NEWS: Welcome to Aspen, Colorado by Lee Crane No one would be too surprised to hear that Aspen is still Aspen: home of the beautiful, the rich. Home of fur coats, Range Rovers, and Hunter S. Thompson. I was reminded where I was really going while waiting for my connector flight in Denver. When the gate attendant in Denver International Airport made a special welcome for United Platinum card holders everyone in the place stood up except. Yep they were all frequent flyers. And why shouldn't they be? They're flying to Aspen. Wait till they get a load of us! These people may be in for a bit of a surprise this weekend as Ajax is over-run by some of the best snowboarders in North America. They're all here hoping to either win a spot at the Winter X Games in Crested Butte, take home a big chunk of cash, or worst case show up on ESPN for a few seconds. Unfortunately, Aspen Mountain (Ajax) is still one of the few mountains that hasn't pulled it's head out long enough to smell the snowboard coffee. Ajax still bars snowboarders from their slopes. Of course, with the ESPN coverage and all the attention LXD, Inc. is bringing to town the management at Aspen has decided to allow snowboarders to ride the mountain for this special occasion. Gee, thanks. You've got to give credit to the event organizers for making this to happen, but what is The Aspen Skiing Company thinking. "Hey, check out all this great snowboard action from Aspen, and by the way, you'll never be able to ride here. You have to go to Highlands, Buttermilk, or Snowmass for that." Actually, they're probably not thinking at all. Why should they think? They're Aspen. Shannon Dunn and Tina Basich in the house. On the upside, the venue for this weekend's events couldn't be better. Having all the events right at the bottom of the hill makes it great for spectators and riders alike. And, aside from the fact that they don't allow snowboarding, Ajax is a great mountain with diverse terrain. At the free beer party thrown by the ESPN/Airwalk crew tonight riders were pretty stoked. "I haven't ridden all summer and I got out and I feel good," said Todd Richards, Gold Medalist at he 1997 Winter X Games at Snow Summit. "The pipe is good. By the third run I was feeling great. I think this bodes well for the season." Todd must have felt pretty good because at the end of three out of four heats of qualifying action in the pipe this afternoon he had the highest score. There will be one more qualification heat in the morning and then the top 16 qualifiers will advance to the finals at around 2:00 PM. Dave Sypniewski got halfway down his first scored run in the qualifier and forgot what he was doing. "I was doing okay at the top and then my mind just went blank," he said. "I didn't know what I was doing there. I didn't worry about it because I thought it was a best of qualifier. When I got back up to the top someone told me it was combined. Oh, well." Conditions on the mountain are pretty firm according to the riders who ventured out. There are rumors that several of the competitors ducked a few ropes and ended up getting their passes and competition privileges revoked. Though I heard the rumors I still haven't found anyone who was actually caught. Tonight the moon was out under perfectly clear skies. I tried to check out the alignment of the planets, but I didn't know where to look. Maybe someone in a fur coat will explain it to me tomorrow night when they're stumbling out of a bar trying to remember where they parked the Lear jet. That's all for now. More later. FREERIDE COVERAGE: Aspen | Killington | Sierra-at-Tahoe SOL NAVIGATION: SOL | Scoop | Hardware | Industry | Circleplus | Push | Travel | Interact | School | Weather | Terrain | Compete | Mediator SPONSORED BY: 1-800 Collect | ESPN | Airwalk | USASA © 1997, InterZine Productions. All rights reserved.