MEMORY BANK – Gigi Ruf Natural Selection 2008

July 21, 2009 | Filed Under MEMORY BANK, PHOTOS | 1 Comment 

MEMORY BANK; I will be digging through my archives finding old favorites or photos that have never been seen or used to be published here for you to check out every Wednesday.

Date: February 2nd 2008
Rider: Gigi Ruf
Location: Quiksilver Natural Selection – Dicks Ditch, Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

Every time I look at this particular shot it always brings me right back to that cold, dark, misty day in Dicks Ditch. This was my first trip to Jackson and it could not have been at a better time. For one Travis Rice had hand picked 17 of the worlds  best freestyle riders to come to Jackson for a all natural new approach to a big mountain freestyle contest.  Everyone was posted up for a seven day window competing on only the best two days. To top it off both selected zones on the mountain had been closed off a week or so prior letting mother nature blanket over three feet of snow on top of another 2 during the week.
If I remember correctly Gigi was probably the 4 or 5 rider to test his luck on day one in the buried course down the popular Dicks Ditch run. The course had around ten packed lips scattered down the gully with each landing having a nice fluffy cushion of about 3 – 4ft of deeep pow. As you can see it was pretty white out conditions with those three black specks on the right photo serving for a lip marker.  After his first hit Gigi had a bit of trouble getting a ton of speed through the sea of untracked snow opting for a classic method disappearing into a whiteout through the nipple deep landing. These two photos combined were my favorite shots from the trip.

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