While the snowboard world was watching the Arctic Challenge or the new Goofy Versus Regular contest up at Bear Mountain I traveled up the North West to experience the Holy Oly. Experience is much more appropriate word than watch because The Holy Oly is more of an experience than an event. The first place prize is only a case of Oly beer but f-it, in the NW, that is all you need. Well, a case of beer and the terrain to throw a contest on. People from the NW do not need money to motivate them to ride, they just love riding. The level of riding was insane, tons of dudes I never heard of going 10-15 out, simply for the love of riding. I would ask other people “who the hell is that” the answer was usually “I don’t know” The only help I got was when Jesse Burtner would announce the names but that was often hard to catch. People up there just ride, it is a fact of life, if they get sponsored, fine if not, they will be out charging anyway. Waay more ripped pants and mis-matched outfits than in So Cal or Breck and those kinds of places. These guys and gals show up in work trucks and are back at work on Monday. Not a gay ass lifted truck with Indy stickers on it in sight.
The contest took place about one hour east of Seattle at the Summit of Snowqualmie and they built a massive QP and rail garden to hit. The Summit consists of four older ski areas merged as one and things went down at Hyak; the most removed and remote of the areas. The good people of Summit knew well enough to give us the far side of the mountain and let us be. The format was simple; run the contest from Noon til “whenever” and the best rider wins. It had snowed so much up there this year that the mountain passes were often closed but not this day, it was a blue sky day. If you ask me, the NW has a shit ton of snow and it is always sunny, ha, ha. A beautiful day to be had by all, for sure. Highlights included ripping locals, world class pros, snowskates, no rules, Oly beer, people smoking weed, great riding, no attitude’s – one of the funnest events of the year.
Things started at the early hour of Noon which is a perfect time to start a contest. The standouts were Willie Yli-Luoma, Pat Milberry, this guy from Chile, Gus Engle on the rails, Danny Kass and more.
Here is the set up, pre action. The QP was huge, I was told 28 feet tall, check the size of the workers for scale. Next to the QP was the rail section, riders rode up the wall rides (the two black things) and hot the rails on the way back down. Most riders of the rail section focused their efforts on the wall rides
Pat Bridges is the head honcho at Snowboarder Mag, he is pretty much everywhere, in the heart of the action. Pat prolly never has time to remove all the lift tickets and season passes he acquires on a daily basis
Krush Kulesza is the youth marketing director at Summit at Snoqualmie resorts. Krush is pretty much a big part of the NW USA receiving more media attention the past few years. SR: “Krush its rad to see the NW is coming in hot again” Krush replies “The NW is always hot, it’s just the media was not paying attention”
Pat Milberry – high 5. Pat was hitting everything; the wall ride, the rails and even getting gnar on the massive QP
Pat Milberry – front blunt to front 180 out on the wall ride, Pat was one of the first to start riding at Noon-ish and one of the last to quit at 3:30is, so 3.5 hours of hiking and riding
Pat Bridges is the real deal and should have won sickest handplants of the event award but got hardest charging industry guy instead. Here is an Andrecht that would make Fred Smith proud. Fred Smith was a team Alva skater from New England that did good Andrechts on a skateboard, Pat is from New England so…never mind
Holy Oly does not discriminate; this crazy bastard was doing backside airs on the QP on a freakin snowskate
Apparently Manuel Ita is one of the best riders in Chile. When you hear of a sick rider from Chile, you may remember you saw it here first, here’s a super styled method that helped him get the Berserker award
Matt Edgers – Crail
Willie Yli-Luoma was there and we got proof with this alley oop backside crail. Willie was another guy who rode most of or all of the jam and he won
Scott Kachinsky with a big partially inverted Method. There were more Methods done on Saturday than probably any other day in the history of snowboarders. The NW riding style is kind of like a big Method; big, stylish, in your face and no bull shit, just good solid riding
Look out! There were definitely a fair share of inadvertent doubles runs and only one collision, which happened to be mid-air but luckily no one was hurt
Willie Yli-Luoma again and again going big and alley oop front 3, are you sick of the photos of Willie yet, thought so
Nate Farrell with a switch, or un-natural, back 5. Check the ripped pants on Nate. Nate got best trick award, i think for this very trick. There was not a head to toe, matching Grenade or Burton outfit in sight, except of course on Danny Kass, Kevin Casillo and Dave Schiff, but that’s cool of course
Monty Hayes with a massive tailgrab. It was amazing to see how many people tore the heck out of the QP yet were somewhat un-known. Again, the NW don’t care, just ride hard if anyone notices, fine if not that’s cool too. Jesse Burtner was often saying stuff like “back at his day job as a construction worker” and stuff in regards to the riders
Here is Manuel Ita again with some sort of spin. This guy was charging, trust me
Willie – Boooosting high enough that planes landing at Sea Tac airport had to divert
Johnny Lang with let me guess a Method
Manuel Ita was for sure in the top 5. The black pads on the deck got a lot of use; tons of dudes slammed on the deck, it was pretty gnar at times. Thanks to Jesse Burtner’s magical staff, all or most lived to ride again
Kurt Jensen – Crippler. You think Kurt Jensen drives a tricked out Honda Civic or $80,000 Mercedes with look at me, I have a small dick $10,000 dollar rims? Kurt probably does not drive one of the aforementioned vehicles, but who knows
Peter Line won the first Holy Oly but said he hurt his foot on Friday and was forced to watch
Jesse Burtner was the announcer. The mic was attached to his magical staff which made “28 years old ride like 21 year olds” and kept the contest free from accidents. Gus Engle looks on; Gus was shredding the wall rides and rails all day
Here is that crazy snowskater guy with an acid drop transfer from the QP to the rail section. This guy was like 4 out of 5 on the scale of metal
Evan (or Ivan?) airs the gap between the two wallrides. Hey don’t get on me for not knowing all the names. I asked for a start list and the people who were running it were like “what’s a start list?”
Cobra Dogs – free of charge till they ran out, there was enough for everyone. That reminds me, I gotta eat a salad tomorrow after all the Cobra dogs, pizza and Salmon fish and chips I had all weekend
The ONLY rail picture in the photo and fitting that Pat Milberry is in it (doing a front Smith) The Holy Oly is really a QP contest at heart but the rail section offered good variety
The source of the name Holy Oly comes from this old water tower painted to imitate a can of Olympia beer; a NW Icon because “it’s the water”. Travis Rice bomb dropped off this thing a few years ago
Sean Genovese with an Andrecht that would make Scott Stammes proud. Scott was a NW guy to core, a fisherman, snowboarder, skateboarder and more. It was rumored that Scott’s ashes were mixed in with the cement of the old Ballard Bowl (rip), but that’s another story
This guy, unknown to me, is seen here doing a front 900. Pat Bridges called him snakeeyes saying that you do not want to be around him when he drinks. Someone else called him Clark Kent which sound suspiciously like a nickname that would have to do with drinking. Then again I could be wrong because you know – no start list
And what do you know – Danny Kass showed up to take some runs. What Danny lacked for in quantity he made up for in quality, typical Kass style – Haakanflip
What the fuck – Jeff Brushie, are you serious, oh yeah. Brushie took “eight runs and only a few airs were overhead” according to Jeff himself. Whatever man, look at this Indy poked toward the sky. He got the Jeff Brushie award
Danny Garrity – Joey Mcguire Best Method award
Cab 7 stale – NO ONE will ever ride pipe like Danny Kass one of the best of all time. If you can copy this cab 7 stale and prove it to me, I will give you $100 cash. Like Terje, Johan, Craig Kelly (rip), Kevin Jones, Peter Line, JP, Jeremy Jones and a few others, there will never be anyone like some dudes
Ahman Stamps at the after party which was basically a sauna in an A-frame building at the bottom of Hyak Mountain. By the way Hyak was once it’s own ski area and shut down until Summit took it over, re-opened it, connected it to the other summit resorts and now they hold the Holy Oly there – totally appropriate
Results (certified by NASA)
Holiest of the Holy - Willie Yli-Ouma
Berzerker Award - Manuel Ita
Joey McGuire/Best NW Method Award - Danny Garrity
Best Trick - Nate Farrel
Future of NW Shred Award - Austen Sweetin
Hardest Charging Industry Guy - Pat “the eYe” Bridges
Jeff Brushie Award - Jeff Brushie
Most Blatant use of Reservation Fireworks Award - Terry Parker
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