversing down the length of the Half-Pipe in order to score high with the judges. If the rider falls in the Half-Pipe during their run their points stop so any trick performed (if possible) is just mainly for fun.

LG FIS WorldCup 2009 Half-Pipe Finals

The way scoring works for the Men and Woman’s Half-Pipe Finals is the better of the two scores the riders could earn out of their two runs. A maximum score a rider could make on a single run would be 50 points. The best score of these two 50 point scores would determine where the rider was placed.

Gretchen Bleiler & Hannah Teter USA

Sitting, standing, kneeling on the deck was a pretty cool experience for me. Being so close to the riders pull off their tricks in front of me was pretty crazy. The photographers around me (not too many mind you) had some pretty awesome gear, and some spectators had better glass than I did. Though that didn’t really bother me, I was closer to the action with a great vantage point for taking photos of these amazing riders. Though we only had about 2 to 3 feet of room we could maneuver in and after a while the snow under our feet would harden to ice.

Iouri ‘iPod’ Podladtchikov

Ryoh Aono

There were so many good riders out that day entertaining the crowd with their gravity defying feats that I didn’t notice that the whole day went by so quickly. Sure trudging up the ski runs with just my snowboard boots and camera gear was really exhausting and then having to climb up the deck of the half-pipe too was as equally tiring but the end result was a great day of shooting these riders strut their stuff.

Standings

Woman

• 1: Kelly Clark USA
• 2: Jiayu Liu CHN
• 3: Hannah Teter USA
• 4: Gretchen Bleiler USA

Mens

• 1: Shaun White USA
• 2: Ryoh Aono JPN
• 3: Iouri ‘iPod’ Podladtchikov SUI
• 4: Kazuumi Fujita JPN

Overall for my first experience seeing professional riders hit the Half-Pipe during the LG FIS WorldCup 2009 I walked away with over 2000 photos and a great first experience as a media accredited photographer. The LG FIS WorldCup 2009 PGS event was unfortunatly cancel due to poor (soft) snow conditions. Though the whole weekend event was great and look forward to seeing how Cypress and the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics pan out when these riders come back next year.

You can check our some of the other photos I have uploaded from the LG FIS WorldCup 2009 event over on Flickr.

This past Tuesday (Feb. 11, 2009) was a great evening to be up on any of Vancouver’s local mountains. It was actively snowing and throughout the evening there was about 15cm of new sticky snow! Tyler and I were excited to hit the slopes and we had a great night riding all the powder! The atmosphere on Cypress was contagious and everyone was so excited to be enjoying the fresh snow our local mountains so desperately need.

In addition, one of the local TV stations, City TV, was holding a contest that is now closed called ‘Duck Out’ to take a picture of a rubber duck in an unusual location. The TV station randomly selects 5 winners over 5 weeks so Tyler and I thought we would enter. The prize is pretty nice: $4500 value of a trip for two to Acapulco Fairmont Hotel!
We thought we would bring our devil duck up to the slopes on Cypress Mountain to enjoy all of the fresh snow! Here are the two pics Tyler and I submitted:

Robyn:

Devil Duck getting ready to hit the slopes on Cypress Mountain

Tyler:

Devil Duck ready to board down Cypress

Also, here is another Devil Duck picture that we didn’t submit that Tyler took that I enjoy.

Anyways, we and the devil duck had a great evening on Cypress Mountain……can’t wait until we get some fresh snow soon.

Snowboard Cross or boardercross as most people like to referrer to it as, is an event that challenges a rider’s abilities to maintain control throughout a down hill course. These courses contain turns, gaps, berms, drops, steep sections as well as flat areas which all ensure that the riders do not have the easiest of times speeding down the course. The riders also have to make sure they do no collide with each other as they traverse down the course to the finish line as fast as possible.

Cypress Mountain was host to the LG FIS WorldCup 2009 event which consists of 3 snowboarding events; Boardercross (SBX), Half-Pipe and PGS (Parallel Giant Slalom).

LG FIS WorldCup 2009 – Boardercross (SBX)

Friday (February 13th 2009) was the Boardercross Finals for both Men and Woman.

The action was pretty intense as the athletes maneuvered down the course at high speeds in groups of 4 riders per heat. There were a few collisions, but that is not unexpected in a Boardercross race. The groups usually stay closely packed together as they ride over jumps and berms. One wrong edge and you would easily drop to last place in your heat. The fastest 2 riders would continue on to the next race.

All of the riders were highly entertaining throughout the course, especially the last largest jump at the finish line. As the day progressed, the crowd got more and more into the action as the riders would entertain them just before the finish line.

When Robyn and I first talked about Boardercross and the 2010 Winter Olympics we were a bit hesitant on putting our names in for it as we did not think it would be much of a spectator event. Even though we did not win tickets for the boardercross, after watching the LG FIS WorldCup 2009 Boardercross event it would be something we would definitely recommend people trying to get out and seeing if they have an opportunity.

LG FIS WorldCup 2009 Final Standings

Womens

• 1: Lindsey Jacobellis USA
• 2: Olivia Nobs SUI
• 3: Helene Olafsen NOR
• 4: Maelle Ricker CAD

Mens

• 1: Markus Schairer AUT
• 2: Mike Robertson CAD
• 3: Seth Wescott USA
• 4: Francois Boivin CAD

A lot of the athletes who participated in this event will be competing during the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics as well. It was a great opportunity to see the best at Bordercross compete on one of our local mountains. The spectators who will be attending the 2010 Winter Olympic Boardercross at Cypress Mountain will definitely love watching these riders race down the course for their chance at the Gold.

All Photos by: Tyler Ingram

Last night being a Tuesday means that Robyn and I get to use our Night Ski pass up at Cypress and we were both looking forward to the evening. With receiving 25cm of snow the previous day it should have been great conditions right?

The nice thing I find about night skiing is that the slopes are not as busy as the weekend is. There are no crazy lineups at the chairlifts and the snow can be somewhat decent. Well the snow depends really on the weather and in Vancouver we haven’t had the greatest snow so far this Winter.

When we arrived at the parking lot they were practicing for the Freestyle Aerial event, Canada Post Freestyle Grand Prix that Cypress is hosting. The event’s venue is actually where the 2010 Winter Olympic Aerial and Mogul event is being held. It was cool seeing a couple of the people launch off the snow ramps, but we thought we’d check it out after our time on the snow.

I would also like to mention that I was mistaken in my last post about thinking it was part of the WordCup event which is being held at Cypress too. The LG Snowboard WorldCup is being held this month as well. My favorite part of the mountain is closed as they set up the border cross course. The Skiing portion is for the FIS (International Ski Federation) and they are doing Aerials and Moguls.

We took to Panorama as our first run of the day. The sun had not quite set yet so I was hoping we’d be able to get some photos of Vancouver from the ridge.

Metro Vancouver from Cypress

It seems that we were in luck and managed to get a couple shots of Vancouver and the surrounding area with Robyn’s camera.

The Lions

The view is amazing from Cypress as not only does it show you the the city, but if you face the other way you can see the Sunshine Coast, Horseshoe Bay and even the Lions.

After the initial run on Panorama as a warm up we found the snow to be very icy. Luckily there were not many people on Panorama as it is the only run open on the Black Mountain side during night ski as the north runs are closed due to the WorldCup Cross course being set up.

Setting up for the LG WorldCup Snowboarder Cross Event

The runs for the PGS (Parallel Giant Slalom) and Boarder Cross are PGS as well as the Upper portion of Fork. Going up the Eagle Express Chair you can see the course marked out with blue paint as well as all the rollers they have created. It looks pretty sweet actually and fun too.

We headed back over to the Lions Express chair and tried out Collins. I had a bit of a spill at the beginning on a patch of ice and hurt my tail bone but the rest of the run was better than expected. We hit Collins a couple more times as we thought that the other runs were far too icy.

Black Mountain at Dusk

The view of the mountains and surrounding area as the sunset was pretty impressive. Seeing the FIS Grand Prix event lit up as the sun set was pretty cool too. We headed into the lodge after a few runs, ate our food and went back to the car to pack our gear.

After we got our gear in the car and on the rack we decide to head over to the aerials and check them out. We ’snuck’ in pretending we were part of the event and no one seemed to really care we were there. Yes I do wish I had brought my dSLR but I had fun using Robyn’s point and shoot camera to try and take photos.

FIS Grand Prix Aerials

I did manage to get one decent shot of an aerial. The others, the action was too fast for the camera to capture properly. We stayed there watching jump after jump. It was pretty cool seeing freestyle aerials in person. Jump after jump we both thought the landings were quite hard. We think about 95% of the aerials ended up falling when they hit the snow, which sounded hard and really icy.

We saw one person fall bad and ended up injuring his leg. He was moved into the tent behind us and looked at by the first aid attendents. I guess he twisted his knee as he had a huge ice pack wrapped around it when we left.

You can check out the rest of our Cypress photos from this night as well as others over at my Flickr Cypress Set.

Again we did enjoy our time up at Cypress even if the snow was icy and a bit nerve racking. We also really enjoyed watching the freestyle aerials. Robyn is glad she got to see part of the event as her work schedule will be interfering with some of the other events she would like to see such as the WorldCup Snowboard Halfpipe. If only I could get media accreditation for the event to take photos of such an event.

Every winter season Whistler gets it’s ‘Pride On’ by doing a Gay Pride Weeklong celebration of skiing and hotel deals.  It’s one of the #1 winter events for Gay and Lesbian travelers in Canada and Internationally.  WinterPRIDE 2009 has events and fun competitions for everyone joining in the festivities.  I was reading the website and one competition I would love to see is The Mr. Gay World Competition where one man is chosen from among 24 others that advocates for the Gay and Lesbian Communities.

Last year my girlfriends and I went up to Whistler for 5 nights unbenounced to us that it was actually during WinterPRIDE 2008.  Actually, we had a great time and got to join in on some fun events and see all the activity in the village and on the mountain.  I, in particular, enjoyed partying with all the gay guys at the bar and meeting some interesting people.  My girlfriends were a little disappointed as they were hoping to meet some cute guys, which, trust me we did!  Unfortunately, they were not heterosexual =)!