The last stop of the North Face Masters goes to Kirkwood and so does the snow!
Couldn't believe it, we arrived in to Kirkwood on Tuesday night and it was absolutely dumping, apparently it had been all day. What were the odds, 3 out of the 3 stops of the North face Tour arrived with the storms rolling in...nice!! It was clear for the registration/inspection day but we had been told that there was another storm on its way. The organisers were worried about getting through the whole first day of qualifiers in time, so they decided to pre-qualify 7 women and 10 men through . I didnt make that cut so I had to battle it out!! We were on lookers right of the Cirque on Friday morning. On the top section we had some beautiful untracked snow to tear up but when we got to the lower part of the venue it was tough as the snow had frozen up overnight. but it was still fun. I had a solid run and qualified 5th, they took 9 of us out of 17. As expected the weather started to roll in half way through the guys qualifier so it was shut down for the day, they would send the rest of them the next day. That meant the girls had a day off on Saturday to chill and watch the guys throw down, yay!
Thankfully on Sunday the skies cleared to the most beautiful bluebird powder day and to make it even better we got to ride lookers left of the cirque that is permanently closed. 16 women and 46 men went through to the final. We had a visual inspection of the venue and I made my plan of attack! I chose a technical line just down from the start tent, the top was steep and pretty exposed. It started sloughing on me as I made my way down which made seeing the rocks tricky, it slowed me down a bit but it was still good. The rest of my line was so fun, I got some great turns in and was happy with my run. Unfortunately my run didnt score high enough to make the cut into the superfinal of 6 women, I came in 9th. The standard of the girls riding that day blew me away it was awesome to watch, and so cool to be a part of it.
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