Words & photos by Rocky Maloney

The North Face Park & Pipe Open in Waterville Valley, New Hampshire wrapped up yesterday under beautiful blue skies in stark contrast to the previous day's ugliness with men's and women's superpipe semi-finals and finals. The day began around 11am with the men's semi-final round at the Exhibition Superpipe, where 25 up and comers battled it out for their chance at one of the 12 spots in finals.

With just two runs to impress the judges, all of the guys were anxious to drop. Local Brian Kish started things off with a solid run that included an alley-oop 540 into an alley-oop 900 on his last hit to solidify his fifth place position and a spot in finals.

Brian Kish

Garett Northey deserves the honorable mention of the day for going bigger than anyone else in the field. Northey wowed the crowd with a massive right 540 on his first hit into a flair and finished off his run with a big left 540 at the bottom of the pipe, which was a big enough run to help him score fourth place.

Garrett Northey

Canadian Rob Heule was also looking very impressive throughout the day. After competing in pipe at the last stop of the Winter Dew Tour, coming to Waterville Valley seemed a bit less intimidating for Heule. He stomped his semi-final run with a left 900 followed by right and left 540's and finished things off with a stylish alley-oop flat 360, which gave him the third place spot.

Rob Heule

Christian Allen also went out to Snowbasin to try to qualify for prelims at the Dew Tour, but unfortunately didn't make it in and then quickly made the trip to the Aspen/Snowmass Open where he placed fourth. After a solid two weeks of intense competition you could tell that Allen was more than warmed up for The North Face Park & Pipe Open, and he proved that and then some by taking second place with a left 720 on his first hit into a switch 720 and finished off his run by connecting back-to-back 540's.

Christian Allen

And taking the top spot in semis was a man who is very familiar with superpipe competitions, including both the X Games and Dew Tour...Dan Marion. Dan The Man is without a doubt a bona fide veteran in the pipe world, and showed it in semis with a left 900 to right 360 to switch 720 and a right 900 on his last hit. Dan stoked up the judges, crowd and announcers and rewarded himself with a ton of confidence going into finals.

Dan Marion

After the men's semi-finals was all finished up the ladies had their first turn in the Waterville Valley superpipe. 10 women were in contention for one of the coveted podium spots and a nice pay day, and they did not disappoint. Eden Netelkos earned herself a score of 74.50 with large amplitude on all of her hits that included a third hit left 540 and a right 360 at the bottom, which saw her just miss the podium in fourth.

Eden Netelkos

The top three ladies in pipe also braved the elements to compete in yesterday's slopestyle, showing their well rounded abilities in both disciplines. Taking third place was Jess Breda, who put together a gorgeous run that began with a big left 540 into a handful of straight airs and finished things off with a 540 into a right 360.

Jess Breda

13-year-old Julia Krass already made a name for herself this weekend after taking second place in slopestyle, and continued to turn heads with back-to-back podium finishes after taking second in superpipe with a similar run to Breda's but with a touch more amplitude.

Julia Krass

And after taking the third place spot in slopestyle Annalisa Drew also made quite the name for herself this weekend by walking away with a double podium as well by winning women's superpipe finals. After Luke Van Valin challenged the ladies to step things up and to throw down a 720 in their run Annalisa answered LVV's call in a big way with a left 540 into a combination of straight airs to a right 540 and finished off her run with a left 720. Her impressive performance earned her a score a 90.00, a nice big check and a spot on top of the box.

Annalisa Drew

Following the ladies it was back to the men for their superpipe finals, where Jeremie Veilleux took the sixth place spot by throwing one of the most crowd pleasing tricks of the day, an alley-oop screamin' seamen 720, which helped him sneak into the last pay out position.

Jeremie Veilleux

Rob Heule had a scary crash on his third run after casing the deck on an attempted double flip, but was ok after his fall, and later admitted he was just as scared as everyone else during that moment. Before the gnar he put together his first of three runs with a left 900 into a right 540 to left 540 and finished it all off with another steezy alley-oop flat 360, all of which helped him score him the fifth place position.

Rob Heule

After falling prey to the weather in slopestyle, Lyman Currier was looking for a little redemption today, and got it by finishing just shy of the podium in fourth with a left 900 to alley-oop flat 540 into a flair and finished off with a massive and stylish straight air tail grab.

Lyman Currier

Evan Schwartz, another fierce slopestyle competitor, scored himself an 84.30 with a left 900 tail into a left flat 360 and a connected a switch left 540 to switch right 720, which allowed him to find a spot on the podium at the end of the day in third place.

Evan Schwartz

After taking the top semi-final spot Dan Marion finished off his day with a killer second run that included a left 900 to right 360 to switch left 720 to right 900 and finished things off with a big flair. His fine technical showing earned him a score of 86.30 and second place, along with a big cheque to put in the bank.

Dan Marion

And after taking the second place spot in semis, Christian Allen stepped up his game to grab the top spot of the day. Allen laid down an amazing run that consisted of a first hit left 720 into a switch alley-oop 720 followed by left and right 540's and a big left 1080 at the bottom to take home the most ballin' novelty cheque of the day.

Christian Allen

This concludes our coverage of the second and final stop of The North Face Park & Pipe Open. Congratulations to all of the winners, and big thanks to the good people at The North Face and MSI for putting on these wonderful open events.

Evan Schwartz (3rd), Christian Allen (1st), Dan Marion (2nd)

Results

Men

Semi-Finals

1) Dan Marion - 93.50

2) Christian Allen - 89.50

3) Rob Heule - 89.00

4) Garrett Northey - 84.25

5) Brian Kish - 81.75

6) Ted Porter - 76.25

7) Aaron Mackay - 74.75

8) Lymam Currier - 73.75

9) Lukas Bowman - 71.25

10) Scott Nelson - 71.00

11) Evan Schwartz - 69.25

12) Jeremie Veilleux - 68.00

cut-off

13) Brent Whipple - 67.00

14) Alex Mochan - 66.25

15) John Brown - 63.25

16) Sawyer Sellingham - 57.25

17) Colin Vaykovich - 54.00

18) Tim Ryan - 48.25

19) Alec Carignan - 45.75

20) Travis Ford - 35.25

21) Christian Santini - 30.75

22) James Campbell - 22.00

23) Cole Derrick - DNS

24) Will Hibbs - DNS

25) Jaeden Schneider-Clark - DNS

26) Quinn Waddell - DNS

Finals

1) Christian Allen - 88.30

2) Dan Marion - 86.30

3) Evan Schwartz - 84.30

4) Lyman Currier - 75.50

5) Rob Heule - 72.80

6) Jeremie Veilleux - 70.80

7) Ted Porter - 68.50

8) Scott Nelson - 67.50

9) Aaron Mackay - 63.00

10) Lukas Bowman - 62.30

11) Brian Kish - 55.00

12) Garett Northey - 27.30

Jess Breda (3rd), Annalisa Drew (1st), Julia Krass (2nd)

Women

1) Annalisa Drew - 90.00

2) Julia Krass - 79.00

3) Jess Breda - 76.30

4) Eden Netelkos - 74.50

5) Julia Marino - 68.30

6) Maggie Stout - 60.00

7) Jeanee Crane-Mauzy - 55.30

8) Meagan Fiselier - 32.00

9) Jackie Atkinson - 27.80

10) Shannon Gunning - DNS