5th Annual 2008 Holy Oly Revival
By: George Crosland
Sat. 2/23/08, Summit at Snowqualmie, Washington - Unholy Action at 5th Annual Holy Oly.While the snowboard world was watching the Arctic Challenge or the
new Goofy Versus Regular contest up at Bear Mountain I traveled up the
North West to experience the Holy Oly. Experience is much more
appropriate word than watch because The Holy Oly is more of an
experience than an event. The first place prize is only a case of Oly
beer but f-it, in the NW, that is all you need. Well, a case of beer
and the terrain to throw a contest on. People from the NW do not need
money to motivate them to ride, they just love riding. The level of
riding was insane, tons of dudes I never heard of going 10-15 out,
simply for the love of riding. I would ask other people “who the hell
is that” the answer was usually “I don’t know” The only help I got was
when Jesse Burtner would announce the names but that was often hard to
catch. People up there just ride, it is a fact of life, if they get
sponsored, fine if not, they will be out charging anyway. Waay more
ripped pants and mis-matched outfits than in So Cal or Breck and those
kinds of places. These guys and gals show up in work trucks and are
back at work on Monday. Not a gay ass lifted truck with Indy stickers
on it in sight.
The contest took place about one hour east of Seattle at the Summit
of Snowqualmie and they built a massive QP and rail garden to hit. The
Summit consists of four older ski areas merged as one and things went
down at Hyak; the most removed and remote of the areas. The good people
of Summit knew well enough to give us the far side of the mountain and
let us be. The format was simple; run the contest from Noon til
“whenever” and the best rider wins. It had snowed so much up there this
year that the mountain passes were often closed but not this day, it
was a blue sky day. If you ask me, the NW has a shit ton of snow and it
is always sunny, ha, ha. A beautiful day to be had by all, for sure.
Highlights included ripping locals, world class pros, snowskates, no
rules, Oly beer, people smoking weed, great riding, no attitude’s – one
of the funnest events of the year.
Things started at the early hour of Noon which is a perfect time to
start a contest. The standouts were Willie Yli-Luoma, Pat Milberry,
this guy from Chile, Gus Engle on the rails, Danny Kass and more.
2008 Holy Oly Results:(certified by NASA)
Holiest of the Holy- Willie Yli-Ouma
Berzerker Award- Manuel Ita
Joey McGuire/Best NW Method Award- Danny Garrity
Best Trick- Nate Farrel
Future of NW Shred Award- Austen Sweetin
Hardest Charging Industry Guy- Pat “the eYe” Bridges
Jeff Brushie Award- Jeff Brushie
Most Blatant use of Reservation Fireworks Award- Terry Parker
- Here is the set up, pre action. The QP was huge, I was told 28 feet
tall, check the size of the workers for scale. Next to the QP was the
rail section, riders rode up the wall rides (the two black things) and
hot the rails on the way back down. Most riders of the rail section
focused their efforts on the wall rides
- Pat Bridges is the head honcho at Snowboarder Mag, he is pretty much
everywhere, in the heart of the action. Pat prolly never has time to
remove all the lift tickets and season passes he acquires on a daily
basis
- Krush Kulesza is the youth marketing director at Summit at Snoqualmie
resorts. Krush is pretty much a big part of the NW USA receiving more
media attention the past few years. SR: “Krush its rad to see the NW is
coming in hot again” Krush replies “The NW is always hot, it’s just the
media was not paying attention”
-
Pat Milberry – high 5. Pat was hitting everything; the wall ride, the rails and even getting gnar on the massive QP
- Pat Milberry – front blunt to front 180 out on the wall ride, Pat was
one of the first to start riding at Noon-ish and one of the last to
quit at 3:30is, so 3.5 hours of hiking and riding
- Pat Bridges is the real deal and should have won sickest handplants of
the event award but got hardest charging industry guy instead. Here is
an Andrecht that would make Fred Smith proud. Fred Smith was a team
Alva skater from New England that did good Andrechts on a skateboard,
Pat is from New England so…never mind
-
Holy Oly does not discriminate; this crazy bastard was doing backside airs on the QP on a freakin snowskate
- Apparently Manuel Ita is one of the best riders in Chile. When you hear
of a sick rider from Chile, you may remember you saw it here first,
here’s a super styled method that helped him get the Berserker award
-
Matt Edgers – Crail
- Willie Yli-Luoma was there and we got proof with this alley oop
backside crail. Willie was another guy who rode most of or all of the
jam and he won
- Scott Kachinsky with a big partially inverted Method. There were more
Methods done on Saturday than probably any other day in the history of
snowboarders. The NW riding style is kind of like a big Method; big,
stylish, in your face and no bull shit, just good solid riding
- Look out! There were definitely a fair share of inadvertent doubles
runs and only one collision, which happened to be mid-air but luckily
no one was hurt
-
Willie Yli-Luoma again and again going big and alley oop front 3, are you sick of the photos of Willie yet, thought so
- Nate Farrell with a switch, or un-natural, back 5. Check the ripped
pants on Nate. Nate got best trick award, i think for this very trick.
There was not a head to toe, matching Grenade or Burton outfit in
sight, except of course on Danny Kass, Kevin Casillo and Dave Schiff,
but that’s cool of course
- Monty Hayes with a massive tailgrab. It was amazing to see how many
people tore the heck out of the QP yet were somewhat un-known. Again,
the NW don’t care, just ride hard if anyone notices, fine if not that’s
cool too. Jesse Burtner was often saying stuff like “back at his day
job as a construction worker” and stuff in regards to the riders
-
Here is Manuel Ita again with some sort of spin. This guy was charging, trust me
-
Willie – Boooosting high enough that planes landing at Sea Tac airport had to divert
-
Johnny Lang with let me guess a Method
- Manuel Ita was for sure in the top 5. The black pads on the deck got a
lot of use; tons of dudes slammed on the deck, it was pretty gnar at
times. Thanks to Jesse Burtner’s magical staff, all or most lived to
ride again
- Kurt Jensen – Crippler. You think Kurt Jensen drives a tricked out
Honda Civic or $80,000 Mercedes with look at me, I have a small dick
$10,000 dollar rims? Kurt probably does not drive one of the
aforementioned vehicles, but who knows
-
Peter Line won the first Holy Oly but said he hurt his foot on Friday and was forced to watch
- Jesse Burtner was the announcer. The mic was attached to his magical
staff which made “28 years old ride like 21 year olds” and kept the
contest free from accidents. Gus Engle looks on; Gus was shredding the
wall rides and rails all day
- Here is that crazy snowskater guy with an acid drop transfer from the
QP to the rail section. This guy was like 4 out of 5 on the scale of
metal
- Evan (or Ivan?) airs the gap between the two wallrides. Hey don’t get
on me for not knowing all the names. I asked for a start list and the
people who were running it were like “what’s a start list?”
- Cobra Dogs – free of charge till they ran out, there was enough for
everyone. That reminds me, I gotta eat a salad tomorrow after all the
Cobra dogs, pizza and Salmon fish and chips I had all weekend
- The ONLY rail picture in the photo and fitting that Pat Milberry is in
it (doing a front Smith) The Holy Oly is really a QP contest at heart
but the rail section offered good variety
- The source of the name Holy Oly comes from this old water tower painted
to imitate a can of Olympia beer; a NW Icon because “it’s the water”.
Travis Rice bomb dropped off this thing a few years ago
- Sean Genovese with an Andrecht that would make Scott Stammes proud.
Scott was a NW guy to core, a fisherman, snowboarder, skateboarder and
more. It was rumored that Scott’s ashes were mixed in with the cement
of the old Ballard Bowl (rip), but that’s another story
- This guy, unknown to me, is seen here doing a front 900. Pat Bridges
called him snakeeyes saying that you do not want to be around him when
he drinks. Someone else called him Clark Kent which sound suspiciously
like a nickname that would have to do with drinking. Then again I could
be wrong because you know – no start list
- And what do you know – Danny Kass showed up to take some runs. What
Danny lacked for in quantity he made up for in quality, typical Kass
style – Haakanflip
- What the fuck – Jeff Brushie, are you serious, oh yeah. Brushie took
“eight runs and only a few airs were overhead” according to Jeff
himself. Whatever man, look at this Indy poked toward the sky. He got
the Jeff Brushie award
-
Danny Garrity – Joey Mcguire Best Method award
- Cab 7 stale – NO ONE will ever ride pipe like Danny Kass one of the
best of all time. If you can copy this cab 7 stale and prove it to me,
I will give you $100 cash. Like Terje, Johan, Craig Kelly (rip), Kevin
Jones, Peter Line, JP, Jeremy Jones and a few others, there will never
be anyone like some dudes
- Ahman Stamps at the after party which was basically a sauna in an
A-frame building at the bottom of Hyak Mountain. By the way Hyak was
once it’s own ski area and shut down until Summit took it over,
re-opened it, connected it to the other summit resorts and now they
hold the Holy Oly there – totally appropriate
For more of Crosland's stuff check out his blog HERE
Monday, February 25th 2008 @ 09:47 PM.
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