SNOW IN SAN DIEGO

Having come down to California for a vacation, the last thing I thought I would be doing is snowboarding. However, when I found out about the Campus Rail Jam Tour San Diego stop, things changed. Just one problem.... I didn't bring ANY of my snowboarding gear with me.
My scramble to begin finding gear started on tuesday the 4th of May. I emailed my wonderful helmet sponsor CAPIX to see if I could get a helmet by Friday the 7th (the day of the competition.) Thanks Ronnie for making that happen! I also contacted my most recent sponsor ROXY to see if I could get a board, boots, and bindings from them in order to participate. Unfortunately, I contacted them too short of notice, and they were unable to get me a board in time. But I did get an amazing setup from them the day after the competition! THANKS NICHOLE AND ROXY!

So I had a helmet to use, but no snowboard, boots, bindings, or snowpants. Fortunately, Raelynd Tarnove brought me a pair of her snowpants to use, another friend from Irvine let me borrow her board from about 8 years ago with one of the first models' of Burton bindings ever, and I rented some Salomon boots straight from the 80's from Sport Chalet.

The competition started at 5p.m. at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego. Garrett and I arrived down there a little bit early after happily missing the heavy traffic. While standing in the registration line I was excited to see lots of the same guys putting on the event. Feeling pretty confident going into this competition, despite being on an old setup which I had never ridden before, it must have shown. Before the competition started I got interviewed by ABC 10 News, and Fuel Tv. . . they asked me the usual stuff about competing, and asked if I would be competing in my swimsuit. My immediate response "No i'm going to represent the ladies in a decent and respectful fashion." And thats just what I did.

The ladies were in heat two. We all watched the men's snowboard category in anticipation of getting on the setup ourselves. I was happy we didn't have to waste time practicing. In a jam format like this, there really is no reason to practice.  Not to mention I have hit this exact setup about 3 or 4 times already this year. Trying to encourage the rest of the girls who looked a little nervous, I dropped first for the ladies. I chose to hit the gap-to-downbox first, the speed was fine, and my confidence grew just a little bit.

After about a half an hour to forty five minutes later, I had laid down at least a couple of solid tricks on every feature. Half of the battle was landing and riding away- due to the warm weather the landing was quickly melting away straight to the asphalt. Luckily, I didn't take one hard fall and wreck myself. They announced the top three girls to move onto finals.

Including myself, two other girls, the top 5 skiers, and the top 10 men's snowboarders the finals lasted for  only 30 minutes. That was more than enough time for me. The judges were judging us on overall impression. After landing almost every trick I tried , I felt good after it was all over. After they announced the results, I took 1st, and my friend Raelynd got 3rd! Joe from Fuel TV asked to do another interview with me, it felt good to have another solid result on my resume. Oh, and it was a LOT OF FUN! Great job to the guys at the Cricket Campus Rail Jam Tour- you guys always know how to do it right!

1st Annual NEFF Beach Bash at Brighton

Saturday the 17th of April marked the very first Beach Bash competition hosted by NEFF and Brighton. Garrett and I picked up Cory from Arkade Magazine in the morning and headed up to the hill. We met Cory at last years Campus Rail Jam Tour's Finals in Portland. Cory asked me last year if I would like to do an interview with the magazine, but unfortunately we couldn't get together until the last weekend of the season this year. So we planned to get some pictures for the magazine,  and the boys watched me compete. 

We couldn't have asked for nicer weather. After registering, I was pleased to see lots of other girls around ready to compete! However, since this was a "Beach Bash" most of the girls were there to hang out in their bikini's and not to try hard and throw down on the course.  

Practice lasted long enough for me to get one run in on each of the features which included; a flat rail all the way to the right, a fun box in the middle with a 5 foot gap off the end, and a wall ride, all over a pit of beach balls! I was very eager to get going, and after watching the 14 and under boys destroy this course, I was inspired to do so as well. 

I like dropping in first and setting the standard for everyone else in the competition. To make sure I had enough speed to make it to the landing of the fun box, I charged in fast, and popped hard. No problems there. I decided to next hit the flat bar rail. After competing in multiple rail jams this year, I felt comfortable enough to just go right for a front-board to switch out. After doing that I moved to the wall ride- which was actually not as scary as it looked. I think the look of it got the best of most of the girls, because it was only myself and one other girl who even hit that feature. 

Before I even knew it our heat was over, and I was covered in sweat. I ended up competing in a tank-top and my straw hat- to get into the spirit a little bit. I loved the layout of the competition. The heats were a perfect amount of time, and they presented us with 1st, 2nd, and 3rd right after our heat was over. 

I was delivered my first place goodies from none other than Shaun Neff himself. It was a great honor to meet the guy behind the "Neff" name, and he had nothing but encouraging and gracious things to say to me. It was nice to meet a guy who was actually impressed with my snowboarding, and didn't seem to care about looks.  This event was so much fun, and for their first year doing it, it went flawlessly. 

After I was done competing we all took a couple of laps around Millicent, and enjoyed the rest of the party. 

I was sad to realize this was my last competition for this season, but thrilled I ended on a high note. The Neff Beach Bash at Brighton was definitely one of my favorite competitions I participated in this year. Great people, good music, good weather, and a fun atmosphere. THANKS NEFF AND BRIGHTON.