The weekend of April 5th & 6th saw Evergreen hold the third annual Tri-Modal Challenge. This year the event was held at Hakuba Goryu and we were blessed with a blue-bird weekend and minimal wind on race-day…the weather couldn’t have been better. Evergreen staff spent Thursday and Friday constructing everything and Saturday morning the finishing touches were put on the course.

Setting up ‘the swamp’

Saturday was pre-race day where competitors and interested riders could try out the course while Evergreen staff watched how the riders did and made final adjustments to race gate pole positioning, bank angles, jump sizes and so on while chilling to the sounds of our very own DJ Large and DJ K5. By the end of the day riders were happy with their performance and staff were happy with the course and a meeting was held with all staff & competitors finalising the order of events for race day. The day finished with a bbq at The Pod Bar located right on the ski-field then later that night we got down to the live sounds of Sabunyuma and Jah Jah and DJ’s Dorobo and Jimmy Concrete (kinda) at the Tri-Modal Challenge party at Tracks Bar .

BBQ at The Pod, Sabunyuma, Jah Jah

Sunday was race-day and with no wind and sunshine spirits were high. We had DJ Mighty Mark direct from Nagano providing the tunes for the day and MC Tetsu assisting Timekeeper (TK) James Robb.

First up were the Individual Competitors who each challenged the course on Telemarks, Boards & Skis in that order and who set the standard for speeds on all 3 modes. Not the least of which was our very own Dave Enright who was threatening to win the event until he lost one ski as he burst out of the start-gate on his final run. After the Individuals came the teams who, though challenging themselves time-wise, had to also work with their team-mates to do their best to complete the course with similar times so as to reduce their time spread as the winning team was that with the least spread between members. This was achieved better than we’ve ever seen by Team “Powderland” (see results below).

Prizes were awarded for more than just high speeds and low time spreads however with prizes going out for:

Best Costume: Takumi Izumiyama

Best Air Style: Sacchan from Spicy Rentals

Biggest Air: Luke Cooper from Powderland

Worst Stack: Daisuke (Tracks Bar Telemarker)

Best Nordic Style: Matsumoto-san from Rapie

Best Water Entry/Exit: Hateman Team’s Snowboarder with 180’s in and out

Final Results

Individuals

1st Place: Jon Daily. Telemark: 1:13. Board: 1:19. Ski: 1:04. Combined Time: 3:36

2nd Place: Ryu Nagai. Telemark: 1:12. Board: 1:27. Ski: 1:01. Combined Time: 3:40

3rd Place: Tomoyuki Yamamura. Telemark: 1:09. Board: 1:29. Ski: 1:03. Combined Time: 3:41

Teams

1st Place: Powderland. Telemark: 1:15. Board: 1:16. Ski: 1:15. Time Spread: 0:01

2nd Place: Sabunyuma. Telemark: 1:20. Board: 1:25. Ski: 1:25. Time Spread: 0:05

3rd Place: Hataeman. Telemark: 1:23. Board: 1:16. Ski: 1:07. Time Spread: 0:16

Powderland also won the fastest team category taking the competition out. The day fininshed with another BBQ at The Pod and some lazy afternoon beers. A big thanks to all our sponsors, all staff & volunteers and, last but not least, thanks to all our entrants.

See you all next year!

Click here to see more photos of the event!