20cms of snow fell over night and 20_ athletes including JP Auclair, Anthony Boronowski, Andy Mahre, the Petit brothers, Dana Flahr and others sent it in the opening day of the signature Red Bull ski event, Cold Rush. Day 1 was the Slopestyle stage where athletes had natural hits built into the terrain in the Orchards. The Orchids is a zone littered with cliffs, and after been roped off from the public and fresh snow, it was prime for some of the best skiers to strut their stuff.

The morning dawned stormy and cold, but 20 minutes before kick off the clouds parted and graced the venue with brilliant sunlight. Structured more as a jam session than a competition, athletes rotated through during the afternoon, pumping each other up and going bigger and bigger each run. Each athlete was filmed from various angles and after the Big Mtn stage on Roberts tomorrow, the crew from Freeride Entertainment will edit together a segment for each rider and the athletes themselves will judge the videos to decide the winner. The final day entails a skinned ascent time trial to the top of Roberts to decide who is crowned the all around Cold Rush victor.

Stand out hits from today were Darryl Treadway’s oh-so-almost-stomepd-it double back flip, Dana Flahrs 50_ft airs, Dane Tudor’s slow, styled out 3’s, Riley Leboe’s huge spins and Mike Hopkins rodeo 720. Everyone threw down in some capacity so I'll leave the video to tell the story.

All the athletes were stoked on the venue, the structure and the action. The stage is set for a huck fest on Mt Roberts tomorrow. Rather than the one hit from today, skiers will have 2000ft of pow, the headwall, Snaggle Tooth, and the Alderton to link together a big mountain line. Game on!!!!

For more information on the event go to the Cold Rush website or the Red Mountain Resort home page.

A big thank you to Red Property Management for the beautiful condo we are staying at on the mountain.