King of SuperPipe Also King of Quarters

Tanner Hall found himself on another podium last night in the King of Quarters event at Aspen Mountain. An alternative event to the X Games, the scene was a massive quarter pipe built near the bottom of the hill under the gondola. "This is the biggest quarter pipe I have ever seen, no joke," said X Games judge and Father of Newschool Mike Douglas. Indeed, the feature was huge and riders took advantage of the perfectly shaped quarter to bust huge into the Aspen night sky.

The format featured 12 of the world's best park freeskiers, including Red Bull skiers Tanner Hall and Simon Dumont. A cash purse of $15,000 was doled out to the top three riders, who were picked by judges from an overall impression of five jumps.

Simon Dumont took advantage of the situation and boosted huge off the deck in true Dumont style. The world record quarter pipe hit is 32 feet out, Simon was falling only a couple feet shy, but still going at least 10 feet higher than the rest of the field. Launching large 540s out the quarter, Simon was definitely a contender for first place, but unfortunately came down on the coping hard on his third hit. He was down for a few minutes, but managed to walk away amidst a roar of crowd support. Holding his left shoulder, he left the venue with it in a sling. Always the showman, Simon was boosting large for his fans and everyone was very sorry to see him out, but glad he would be okay.

With ninja like calm and precision, Tanner spent the evening launching lofty tailgrab 540s and 900s for his cheering fans. "My favorite was the floaty 540s. When you get that much air on a good hit, it's really fun to just be really smooth and slow with your tricks," he said afterwards. The crowd and judges pretty much knew Tanner had this one dialed, much like the X Games SuperPipe finals two nights before, and he walked off into the night with an easy $9k in his pocket. The biggest decision for them to make was giving out second place to Stefan Thomas and third place to Colby West.