Day 8, First day of Competition.

We get to ski the HeadWall! The weather cleared and this was the first time anyone has been on the HeadWall all season. With the recent snows and the cold weather the fresh snow was well preserved. We all just wanted to rip turns through the fresh snow! but we had to ski some gnarly lines first. No worries. We did. There was one guy who dropped off a rock very high in the venue and ended up loosing control above the largest cliff in the zone. He tumbled over the cliff and bounced hard on the landing. Amazingly - he hiked up, got his ski on, and skied down! When all the competitors had run, he took a sled ride down and went to the hospital. It is always unfortunate to see a fellow rider get injured.
The rest of the competitors made it down without anymore injuries. Which was great. When we went for the results we found that the top ten guys were separated by less than 25 points. That is a tight field. We were psyched. Jake held onto first place by 1 point, Paul was in 4th, myself was in 5th, and Kent just missed the cut coming in 12th. A very good showing for the Alyeska Hostel, where we were all staying. We ended up hanging out with Nate and Stephane from Tough Guy Productions and the Alaska RedBull Sales Rep while we watched all the videos from the days runs. To Nate's credit - I think the judges did a great job. It is tough job and lots of people complain about the results. I think they did well. We finally got out of there 'bout midnight, and met Rosco P. Coletrane! the dog. He was acting a bit irrational so Kent had to calm him down. He is Kent working his dogwhisper skills on the irrational Rosco P. Coletrane.