Snow Days
Kris Jones, 2012 Red Bull ThingamaJIB snowboard champion, soars at last year’s competition.
Photos by Luke Sutton
This Saturday, two local ski resorts will hold street-style and
spring break-style events for snowboarders, skiers and spectators.
Appalachian Ski Mountain
and Beech Mountain Resort will host powwows for the snow sport community, with ASM’s Red
Bull-sponsored ThingamaJIB and the beginning of College Week at Beech Mountain.
The
ThingamaJIB is like a skateboard tour for boarders and skiers, as it sets up custom park benches,
several 55 gallon barrels fused together to create a barrel bonk, parking stops, handrails, a stair
set, a 1,000-gallon propane tank and traffic cones at the terrain park.
A cash prize of $400
will be given to the first-place winner of both open snowboard and ski categories. The open women’s
prize will be a product package, including ski goggles from Oakley, and the Grom Award will go to
the junior category.
The event is free, with only standard lift tickets applying for
competitors, which would be $29 for adults, $26 for students and $22 for juniors and seniors.
Spectators will receive a complimentary lift ticket in order to watch from the hill’s
vantage point.
Registration is the day of at 4 p.m. in the Alpine Ski Shop. The competition
starts at 6 p.m.
Last year, the snowboard winner was Kris Jones, and the ski winner was Berkley
Wilcox, both of whom “were spinning on and off all the rails and utilizing the whole course,” said
Appalachian Ski Mountain marketing director Drew Stanley. “They were super creative, landing the
jumps and riding away clean.”
Technically speaking, that gives “solid intermediate” riders
the best chance at winning, but Stanley encourages every experience level to participate, because
the event is free and because of the unusual nature of the course.
After several years of
discussion and inventing the play on words (jibbing is slang for snowboarding, hence Thingamajib),
Red Bull and ASM agreed on a logo design and threw the first Thingamajib last year. The event was
attended by about 80 competitors and 80 spectators, and Stanley expects to see more this year.
Three snowboard judges will include Adam Abernathy, who works at Windells Summer Snowboard
Camp, and three ski judges will include Mongy Dunlap, Erik Sprinkmann and Josh Pepper, who all have
lifetime ski and competition experience and have helped with ASM’s Shred for the Cup.
Emcees will
be Tyler Atkins and Trucker Adams.
“We want to get riders together as a community,” Stanley
said. “For spectators, we want them to realize that this sport is exciting and ever
changing.”
To watch last year’s video, visit appterrainpark on Vimeo. For more information,
visit http://www.appskimtn.com or call (828) 295-7828.
College Week at Beech
Beech Mountain’s College Week grants college students 40 percent off regular lift and rental prices. This fresh snow’s weekend of DJs, bands and the Bathing Beauty Competition will comprise the coming discounted week.
College Week runs from Friday, Feb. 1, at 8 p.m. to Sunday, Feb. 10, at 10 p.m. For a lift ticket, students should show their ID at the Group Sales office.
For rentals and a lift ticket, preregistration can be made by calling the Beech Mountain Resort group office. A combined lift ticket and rental would be $50 discounted from $94.
On Friday at 8 p.m., a DJ will host a night at the Beech Tree Bar and Grill.
On Saturday, males and females are invited to wear a costumed one-piece or bikini as they cruise the Play Yard Slope. Judged on creativity and outrageousness, students have dressed as bunnies, Avatars and a Coca-Cola crew.
The contest will glide into the night with bands Protegee GT of Charlotte and Demon Waffle of Johnson City, Tenn.
Registration will be held the day of the event from 9 a.m. to noon, and the event will start at 12:30 p.m. A $15 registration fee is required and includes a lift ticket.
First-, second- and third-place winners will receive cash prizes, gift certificates and products from Flow, Scott Sports and Smith Optics.
Last year, 10 people participated in the contest. Because a Florida university has already booked several students, marketing director Talia Freeman expects to see that number increase. More than 500 students eased through College Week last year, and 360 are preregistered for this year.
“We want the whole week to be a fun and relaxed atmosphere – not an overkill of events,” Freeman said.
For more information, visit http://www.beechmountainresort.com or call (828) 387-2011.
);)
);)
