Doing the Dumont Cup at Sunday River

Off the hook.

That sums up
our weekend at SundayRiver. You see, I was
chillin’ with my new freeskier friends Jossi Wells, Peter Olenick and Tom
Wallisch (codename: T-crack) at SundayRiver’s Second Annual
Dumont Cup. Saturday was a beautiful, sunny day at SundayRiver for me, my kids and a thousand other frenzied fans. The pro-am event, hosted by
Bethel’s own
Simon Dumont, was a huge hit – literally, given the slope style venue featuring
two monster jumps.

Young kids went
crazy as Dumont tossed out giveaways of his
trademark Empire gloves along with cans of Red Bull, Salomon swag, and Target
gift cards. But the craziest aspect of the event was the monster air and huge
tricks the competitors performed as the afternoon, and the spring day, heated
up.

The finals
included the top 10 qualifying amateurs (narrowed from a field of over 100) competing
with Simon’s famous freeskier friends Justin Dorey, Gus Kenworthy, Mike Riddle,
Wells, and Wallisch – the winner of the first Dumont Cup last year.

As a parent, I
find the inverted air these ski athletes get is plain scary. This is definitely
a “don’t try this at home” situation. But it’s truly impressive to see the
acrobatics they perform while launching high in the sky.  And they look like they are genuinely having
fun (yikes), both the pros hanging out with their fellow X Game guys, and the
amateurs savoring the opportunity to perform for, and against, their idols.

The winning
trick came from amateur Alex Schlopy, who beat out the pros with a switch
double 1440 (I believe that’s a backward double flip with four full rotations
on skis in mid air). Dumont did not compete in
the finals, leaving the field open for second place finisher Joss Christensen
and Wallisch in third. Perhaps he was being gracious, or he was saving energy
to sign autographs for the growing number of fans.

Aside from the
daring Dumont Cup, there was very good coverage of carve-able corduroy on all
eight peaks at Sunday
River. Ski season is far from done my friends.

For more family ski articles by Heather Burke, go to
www.familyskitrips.com.
Photos by Greg Burke

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