Hey World!

Last week I took a trip to the state of Washington to go to my sponsor, HO Skis, Headquarters and I was able to go to a 3-event Record tournament at Borderline Lake as well. I flew into a small airport in Bellingham and drove to Blaine. Blaine is a small city in Western Washington 5 minutes from the Canadian border. This is where Borderline Lake is. There are about 7 families that have weekend homes on the lake; the Goodman and Kosney families are two that many people would know. The CanAm Record Tournament drew skiers from all over the U.S. as well as Canada, Chile and Europe. This was by far the biggest 3-event tournament I have ever been to, outside of a Regional or National Championships.

This event was a three round slalom, 2 round trick and jump. There were 68 slalom skiers, 40 trickers and 40 jumpers!! Overall, this was a great tournament. I was able to meet a lot of great people and Borderline has great hospitality. The Kosney Family was generous enough to let me stay with them. Borderline put on an AWESOME dinner Saturday night. This was the best salmon I have ever had!!! Damien Sharman doesn’t like salmon and he ate a plate full of it! Terry Goodman cooked the salmon and prepared the salmon 4 different ways with different seasonings. They were all delicious!

Storm Selsor jumping his way to a pb of 214 feet

I learned that almost everyone in Canada three events; despite your age. It was awesome to see a ton of junior skiers. There was close to 20-25 junior skiers in all three events. There was a ton of great skiing throughout the weekend and a lot of personal bests. I ran 1/2 @ 41off. Storm Selsor jumped 214ft off of a 5 1/2 foot ramp, Damien Sharma jumped 218ft off of a 6ft ramp, Canadian Boys 2 skier, Conely Pinette, pb’d in all 3 events. He jumped 126feet off of a 5ft ramp at 28mph. Arkansas’ Sam Greenwood jumped 176ft, Canadian G3 skier, Geneva Roach, ran 2@38off 34mph, Chilean Santiago Vara jumped 183ft off of a 5 1/2 foot ramp, Canadian Womens 8 skier, Sue Munn, set a pending W8 Canadian National Record, 4@28off 30mph. I drove Sue to the pending national record. This was an exciting time for me as well as it was the first time I drove a national record! We will wait and see if it gets approved.

I drove Sue Munn to a pending Womens 8 Canadian National Record

After the tournament I drove down to Seattle with Storm Selsor. Storm is living and working in Seattle now. Storm and I have competed against each other since we were 5 or 6 years old and have built a good friendship over the years. It was great to catch up with him and hang out since it doesn’t happen as often as it use to. In Seattle, I stayed with HO Skis brand manager, Dave Wingerter. He has a great place on a big lake just outside of Seattle. This is the view from his back deck and there is a slalom course in the distance, but it is hard to see.

The NEW HO Skis Headquarters

I spent three days at the new HO Skis Headquarters in Snoqualmie. This is also the distribution center for most of their product. This is an awesome facility! I was able to meet the hard working people that run the company, design product and package orders and skis. There are a lot of intelligent people that work for HO Skis and they continue to push industry standards. Keep an eye out for the 2014 HO Sports line. Below are a few pictures of the distribution center.

HO Skis teammate Will Asher was nearby in Canada and he came down for a few days to hang out and do some testing. Dave and Will have played a big roll in ski development with the Syndicate line along with skiing legend Bob LaPoint. I was able to learn more about designing and building skis from Dave and Will. While Will and I were there, we were also testing skis. This was was another sweet experience for me. I learned more about what type of ski I like and what the cause and effects are when you change different components on a ski. You are able to learn a lot just by trying different set ups and talking with people who really know what they are talking about; people like Will and Dave. We were able to ski at another awesome ski lake in Marysville; Hilltop Lake (pictured below). This is Gordon Skoog’s lake and it is well maintained and skis great! I skied some of my best scores ever while I was here. If you are ever in the area, you should stop by this beautiful lake!!

Hilltop Lake

I am currently at home in California where I will be training the next couple of weeks as I get ready for the Calgary Pro Shootout and the U.S. Nationals. I will be at Nationals all week so I hope to see many of you there. I will be spending some time throughout the week at the HO Skis and Centurion Boats booths, so make sure to stop by and say hello!

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