While Brushie outscored Wells' by one-tenth of a point, the real story was what happened between the end of the contest and the awards presentation.

Lee Crane interviewing second place finisher Frank Wells for ESPN. Of course, when this picture was taken he thought he was the winner.

Frank's face told that tale all too well. First, it was a look of total stoke. After showing up at Hunter Mountain and finding a trough in the snow that didn't look anything like a halfpipe, he and some friends spent all day Saturday rebuilding the pipe.

On Sunday, he rode well making it into the final 16 with the highest score from the first qualifier. Then he consistently advanced to the finals by knocking out Eric Rosenwald, J.J. Collier, and Seth Wescott. All of whom were charging pretty hard.

In the finals Wells finally came up against Brushie, who had climbed through the ladder by beating Eric Petraska, Spencer Tamblyn, and Matt Cass.

Brush was doing the usual: flying two times higher than everyone else, spinning, and even throwing in a Haakonflip at the bottom of the pipe right in front of the judges.

But in the final against Wells, Brush bobbled and lost most of his speed halfway down the pipe. Frank Wells had a solid run with smooth airs and a spin. When the judges called off the results. It was Seth Wescott in third, Brushie in second, and Frank Wells in first.

It would have been Frank's first major halfpipe win made all the more significant by the fact that he'd outscored former World Halfpipe champion Jeff Brushie by one-tenth of a point. But the win wouldn't last long.

After receiving the gold medal, congratulations from his friends, and a winner interview for the ESPN cameras, the announcer came back on the sound system to say that the judges had made a mistake. "Due to a scoring error, it was discovered that the winner is actually, Jeff Brushie."

The crowd was stunned. Frank's face went blank. And the gold medal was taken from his neck, and dropped around the shoulders of Jeff Brushie. Jeff was equally stunned. A great day in the Hunter Mountain pipe turned to confusion as the crowd milled around asking themselves what had happened.

Brushie looked over at Wells and said, I'll fix it right now in my interview. In front of the ESPN cameras, Jeff explained what had happened. "I feel really bad about this because I think Frank deserved to win today," Jeff said. "The judges told me that I did two spins at the bottom of the pipe and that's what put me ahead. But I know I had problems halfway down the pipe and Frank had a clean run. I'm not too happy with this win."

In the women's competition Jaime MacLeod was ruling all day, going higher than all of the women and some of the guys. She posted the high score in the qualifying runs and got past Karyn Jacobsen in the first round of the finals. Then, going up against Tricia Byrnes she lost steam and ended up in fourth place.

Tricia pushed Jaime into the third and fourth bracket and went up against Aurelie Sayres and took first place for the women.

Hunter Mountain Pipe Dreams
Kosglow Sweeps Hunter Alpine Events
Jeff Archibald takes home Giant Slalom
For a complete results listing check the Score Board