With the 1st stop of the Grand Prix underway in Copper and the pipe event already finished it was Saturday night and time to turn the attention to the Paul Mitchell Progression Session, held under the lights. Being progressive they always try to come up with something new or unique. This year had a “cliff” jump that led into the “hitching post”. The cliff jump was basically a jump with not too much lip and a big drop’ it kinda looked like a cross between a standard park jump and one of those Olympic style ski jumps but giant, it was pretty cool. Riders needed a lot of speed to clear the massive gap, no holding back. The hitching post looked like a pommel horse on top of a jump. The hitching post was cool although riders had a to slow down a lot to hit it after the cliff drop. Hey you gotta try new things so good for them. Previously the event was held in Breckenridge. Seeing as Breck is an actual town, all the town drunks came out for a loud crowd. Copper is a great mountain but there is no town per say so the so the crowd was mellow but appreciative. The action was good. Starting slow as riders got the jump dialed then things stepped up to 900’s and such. A lot of the riders, like Kyle Clancy just seemed stoked to be riding. A thirty minute jam preceded the best of three runs final. Madison Ellesworth and Jamie Anderson took the stop spots. It was snowing in Colorado, everyone was claiming it was dumping. The announcer Todd Richards questioned whether or not mortal people with crappy cars like a Ford Focus would make it home (I Had a Dodge Caliber) it was funny. It seems like Colorado “dumping” is different than West Coast dumping, the next day Copper had seen a total of 8” inches of new. I guess in Colorado that is dumping, while in California Squaw Valley gets 3 feet, to each their own. Oh, and I breezed out on to the hotel 30 miles away in the crappy car. The riding was great the next day despite the -1 degree temperature. Hopefully back next December, be there!

OG Summit County loc Chad Otterstrom was hitting the jump. Maybe not as OG as Colorado heads J2 or Barrett Christy but still pretty much OG. Chad made a cool $200 that night

Another Colorado local, this time from Evergreen, Dylan Alita stepped it up into 4th

Greg Bretz blasted into town to warm up for the Dew Tour and took a jumps off the cliff jump

Harrison Grey during the "blizzard of 2008"

Ian Thorley with a Rodeo which is always a crowd favorite, somehow Ian did not make the final 5 jam

Jamie Anderson will kick 99% of the guys asses on a snowboard, she won the female division which means she was one of a few females to even hit it

Kyle Clancy came down from Jackson to party!

Lucas Magoon may be well known as an over accessorized rail master but he rips it all; cliff drops, pipes, park and so on.

Here is the winner, Madison Ellesworth, at the end of his winning run; a switch back 9 to this invert on the hitching post

The cliff drop set up

The Blizzard

Lot's of work to build this thing

Sage Kotsenburg  - third place

Shayne Popsil

Tim Humphries - back rodeo

Trevor Jacob

Even Tyler Flanagen ventured out from Mammoth with Peter Morning, photographer

Wyatt Caldwell lives in Hailey Idaho where there is a bad ass skatepark

Results Men 1 Madison Ellesworth 2 Harrison Grey 3 Sage Kotsenburg 4 Dylan Alita 5 Tim Humphries Women 1 Jaime Anderson 2 Celia Miller