Gap to Nosepress on the Smith Optics Rail
This is probably because the new Echo Mountain happens to be by far the closest resort to Denver. The resort is at least half an hour closer to Denver than any other ski resort in Colorado. This makes it a great place for all of the Denver weekend warriors who don't feel like braving the traffic on I-70.
Echo Mountain hosted the 'Liptricks Not Lipstick' rail jam competition on Saturday in honor of the mountain's one-year anniversary. The contest was one of the most progressive of the year utilizing a skate style bowl as a part of the course. The only other contest to use the bowl feature was the 'Honda Session" earlier this season.
The brackets were organized into groups of Men's good, Men's very good, Women's, Women's skier, and Men's skier. These brackets were then set up to ride in two different opening sessions. The first session was composed of all of the women riders and the Men's good group, while the rest of the field made up the second session.
Each of these sessions was done in a jam format style which means that the riders can use as many runs as they want within a given time period. For the first two sessions the riders were allotted one hour to throw down the most impressive tricks they had to try and impress the judges.
Utilizing the Skate Bowl Feature
The course was put together really well with interesting features that allowed the riders to really get creative with the course. The course had two lines that could be used and with judges asking the riders to utilize every feature both lines were seeing a lot of action.
The first line started off with the Liberty Rail, which consisted of a flat rail mounted across the top of a car. From there the line went into the skate bowl feature where the most technical tricks of the contest were thrown down.
The second line started with a horizontal flat log that was great for doing various stalls on, from there the line continued on to a cracker barrel feature and then finished at a mailbox rail set up sideways to do liptricks on.
Park Crew Maintaining the Skate Bowl
Once all of the riders got used to the course people started absolutely ripping. There were so many standout tricks that I don't even know where to begin. Echo Mountain team rider, Lakota Sage, threw an inverted hand-plant to disaster on the lip of the bowl.
Another rider frontside boardslid the entire top of the skate bowl. Some of the burlier tricks of the day included a 270 onto the Liberty Rail and a huge McTwist out of the bowl. In the girls division, rider Erica Horstman worked some smooth lines by 50-50ing the Liberty Rail and following it up with rock to fakies in the skate bowl.
Sobe sponsored the event and stayed on site with free Sobe for all of the riders to make sure that they had the energy they needed to shred. Other sponsors of the event included Rocky Mountain Honda and Fate.
Riders at the Sobe Tent
Echo Mountain operates one chairlift that services a large number of different terrain options. Right below the lift there is a jump line that includes a 55-foot tabletop. On other runs features vary from x-style barn boxes to large, car-gapping battleship rails. This diverse terrain is what makes Echo Mountain unique, creative and well worth the trip.
View Looking Past the Rome Snowboards Rail
