The Terrain Park setup for the Holy Oly 2008, look at that gigantic quarterpipe.
Summit at Snoqualmie hosted the 5th annual Holy Oly Quarterpipe contest once again this year. The Holy Oly is a snowboard contest founded by Krush Kulesza, the snowboard marketing director of Summit-at-Snoqualmie, after he had a discussion with Mike Ranquet over some "barley pop" one night. They were talking about whether it would be cool if Krush repainted the old Olympia Can water tower over at Hyak, the Summit-at-Snoqualmie's secret weekend-only powder stash. (Hyak is now called Summit East, but no one cool calls it Summit East.) Ranquet told Krush it would be great if the tower got repainted and so an idea was born. The finished tower was gleaming in its glory again, this time with an updated yet retro Summit logo painted in homeage to the previous Olympia logo. Krush knew he needed to create a contest to celebrate, a party style quarterpipe jam with unique award names, cases of Olympia beer as prizes and Cobra Dogs hot dogs served up with Lib Tech's banana sauce for a condiment.
Some hikers and riders getting ready to drop in under the repainted Summit can.
So the Holy Oly was born, and the event's history has proven that you never know what to expect from powder storms, to lack of snow, to fog and greyday to perfect bluebird sunny day skies. In the winter of 2004-05, the lack of snow forced the Summit to spray over 1 million gallons of man-made snow to create a halfpipe, quarterpipe, and street course. No other mountain in Washington was open at the time. Last year the contest happened to be on one of the deepest powder days of the season, and it probably snowed a foot or two from the beginning of the day until the end of the event. In an example of classic Northwest weather conditions, contest competitors were taking fresh powder runs in between drop-ins to the quarterpipe.
Tim Carlson grabs method
With all the history behind the event, this year drew riders from all over the globe, including Danny Kass, Willie Yli-Luoma, past superhero Jeff Brushie, and young gun Manuel Diaz, who came all the way from Chile. It was a who's who of Northwest snowboarding from Mike Ranquet, Kurt Jensen, Monty Hays, John Laing, Pete Saari, The Phillips brothers, Justin Heath, Austin Sweetin, Austin Hironaka, Dave Goto, Lorn Davies, and many more.
The jibbers like Sean Genovese, Pat Milberry, and Gus Engle even came out for the all-new street course with wall ride gaps and jib-bonks conveniently located next to the 20ft tall quarterpipe. Jesse Burtner announced the event and said some of the funniest stuff I've ever heard at a snowboard contest. He definately kept the crowd entertained with his reactions to tricks.
Results:
Jeremy Dubs filming the top two winners Willie Yli-Luoma and Manuel Diaz for the upcoming Funner Films movie.
The Holy Oly Revival Results
Krush Kulesza with the awards list written on the back of an Olympia Beer case
The DJ with the official Holy Oly trophies designed by Nic Jonas.
Holiest of the Holy - Willie Yli-Luoma in the blue Alaskan? wolf hoodie sweater
Berzerker Award - Manuel Diaz
Joey McGuire/Best NW Method Award - Danny Garrity
Best Trick(Switch McTwist)- Nate Farrell
Future of NW Shred Award - Austen Sweetin
Hardest Charging Industry Guy - Pat "the eYe" Bridges, editor of Snowboarder Magazine
Jeff Brushie Award - Jeff Brushie
Guy Who Avoided the Most Obstacles in a Jib Run - Gus Engle
Rail Charger Award - Sean Genovese
Biggest Ripper Still Riding Glissade - Monty Hays
