Sunday, February 24, 2008

dick's ditch

This weekend was the 10th annual Dick's Ditch Banked Slalom race at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort. I've done this race six or seven times since I've lived in Jackson and always have had a pretty good time. This year though....wow. We have had a ton of snow (427" as of Friday)(and now it's snowing AGAIN!) and the groomers and park & pipe guys just went nuts. My friend Ratty and I got to the bottom and just stared at each other...this course was insane!

We slipped it a couple more times and felt reasonably confident...and then Saturday dawned cloudy and cold. Not a good sign. This course *needed* to be soft or it was going to be messy. We were momentarily hopeful when the sun peeked out but it was long gone by the time we were to take our runs.

Ratty was amazing - she actually had to do TWO runs to qualify (rather than the standard one run) because she caught up to the girl ahead of her on her first shot. She was pretty happy about it though, she had had to hike to a couple of gates the first run and got a way better time on the second run.

And how did I do? Let's see...I sprained a few fingers, tweaked my knee and did something unfathomable to my shoulder and ribs and *still* managed to disqualify myself after the first gate. Oh well, c'est la vie, right? The fun is definitely in the trying - I had a great time and am really glad I did it again this year. Ratty ended up winning our division (30+ amateur women - or as we have been calling it, the granny division) - woo hoo! She'll get some cool stuff from the sponsors and gets to stand atop the podium - good job Ratty!

Some photos from our point and shoot Canon PowerShot courtesy of Nate -

the start, all hopeful and sunny -

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Ratty in the gate -

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me in the gate -

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one last practice run -

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wherever did the sun go?

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Ratty hopping for the 2nd gate -

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it's a bit blurry, but I have to post the pic of my spectacular wipeout -

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my turn to hop -

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4 comments:

Dick Parins said...

Ouch! This hurts me as much as it does you!
Your Mom

katy gray said...

I recommend lots of Advil. :)

It was really fun and I'm glad I did it this year - there was a bit of waffling beforehand.

Brendan said...

if only the race was a week later, i could have relived my glorious badness as well!

katy gray said...

I know! Oh well, I guess you'll just have to come out for it next year...