Tuesday-Friday Event Coverage:
-Full expanded TMG MEGA Gallery HERE on FB-
I drove up from BV to Vail on Tuesday, after the CKS Paddle Fest and Class V Mtn Bike adventures, to have a look at Homestake Creek and help out with modifying the rodeo hole. The serious racers where all out at Homestake rallying laps trying to figure out the quick lines with the extremely low water. The Kiwi’s where looking strong and fast. The new Bliss-Stick Tuna creek boat looked really good and quite fast. I’ll have to try one out soon for sure! Clay Wright and Stephen Wright where playing with the rodeo hole in Vail in the evening, but in the end needed to call it a night and really tackle the project with more help on Wednesday morning. Due to my little bike accident in BV and not being in great shape I opted to enter the photo contest instead of the creek race. I figured this way I’d also be forced to take more quality photos for your viewing pleasure and have better coverege of the many events at the TMG:)
The entire day Wednesday was spent trying to channelize the water in Gore Creek to create a playable feature for the rodeo. With extremely LOW water levels it was tough to make anything that would work. The already installed bladder system helped shape the feature a bit, but was too spread out and up-stream of the feature to channellize the water effectively. With 1 sheet of plywood on river left and 2 sheets on river right channelizing the water a playable feature emerged. After a few hours of fine tuning the boards and bladders the best feature possible was created for the event. Huge shout out to Clay Wright, Stephen Wright and all the dedicated volunteers who made it happen!
The day started early Thursday as everyone gathered on Homestake Creek for the Steep Creek Championship. I got an early lap on the course just because I wanted to paddle and found the course good to go, but quite difficulty to go fast due to the MANY exposed sharp rocks. I then used my boat to cross the river at the finish area and take photos all day from river left. There where some big upsets and some fast lines. Most notably Adriene Levkenecht, last year’s winner and odds on favorite, had an early unlucky pin that put here out of contention. At the end of the day Mike Dawson crushed the course with 2 really fast laps edging out Dane Jackson and the other Kiwi Sam Sutton. In the Women’s race Martina Wegman came out on top ahead of Louise Jull and Anne Hubner, a truly international field. Click HERE for full Steep Creek Championship Results. After the race everyone headed back to Vail for the free Keller Williams concert. I had a great time partying it up on the Teva House pool deck, overlooking the stage with all the athletes and VIPs.
Friday was action packed and started with a quick ride in the Outside Van Black Box to Minturn,CO for a river SUP photo shoot with Dan Gavere. Fun and super talented athlete! Once back in Vail it was off to the photo races for me as I had to shoot: Teva slopestyle qualifier, IFSC bouldering world cup, DockDogs big air, Gibbon Games slackline qualifier and the Teva slopestlye finals. A fun long day of running and biking all over Vail Village and getting myself in crazy positions to get “the shot.” The slackliners where super fun to watch and the slopestyle athletes put everything on the line to impress the crowd and the judges. I honestly called it an early night because I knew the next 2 days would bring a lot more intense action to try to capture.
-Full expanded TMG MEGA Gallery HERE on FB-
–Official Teva Mtn Games Website–
–Saturday & Sunday event coverage (Part 2 of 2)–
