The Great Ski Race 2010 - Tahoe Nordic Search & Rescue Funraiser

I actually woke up this morning with every intention of skiing the course from Tahoe City to Truckee, CA.  I last participated in the race at least 10 years ago. But this year was again not to be since I decided to take out the camera and shoot the start. Once all of the racers crossed the starting line, I kind of bailed on the race and instead jumped in my car to see if I could make it to Truckee to photograph the winner crossing the finish line.

The top skiers are amazingly fast.  I made it to the finish line at the Cottonwood Restaurant only 5 minutes before  the winner, Adam Swank of Duluth, MN came flying down the final hill.  Adams time was a blazing 1:11:30. While not a course record, it is impressing none the less.

Well, after photographing the first 3 finishers, the skiers kept coming and I decided to keep shooting.  I think I was able to photography just about every skier until the awards ceremony started. That was about 1000 skiers over a 4 hour period.  I found it quite entertaining with great spirit, costumes, and some impressive crashes.  I think Matt Lund took the prize for one of the most dramatic finishes.

Keep in mind, Matt has not been on skate skis in years.  He crossed in sub 2:30:00. Not bad for off the couch.

So, I posted a web gallery of some of the choice shots from the day.
Check out the Gallery Here.

I will eventually be posting everyone's finishing photos on another gallery, so check back or email me with your bib number and name for a direct link.

I was very impressed by the number of young skiers this year.  A 9 year old made the journey with true style and many 11-13 year olds put in some good times.

Maybe I'll put the skis on next year.

Photos on ESPN from 2010 Nissan Freeride World Tour

This is not my first time being published, but it is fun to see some of my new work out for public view.  Thanks to Sean Naugle from Black Owl Media for letting me help him shot the 2010 Nissan Freeride World Tour at Squaw Valley USA.  You can see the slideshow on ESPN website at ESPN Action Sports I also have a more extensive slideshow of just my work in my Gallery.

We met Dave Sherman of imagestockhouse.com randomly having lunch at a local pizzaria. He was in town to shoot the Nissan Freeride World Tour and ended up not being able to photograph the event. Sean was asked to assist him and Sean was nice enough to invite me along.

Riding up the tram at 7:00 am was a great experience.  Too bad it wasn't for fresh tracks though.  Sean wanted to shoot from the base of the run, so I stood up to capture the starting terrain.  Sasha was also at the top of the course shooting with me.

Even with a press pass, I was limited to the rim of the bowl so I set up under the roof line of the Tram Building.  Competitors used it as a launching point for their runs.  I was able to capture some great inverted flight.  Sean captured the image of the day from the base as the competitors hucked themselves off of some huge cliffs.

Enjoy the show, and hopefully the credits will appear on the espn.com website so you can distinguish between our shots.