Words: Tanner McCarty 2017-10-30 16:59:12
It was the middle of March, a time when New Hampshire’s finer mountains (and humans) host an unrelated series of events that make for a wild weekend and true representation of the snowboard scene in the Live Free or Die state. The plan was to travel from the NH coast to Waterville Valley for the Mike Baker Banked Slalom, then to Gunstock Mountain for the annual Tyler Davis Hip Jam. I’d finish the trip at Loon Mountain for New Hampshire’s premier snowboard event, Eastern Boarder’s Last Call.
Having grown up riding the East Coast, I’d completed this lap for a dozen years. I landed with couches for the weekend already secured, and pointed it for Waterville.
Mike Baker Banked Slalom
Former pro rider, master striped bass fisherman and father of three, Mike Baker embodies New Hampshire snowboarding. He’s fast, he’s loud and he’s surprisingly dialed. He knows the next move before the hand is even dealt. If you can’t catch him in real life, his footage in the Iron Curtain movies from the mid-’90s will give you an idea of his riding. In 2012, Baker and a few friends got together and cooked up an event. “[Jamie] Cobbett and Nelson [Wormstead] actually came up with the idea,” Baker says. “It made me uncomfortable to have my name on it and still does, but it gets the dirts together for a good day on hill.”
Yeah, the name is a play on words, but the actual course doesn’t bear much resemblance to the Mt. Baker Legendary Banked Slalom out west. Picture an Olympic luge race mixed with a fight scene from Braveheart and a bit of the notorious World Quarterpipe Championships from the early 2000s thrown in. Take a normal banked slalom and flatten out the berms a bit because the snow is rock hard and you can’t get a shovel in there. Run 50-plus racers through the course and the speed factor is high. It’s an event most parents try to prevent their children from entering.
When I ran this year’s slalom, I was gripped. Going faster than anticipated, I rounded the fifth turn and encountered a few pieces of debris on course, including a teenaged sapling. A quick ollie over the detritus revealed its source: 25 drunk men throwing snowballs, beer cans—and sticks. I’m talking full-on trees laid across the width of the course and shirtless hairy men with beards yelling, spitting, and throwing anything within reach, all hoping you’ll lose control and rag-doll off a berm. This may seem borderline violent. Water balloons full of marinara sauce, which looked like blood when they exploded, were flying at people.
Once through the gauntlet of terror, the yelling turned to cheers and faded in the distance, with half of an icy hell-track still to go. A few more turns, then a knoll-drop to a hairpin left turn launched several riders onto the adjacent trail. Though the course ran in the 45-second range, it felt like a lifetime of emotional highs and lows. The winner was Scotty Lago, a snowboard legend from New Hampshire who literally shoots guns while he snowboards. Maybe he had blasted a few rounds that morning and a couple of sticks didn’t faze him.
Half a dozen PBRs later and the dudes who were bloody from actual blood become the MVPs of the day, and everyone hugged it out like a weird backyard-brawl-turned-barbecue. Those who had traveled from out of state either made two dozen new best friends or moped back to their cars for a solemn drive south to Boston or north to Vermont. The mayhem continued, but my mother was making dinner so I cruised back to the seacoast for a rest before the next day’s event. Live free and nap.
Tyler Davis Hip Jam
Nestled in central New Hampshire’s Lakes Region an hour south of Waterville, Gunstock Mountain Resort tops out at 2,267 feet overlooking the state’s largest body of water, Lake Winnipesaukee. It’s a family-oriented spot with 120 inches of average annual snowfall and 1,400 feet of vertical. Tyler Davis grew up in the area, boarding alongside Pat Moore, Chas Guldemond and the rest of New Hampshire rippers that trained with former U.S. Olympic Slopestyle Team coach Bill Enos. Everyone in that crew took very different paths when they hit the age of 18. While Moore and Guldemond pursued snowboard careers, you can now find 32-year-old Tyler teaching English at the local high school and living at the base of Gunstock. He’s probably the best snowboarder in the United States as far as English teachers go. Watch him take a park lap and you can tell that the proper fundamentals of snowboarding are ingrained in his muscle memory.
Being that he gets 100 days a year at Gunstock, it only makes sense that Tyler’s hip jam takes place in his backyard. There aren’t many hip contests anymore, which is a shame. Hips allow creative riders to get weird, technical riders to land tricks, and crazy people to go huge. “Everyone hits rails, everyone hits jumps, but you have to be a decent snowboarder with good edge control to ride a well-made hip,” Davis says. “Growing up watching Subjekt Haakonsen, I was obsessed with all the hips in that movie, and still am.”
A few warmup laps and icy butt-checks had the small-but-dedicated crowd of riders dipping into their beer bags earlier than usual. When Tyler announced the contest had started, young Reid Smith from New Jersey dropped about 50 feet higher than anyone in the lineup and blasted a backside 720 off the hip takeoff up and over the entire deck to the backside of the landing. It made most reevaluate their purpose on hill that day. “Who the hell is going to follow that up!” someone shouted.
To which Officer Learned, local police officer and ripping snowboarder, tossed an overhead Michalchuk and stomped on the ice-block landing. Brendon Hart took it a step further and stole the show with his first-ever double Michalchuck, only landing it after numerous attempts with pounding slams that would have left most sitting on a donut cushion for a week. Brendan took the win but missed awards because he had to leave early to work a shift at his family’s turkey restaurant down the road. He accepted the prestigious hip jam champion title via FaceTime.
Last Call
Eastern Boarder is among a few core snowboard shops left on the East Coast. It has raised and supported many of the folks in attendance at all three events—basically the entire snowboard community there. Eastern Boarder has been putting on Last Call at Loon Mountain for the past 17 years, and it stands strong as the most renowned event in the east these days. Loon is a hub for the New Hampshire and Massachusetts snowboard community. It’s where you can just show up and head to the Paul Bunyan Room to find a familiar face—which could be due to Loon’s perfectly manicured park under any weather conditions, or the fact that the bar overlooks the halfpipe and serves a mean rum punch. Back when the US Open was based in Vermont, Last Call would take place right after the Open to get some of the heavy hitters to participate in the pro/am event. While the big names may not always attend these days, the riding still represents the best of the east.
Andy Bubnowicz, aka “EB Bub,” is a longtime manager for Eastern Boarder and he collaborates with Loon Mountain’s terrain park crew to make Last Call a reality year after year. “Last Call was born more out of the idea of getting our friends, team, reps and customers together for a season-ender party, event and to say thank you,” Bub says.
Unlike the homey vibe of the previous two events, Last Call is a spot for East Coast kids to get noticed, and a $4,000 cash purse is on the line. The event started with the jump features, and while many went for the traditional up-and-over routes, some of the more technical boarders took off from the quarter-pipe side hits. Within 10 minutes there was a handful of double chucks, some with a hefty flail in the middle. After an hour-long jam format, Zach Normandin proved to be top dog with his creative lines and trick combinations.
The left-hand hip was next and, despite a proper tombstone takeoff, a lengthy deck created mandatory airtime that kept uncertain riders hanging around the coolers. Vermont native Tucker Speer displayed the combination of proper edge control and guts to take home the cash for that portion of the contest. Then after everyone slammed a hotdog, rail-jam shenanigans began on endless lines of intertwined rails, walls and other metal objects. Landing a trick is one thing, but connecting multiple features was what judges were looking for, and the number of riders on course at one time kept only the most aware rippers at the front of the pack. River Richer had the bag of tricks, board control and willingness to collide with others needed to walk away with the rail jam top spot, while Ryan Kittredge took down the overall for the men, and Laura Tamposi cashed the big check for the ladies.
Although Last Call proved New Hampshire is still home to a strong group of young riders, attendance by heroes of years past showed the snowboard scene there is alive and well. It’s a fitting final stop on a Live Free or Die trifecta that welcomes all into its fold. Just sharpen your edges, consider a helmet, prepare to scare yourself, bring beer and, screw it, stop at Dunkin’ on your way there.
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