When Pat Bridges from Snowboarder Magazine sends you a invite to their annual event 'The Launch', you go. The Launch debuted back in 2008 with the intention of bringing the next generation of top riders 18 and under together to ride a private park and create content. Kids in attendance arrive from all over the country, and they show up to ride hard. This year, the crew at Snowboarder teamed up with Copper Mountain in Colorado, and the setup was epic.
Signal’s Marc Wierenga flew out and met up with a few local rippers including 15 year old Ethen Goebel, his younger brother, 13 year old Eazy Goebel, and 13 year old Nikolas Phelan. The trio are all local to Copper Mountain and frequently ride there, so they had it dialed. The week consisted of speed lines ripping through all the features.
Copper delivered the goods. The setup had so many different options including jumps, rails, wall rides, tires, pole jams and trees. The park was setup in the Woodward central park with lift access from the Union Creek lift. After leaving the park, you had to cross some green runs in order to get to the lift. Those easy green runs had a fun headwall that everyone would hit at 100 mph. The local ski patrol was not happy about that, and were issuing warnings as we sprayed them throughout the week. There were definitely a few athletes that lost a pass.
The future of snowboarding is in good hands, take it from the Operations Manager at Woodward Copper himself, Morrison Hsieh.
"The Launch at Copper Mountain was an amazing event! The stoke level in the terrain parks, as well as off hill in the progression playground known as the Barn was infectious to say the least. Lots of smiles all around. This created a fun and welcoming atmosphere for everyone, which is exactly what we strive to do Woodward Copper. It was really cool to see what our parks team offers on a daily basis being enjoyed at such a high level during The Launch. Snowboarder Magazine and Oakley were perfect partners to support our youth and push our lifestyle"
