It's over. The most hectic few days of year is done. Thank goodness. As much as I love watching everything X has to offer, the randomness of everyone and everything else going on in Aspen for the event is just too damn tiring. Since the Open doesn't begin until Wednesday, I have two days to sleep. Yay!!


On Thursday, I got to Buttermilk for slopestyle practice. Beautiful weather. Everyone was throwing down. After raiding the Pizza Rolls tent - free food is dope - it was time for pipe finals. For the first run, it was snowing flippin' hard. Fat boards might have suited the skiers better at the rate it was dumping. Anyway, Tanner threw down the best pipe run I have EVER seen. All you gapers who don't know what the hell you are talking about need to take your feet out of your mouth and just keep 'em shut. I am not trying to take anything away from Simon's run. His run was dope, too. It just didn't have the technical parts that Tanner's had. All Simon has going for him is how big he goes. Tanner spins both ways and grabs everything. End of story.


From there, I went to the Freeskier party at Hotel Jerome. Four free drinks later, my buddies and I headed over to Eric's. It was way too crowded. It's weird seeing all these people who definately don't belong in a ski town around. Once Eric's closed at 2 a.m., we decided to head over to the Oakley party. And, Little John was there! They were giving out Little John wine. By the time I got into bed, it was around 4:30 a.m. Yikes.


While all of this was happening, my clothes were locked in my buddy Jeff's car. Basically, I the pleasure of wearing the same clothes from Wednesday night through Friday night. Ugh.


Moving on. On Friday, I pretty much hung out at Buttermilk all day, and watched slopestyle practice again. By around 9 p.m., big air started. The jump tried to mimic Jon's jump from his event. Didn't quite do the job. And, everyone kept doing the same trick over and over. It was a little boring. As expected, Jon won, and Gagnier took second.


From there, I was finally got my clothes, and could unload all of my crap at my friend's dopetacular house in Aspen. Showering and clean clothes had never been so appealing. At around midnight, I finally made it out to the Red Bull party. It was fun, but I was just too tired to really enjoy it. So, off to bed I went.


Saturday saw more of the same: hanging out at Buttermilk most of the day watching snowboard slopestyle and snowmobile stuff. Then, I headed back to Aspen Mountain for the King of Quarters contest. It was flippin' cool. First off, a snowcat took us to the quarterpipe so we didn't have to walk up there. Second, it was the largest quarterpipe I had ever seen. Third, Dumont went huge. Unfortunately, he decked from 30 feet out, called it a night, and couldn't do slopestyle today either... dislocated shoulder. Mike Riddle was tweaking the crap out of every hit. John Symms' japan grabs looked awesome. In the end, Tanner won with typical Tanner style.


Three large Saki's later, I found myself at the Powder Awards. Everything pretty much went as expected. Seth Morrison was wearing a cool shirt with skulls on it. Then, it was time for the after party. Somewhere along the line, I managed to hit my head on a wall or some sort. I don't really know what was going on. Once the party winded down a bit, a bunch of us went to hang out on the Freeskier Tour bus. This thing is awesome. Guitar Hero is certainly the highlight. I guess the bar is ok, too. Then, it was bed time with much anticipation for slopestyle.


Word on the street was that weather was moving in. And, it did indeed move in for slopestyle. This was too bad since the weather for the rest of the event had been absolutely perfect. Oh well. Much to my surprise and dismay, Sammy didn't qualify for finals, falling on his final hit. As typical, Jon took third, throwin one of the best looking 540s on the first hit of his second run I have ever seen. Thanks, Jon. It was nice! Jossi spent the entire day in first place until Andreas uncorked one on the last run of the day to take the win, throwing a monsterous 12 with a long held grab on the money booter.


And then it was done! And now I am going to bed. Enjoy the pictures.