Heat Harvest II

Words: DJAK
Photos: Karl Stone, DJAK
Video: Rightside Productions

What a difference a year makes. Heat Harvest 1 was held the same week last year under bluebird skies and temps near 60. This year, Winter 2.0 is underway on the East Coast, and Sunday River is still open side to side. Nick, Alex (not me), Rambo, Greg, and Gabe got right to work on White Heat Sunday afternoon, massaging the snowpack downhill. Having mauled the trail once before, the guys made quick work and had a platform in place after 24 hours with a couple smaller piles down below for rail options.

Late in the push, the Meatheads rolled in from Newfoundland where they had the pleasure of being stuck on a ferryboat for a couple days. Geoff and Rooster got together with the park team and the final shaping went down on Tuesday night. The result was a 4 hit monstrosity that kept everyone busy throughout Day 1 when it was actually sunny. The money booter was 70-80 feet of high-popping fun, which softened up pretty early. The hip and the two other transfer style hits didn’t see as much action off the bat. That would change.







After lunch Iovanni, Paradise, Dadali Jr. and Sr., Malczyk, Flynn, Olsen, Strenio, Martini and Imbruglia led the day with a quiver of tricks. Per usual Olsen spun gently while oozing style, Flynn grabbed the hell out of the steering wheel, Ahmet and Martini killed in general and Paradise and Iovanni held it down for those of us born in or near the '70s.

Come late in the day, the army of shredders turned diggers started working on the landing of the hip. Serious shaping and some freestyle cat driving by Greg got it into shape. It was slayed for about an hour just before light was lost and the party wrapped up. 5:15pm, everyone headed down, wishing they had worn sunscreen.







Day 2 was not to be as cooperative. At the pre-huck chow meeting it was announced that due to the incoming Nor’easter slated for that afternoon and night, Day 3 was not to be. A foot of sierra cement was on the way and speed was already an issue once the snow began to fall. In light of the scrubbing of day 3 in favor of pow skiing, Sunday River threw together a night sesh in what was the tubing park for later that evening. More on that below.

Meanwhile, Day 2 saw an adjusted setup with the two right side booters transformed into a ramp for an up rail to 40-foot gap. Folks were vocally scared of it at first, but once a couple snowboarders guineaed it (props to Ride 207), the game was on. All sorts of ill-nasty occurred, but Giray’s 810 off was the largest and brought the most cheers. It then began to dump snow.








Some folks went and played laser tag, others watched Borat, but the Sunday River park crew kept on charging. White Heat was to re-open the next day thanks to the foot of cement and there was a night park to build.

What was the tubing park became the HH2 night sesh. The on-hill guys Cassidy and Greg dug in two teardrop rails with a gap between them first off. Then came an up-and-back-down rail where tubes would usually go up and come back down to stop. A flat box and flat rail were tossed in and there was meat hucking on a hip that boosted straight into darkness and powder. A couple of bonks also came into play. All this while it was snowing 1-2” per hour. I’ll let the comments down below get into the details. There were many, but I won’t try to itemize them, as I wouldn’t do it justice. I call upon the newschooler posse in attendance to do it for me. They seemed to be having a good time.





Day 3 brought over a foot of the heavy stuff that was as sticky as could be on the lower half of the mountain. The west side was going off and that’s where the Meatheads went to shoot pow on a pow day. I guess there’s more snow on the way in a couple days. Unreal. As was HH2.