By Julie Weinberger

On a warm, sunny Sunday at Buttermilk, the third annual Aspen/Snowmass Open wrapped up with men’s and women’s slopestyle semis and finals.

Alexi Godbout

AndrewHathaway

Keri Herman and Matt Walker found themselves in first place. Herman styled her way to the top with a right 3 tail to a left 3 safety to a right 3 nose to a cork right 5 mute. Walker’s best run consisted of a lip 270 on the trapezoid box to a backside cork 630 out of the up box to a left 9 blunt to a switch 9 high safety to a right 9 blunt to switch 10. Notice that both of them were spinning both ways the whole way down the course. Not too many people on either side were doing that.

KeriHerman

MattWalker

JohnStrenio

KarlFostvedt

For the men, Tom Wallisch and Alexis Godbout rounded out the podium. Wallisch’s run was strikingly similar to Andreas Hatveit’s winning slopestyle run at the X Games, including a 450 disaster onto the trapezoid box to a rodeo-ish backflip off the up box to a rodeo 5 true nose to a switch bio 10 high mute to a switch right 10 mute to a switch left cork 9 mute.

BanksGilberti

BobbyBrown

For the women, Anna Segal and Meg Olenick took second and third. Segal was the only woman to go inverted on both her runs, throwing lofty Lincoln loops. Olenick was the only woman to cleanly spin off of the flat rail option, which she chose instead of the top jump. She also grabbed on most of her spins.

AnnaSegal

AshleyBattersby

Other standouts from the day included Herman’s disaster on the trapezoid box (not on her highest scoring run), Nate Berkel’s rodeo 5s, Bobby Brown’s crowd pleasing double back flips on the bottom hit, Christian Allen’s gigantic 10 on the bottom jump and everything the guys were doing off the up box. That thing was fun to shoot. Also, Claudia Bouvier, who launched a huge 7 on the bottom hit of her first run, could have easily taken the trick to 9, she was going so big. I’m pretty sure that was her plan for her final run, but she was unable to keep her speed up.

BrittaniBallantyne

ClaudiaBouvier

Everyone seemed to be stoked to get the chance to ride the X Games course to see how they stood up to those athletes. Yet, because of the quick transitions and the fast snow in the morning for the women before the sun hit the course, any little bobble was enough to throw skiers off. Then, in the afternoon, the sun had baked the course so much that it slowed down for the men. Regardless, comments were flying around the bottom of the course about how much fun this contest was.

MikeClarke

NateBerkel

My only gripe with the overall event is that the women did not have more than one round in slopestyle. They only had a final on Sunday morning, while the men had three rounds—qualifying on Saturday, semis and finals on Sunday. I know there were only 14 women entered, but it was disappointing to not see them get more than one round. Why not cut the field to eight, and then have a final? The event finished before 2:30 p.m., so there certainly would have been enough time.

Anyway, overall, this was another lovely weekend in Aspen with sunny skies, a perfect pipe and a solid slopestyle course.

Men
1. Matt Walker
2. Tom Wallisch
3. Alexis Godbout
4. Sean Decker
5. Derek Spong
6. Bobby Brown
7. Tony Seibert
8. Joe Schuster
9. John Strenio
10. Henrik Lampert

Women
1. Keri Herman
2. Anna Segal
3. Meg Olenick
4. Ashely Battersby
5. Athena Brownson
6. Claudia Bouvier
7. Brittani Ballantyne
8. Ella Spitte
9. Steph Myers
10. Becca Babicz

DerekSpong

HenrikLampert