Orage Masters Recap

Mammoth: It's that mystic place you see in ski and snowboard videos. With its perfectly manicured jumps, buttery smooth rails, and a host of your favourite pro skiers sessioning the park every day, you almost forget that it sits atop a massive volcano. Mammoth Mountain resides in one of the worlds most active earthquake areas, but this hasn't stopped every pro and their uncle from moving in to reap the benefits of a perfectly maintained park. Nor did it stop Orage from throwing one of the biggest events of the year in its playground.

The second annual Orage Masters went off without a hitch this past May 1st in beautiful sunny California. And that isn't a hint of a cliched statement, as every day leading up to and during the event, it was perfect sunshine and 70-80 degrees. It was a weather man's dream: say that it'll be sunny and hot and you'll be right 10 times out of 11. The epic weather, a pleasant change from last year's event, meant that every photographer and filmer was pumped and ready for the event, and they weren't disappointed.

The Masters consisted of three events: The team-format park jam (the main event of course), followed by the inner-village night-time rail jam, and finally the production company film-off thingamajig and after-party.

The main event saw six teams, each with four members, who went head to head, elimination style, to see which team dominated the rail-filled course. The course was setup as follows: down rail to up rail to double kink to either a long down or a box, and then into the mammoth wall ride (get it?). I won't bore you with every jump and run, as the video below should do a fine job at tingling your senses. But when all was said and done, Candide, riding for Boyd Easley's team, stole the show, and a brand new Yamaha sled, with his flawless runs which generally included a 630 on/270 off the box.

After Boyd's team ran off with their prizes (Yamaha sled, surfing trip to Puerto Rico, 42" Plasma TV, and a G4 Lap top), it was time for a couple hours of R&R before heading down to the village for the rail jam. Most of the day's competitors were too tired to strap up their boots, so the urban-style double kink was torn to shreds by the younger guys, such as Corey Vanular and Quebec's JF Houle and Charles Gagnier. JF was the big winner taking home $500 USD in $100 bills. There's a video for that down below as well!

The skiing was over, so it was time for a classic ski party. Pros, pro hoes, pro hoe hoes... everyone was there! The "purpose" of the party was for all the filmers who shot during the day to put together a four minute edit in four hours, and present it to the crowd. The big winner was Josh Berman of Level 1 Productions, who strayed from the norm and did a documentary of a documentary of the day's events. He went home with a G4 laptop and a large smile on his face. Another notable edit was cult-followed Eric Iberg's masterpiece, which was a story of a disgruntled skier (Mickael) who is interrupted from his golf game with news that he wasn't invited to the Masters. He then proceeds to snipe skiers from the parking lot. When asked about his film, Iberg said, "the only way I can pay for my ski movies is by winning computers, so I better win." He was unavailable for comment after Berman's victory.

So once the movies were played, the prizes were given, and the American beer flowed like... American beer, the party went on. And on. And on. Until the only memories left were that of -- who am I kidding? The memories were wiped clean until only the dismal pinging of a distant electron making its way through the catacombs of our damaged minds could be heard.

But luckily for us all, and that poor electron, Newschoolers.com was doing daily updates on the event, so everyone could be reminded of the days' shin digs and hoe downs. It was a great weekend for skiing, and for goggle tan's, and we shall all sit and wait patiently for Orage to throw skiing's anti-competition once again next season.

Huge thanks to Jamie at Orage for the hookups, to Kristy at Mammoth for the passes, and to the Mammoth Tech Department for feeding us that great live video and letting us set up a temporary office in the middle of theirs.