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Outside Magazine November 2002

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The Cool Sellout (Cont.)


	Grenade posse in full effect (Ben Watts)

THE HALFPIPE IS NOT something found in nature. Building one requires pushing some 882,000 cubic feet of snow into place and then sculpting it into a 500-foot-long U-shaped gully that measures 56 feet across from lip to lip. Though the pipe at the U.S. Open is only 425 feet long and a degree steeper than the current standard—there wasn't enough snow—it's still what's known as a "superpipe," thanks to its depth: 18 feet from the lip to the bottom of the trough. (Salt Lake had a superpipe as well, but the Nagano halfpipe measured a comparatively wimpy 12 feet deep.)

When you drop over the lip of a superpipe, crouch low over your board to rip across the belly of the beast, then push against centrifugal force and zip up the opposite wall, you can blast 15 feet or so above the top. Reentry, however, is risky: If you don't return along the same vertical plane in which you took off, you'll either land on the deck (just above the lip), or free-fall several stories to the pipe's flat interior and blow a knee or two.



	Luke Mitrani (Ben Watts)

At the halfpipe finals on Saturday, Luke and Tommy warm up a crowd of 5,000 standing three deep along the decks. On the last trick of his exhibition run, Tommy lofts above the lip, throws an arm back like a bronc rider, and . . . gooses his crotch with his other hand. The crowd lets out a collective war whoop.

At the end of the pipe, goggled and toqued spectators shoot digital video footage, shout the favorites' names, and pump their arms at big-air tricks. The music—a mix of hip-hop and metal—is stifling, forcing the announcer to shout his observations. Such as: "Tricia Byrnes, folks, won this contest ten years ago! She's also the publisher of Eastern Edge magazine—and not to mention a college graduate!!"

Ten men and ten women make the finals, and they "jam" together in a kind of utopian antiformat. They take as many runs as they can in one hour, after which they're ranked on overall "impression." It's willfully vague, and ends up looking like a friendly melee.



	Fashion-forward at the open (Ben Watts)

Giacomo Kratter, the Italian turkey ventriloquist, loses his hat and goggles in a high-flying spin. Fans reach over to high-five him as he trudges back up along the bannered barricades. Then American Keir Dillon pendulums down the pipe, vanishes from view, and explodes above the lip right in front of Kratter's face. Kratter nods approval—nice one—as Dillon jets overhead, barrel-rolls sideways, and disappears back into the pipe.

"There's some stuff you just can't do because it would make you look stupid," Power says. Like? "Rock out with 'N Sync at the Olympics. We didn't do that."

Finland's Markku Koski caps a run by spinning a 1260—or maybe it's a 1440. Nobody's sure which, including Koski, who shrugs when the announcer shouts, "Markku, what was that?"

Next, Kelly Clark loops her way down and catches an edge on a backside 540, smacking her chin hard against the snow. She doesn't move at first, and the announcer lowers the volume when Clark fails to give an acknowledging wave. Tricia Byrnes, hiking back up after her own run, dumps her board and jumps into the pipe like an airline passenger hitting the evacuation slide. Clark starts moving, slowly, and after ski patrollers arrive to check if she's OK, she heads back up for more. Which isn't too surprising. Clark has ridden all season with a torn meniscus in her right knee; the day before her Olympic win, she broke her wrist. "It sounds really bad," she tells me later, "but that's kind of what I'm known for." She'll end up winning the halfpipe contest, and pocket $20,000.

Powers goes pretty big, but he looks rough around the edges. His friends have shown him no mercy since he's been home; the day he arrived on the red-eye, he was up until 6 a.m. with visitors to his hotel room, and he rode the semifinals with no practice. "I was just happy to qualify," he says afterward.

Meanwhile, Kass seems to be finding a groove after crashing on his first few runs. He drops in and does a huge, straight air, casually grabbing his board as he floats above the pipe, and slips back in like he's easing into a velvet sofa. Then he slices—fast—to the other side for an inverted 1080, shoots back across, and jacks himself above the lip for yet another 1080. He finishes with a 720 and a goofy little nose tap, but that's gravy. He's just pulled off something he's never done, not even in practice: back-to-back 1080s. "It was always in the back of my head, but I had never really landed the frontside 1080," Kass later says of the combination, a half rotation better than his Salt Lake performance. "I tried to play it safe a little bit at the Olympics, but at the Open everyone was stepping it up so much."

Dillon finishes third and Koski second. At the awards ceremony, Kass is announced as the winner and he meanders through the crowd toting a Grenade poster that reads we must exploit. buy-sell-buy-sell-buy, his army helmet shading his eyes. After the obligatory champagne shower, Kass hops off the stage and shambles over to a fence restraining hundreds of fans. He starts signing autographs.

"Danny, Danny, could you hook me up with your goggles and write your name across them?" shouts one teenager.

"Dude, I'm going to ride with them," says Kass.

"Let's go partying and drink some beers, Danny!"

"Yeeeeaaaaaah," he responds, reaching out for a shirt that needs ink.

"CanIhaveyourhat, Danny? Danny, canIhaveyourhat?"

"Hey, Danny, say a little something for me, go ahead," says a kid wedged up front, training a digital camcorder on Kass.

"What's up, dog?" he obliges.

Thick clouds settle overhead, sending a chill through Kass's slack five-foot-five frame. He wears a sweated-out T-shirt, and his bare arms are splotchy and goose-bumped, his cheeks red. He's been at it for 20 minutes when a friend behind the clot of kids yells in a Beatlemania soprano, "Hey, DAN-ny!" Kass looks up and an insulated bomber jacket lands over his head. It's his.

"Dude," he mutters in thanks. He slips it on and says quietly, "I gotta go over here," then walks over to a group of younger kids who haven't been able to get to him. The bad boy of snowboarding stays for another 15 minutes or so, until nearly everyone is gone.

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