TELUS World Ski & Snowboard Festival

Big Sugar and the Grenade Games Superpipe

I planned on getting an early start to the day but it seems the events that took place the night prior hindered my early rise and kindly left me with a decent headache to deal with. The Grenade Games Superpipe was taking place from 12-2 on Blackcomb but that turned out to be too early for me to get to in any reasonable time. 

After getting my fill of The Price Is Right while alternating between glasses of water and coffee, I finally made it to the lift to catch the final half hour of the pipe comp.  I hopped on the Gondola at mid station and introduced myself to the three old dudes already in there.  After a quick intro I was handed a bottle of homemade cider for the ride up as they were already crushing beers.  We bullshitted and I learned about the process of making cider while quickly slugging it back. At that moment my day seemed to pick up and my headache faded quickly.  I dig when you run into people looking to have a good time and share it with whoever is around.

Fast forward to the Tabernac Traverse, traversing to the pipe from the top of Excelerator chair, and landing at the pipe.  Since I was way behind schedule I got there and took out my camera right away only to be handed another beer by Colin Wiseman from The Ski Journal.  Since it’s hard to take photos and hold a beer at the same time, slugging that beer seemed my only option.  Setting it down would have ensured that it gets kicked over by someone else, if not me, and that’s just a waste.  My good fortune continued as I was just in time to see a few pipe laps by Justin Lamoureoux, David Melancon, David Aubry, Dominique Vallee and a few others.  Being able to see world-class halfpipe athlete like Justin and Dominique shred their home pipe at 22 feet was pretty damn cool.

After a few quick hit runs I raced home after the pip contest to transition into Big Sugar mode as they were already playing the main stage in Skier’s Plaza. Big Sugar is old school and hasn’t played together in years but they will still melt your face with their reggae rock and heavy guitar riffs.  Despite the rain, the crowd hung around and the Big Sugar rewarded everyone by rocking the shit out of WSSF. –Ryan Proctor