Photos courtesy of Vernon Deck, Henry Holze and Peter Bauer.
April in the Northern Alps has been memorable. After a slow start to the season, the snow gods finally remembered to pay Austria a visit… and then didn’t stop visiting. So, this weekend’s Volcom Banked Slalom at the Kitzsteinhorn glacier, Salzburgerland, was set to be good’un with high banks and stoked riders.
Although contestants were queueing for their race numbers early, the first runs of the day were delayed by heavy overnight snowfall. As a crew of 40 dedicated shapers shovelled the course, the 250 snowboarders in town to compete could do nothing but slaughter the untouched virgin powder coating the entire mountain in bluebird weather conditions. Amplid’s Peter Bauer made the pilgrimage to ride in the increasingly important event in European Snowboarding’s event calendar. Armed with two boards from Amplid’s new Centrifugal Collection, the Surfari and UNW8, Peter was well set to make the most of the morning pow. The Surfari took the morning pow duties and the first timed lap through the gates, but this year’s course had a handful of tricky sections and cranky turns, much better suited to the UNW8’s tighter 8m sidecut radius. It ended-up being a good decision putting Peter on top of the podium in the over 40s category and 5th in overall placing.
Predictably, in the Pro Men’s category long time Volcom team riders Terje Haakonsen and Arthur Longo took the top spots with effortless, but lightning quick bank cruising. Relative unknown Portus Staahlkloo took the third place on the podium.
Beers, burgers and a party atmosphere awaited the riders at the bottom of the run. An impromptu freestyle rapping session and DJs kept the party going while old friends caught-up with one-and-other and new friendships were forged. Good times once again at the Volcom Banked Slalom!
Pro Men
1st - Terje Haakonsen
2nd - Arthur Longo
3rd - Portus Staahlkloo
Over 40s Men
1st – Peter Bauer
2nd – Harry Putz
3rd – Ivo Gmür
Peter enjoying winners' beers with Mr Terje Haakonsen, winner of the Pro Men category
Salzburgerland's one-and-only Stefan Gimpl made the short drive from Leogang to ride the banks.
