Gabe’s slopestyle competition started at 8:30 this morning. To get there, he had to be in the lift line at 7:30.. a good hour before the other two guys had to wake up. I was up at 5 with wrok-think.. so I got gabe up at 6:30 and we were out of the house by 7. It sure was easier getting one kid out of here than getting all three of the guys.
THe guys took the lift up to the terrain park..
While I got a lift in one of the snowcats.. (they wouldn’t let me walk up.. but they couldn’t stop me from walking down 🙂
I’d never been in a snowcat.. is was a really fun ride.. and avalanche resistant- no less !
The terrain park was huge.. scary huge looking to me.. I walked up to near the top and got set to watch Gabe.. and the nearly 70 other kids competitng in hte 14-15 slope style competition.
I added a sam stone for decoration.. one thing I do on every mountain I visit.
Gabe got two runs.. I was so excited and nervous with him. He looked so cool up there at the top !..
His runs weren’t too good.. but then again.. many folks had that trouble today.. I ended up walking down the mountain in the woods which was really nice.
A little later Gabe came back to the apartment .. he was a little down.. so we just sat for a bit.. A little later in comes Dylan.. his competition had gone really well.. he fell on his first run. but his 2nd run put him in 1st place ! He was so pumped.. gabe poured him a red bull toast.
Around 4 we all headed back to the awards ceremony.. On the way there I stopped back at the Donor Dudes tent to meet Chirs Klug. the founder of the org. Chirs is a three time olypic snowboard racer.. he competed in his first olympics on the transplant list of a liver.. he competed in his last two olympics after his transplant. He goes around raising awareness of organ donation and raising money for donor awareness.
When I stopped by to meet Chi, there was another guy there named Ben (I think).. he was also an organ recipient. He received a kidney. It was so nice talking to both of these guys I told them all about Sam and our path.. and samstones. I gave them each a samstone.. and left one for another family that’s coming up tomorrow.. Their son Jake was also an organ donor..
It was a brief but powerful interaction with those folks
On the way tot the awards I ran into Kaitlin and Forest again.. “hey Forrest”
THey were giving out awards for at least 10 different events and age groups. I was impressed how many adaptive snowboarders there were.. they had guys wit artificial legs, and others in wheelchairs.
The main event for us was watching Dylan get 1st prize. He was just beaming with happiness. it brightened all of our days.
The coaches were stoked Too ! (Sam. Mike, Kaitlen) They had every right to be.. it had been a good showing for the team today. In dylan’s group, Charlie got 4th, Garret got 5th.. and Dylan W. won some sort of skiing thing.
One of the kids pointed out an interesting thing about couach mike’s last name: ‘slaughter’
we all went out to sushi afterwards.. which was good fun..
THen the kids all got ready to head home,,,
Gabe took some time this evening to work on his homework . He had to melt snow and map it’s temperature against time.. it was fun to watch him do !.
OK.. that’s it for the day.. tomorrow we head home
I am really lookign forward to seeing Diane !!!!
nite all, nite sam
-me
