Postponed 24 hours by strong winds and cold weather, Saturday's 1996 Colorado Powder 8 Championships featured seven pairs of finalists, including Hans Schernthaner and Peter Kummerer of Big Sky, Mont.
Schernthaner and Kummerer nosed out two sets of former champions, hometown favorites Rick Ascher and Paul Krause, who've won three times in the '90s, and the '89 champs, Rob Sprague of Boulder and Dan Rosenthal of Alma, who respectively placed second and third.
With their win, the Montanans won season passes to Breckenridge for the 1996-97 ski season and an expense-paid trip to the Grand National Powder 8 Championships, worth $1,000 if they choose to take the cash.
Also advancing to Saturday afternoon's finals were defending champions Hayden Scott and Franz Fuchsberger of Vail, Dave Wolfe of Avon and Jay Evans of Vail, brothers Todd Saemisch of Littleton and Mike Saemisch of Salt Lake City, and the Breckenridge duo of Kerry Stanovsky and Dan Cohen.
Two extra tandems made this year's finals after Saturday morning's preliminary round produced some tied scores.
The contest was originally set for Friday but was rescheduled after severe wind chill was felt by event organizer Jim Hamilton.
"We had 50 mile an hour winds; constant," Hamilton said after checking on the conditions Friday morning. "And it was like 90-below zero. (The snow) was slabbing up, so it just wasn't gonna work."
Snow conditions on Saturday were good for the preliminaries, as evidenced by the many continuous trails of figure eights left by 20 starting teams.
However, the contest continued moving north toward Peak 6 as the finalists looked for an undisturbed path that didn't contain rocks or holes in the snow. Between the two areas used for the prelims and finals was a stretch of chunky snow left from a slide.
As the panel of judges moved its finish area along the side of Peak 7, they marched along, either walking on the snow or sinking into it up to their hips.
At the top of the course, where skiers leaned back against the cornice, snow above them swirled as the wind and clouds continually swept over the mountain peak at a rapid pace.
One moment, the course would be in shadow; the next, in bright sunshine.
In the finals, Sprague and Rosenthal were first down. Scott and Fuchsberger, affectionately known as "Hans & Franz," were fourth down, elongating their eights after previous teams skied tightly.
Schernthaner and Kummerer, wearing matching red suits and goggles, showed style and teamwork as they followed the fall line in synchronized, symmetrical fashion.
Ascher and Krause came next, after a wait for the judges and videographer to reset themselves. (The contest is judged 50 percent in the field and 50 percent by reviewing videotape.)
"Pup and Frosty," nicknames for Ascher and Krause, drew the biggest cheer from the audience of 50 or 60, which then watched the Saemisch Bros., who preceded the final pair, Stanovsky and Cohen.
However, the final two tandems encountered trouble. The lead skier in the brother team fell, while the trailing skier stumbled for the Breck duo.
As qualifiers for the Grand Nationals, they would travel next February to Jackson Hole, Wyo., where they would try to win again and qualify for the World Nationals, set for next March in British Columbia.
Runner-up prizes were worth $600 for second place and $400 for third place. The total purse was more than $6,000 in cash and prizes. Awards and prizes were distributed Saturday night during a competitors party at The Underworld.
Finalists - 1996 Colorado Powder 8 Championships
Hayden Scott, Vail & Franz Fuchsberger, Vail.
Rick Ascher, Breckenridge & Paul Krause, Breckenridge.
Dave Wolfe, Avon & Jay Evans, Vail.
Todd Saemisch, Littleton & Mike Saemisch, Salt Lake City.
Kerry Stanovsky, Breckenridge & Dan Cohen, Breckenridge.
Hans Schernthaner, Big Sky, Mont. & Peter Kummerer, Big Sky, Mont.
Rob Sprague, Boulder & Dan Rosenthal, Alma.
The conditions were pretty nice; about 4-6 inches of new on a nice carveable base. Not the 3 inch wind slab like the year before. Visibility was hit and miss during the preliminaries; it was perfect during the finals. Our draw was in about the middle and we had a great line. It appeared that all the teams had decent first runs. We skied OK. I did one turn with my tips completely crossed but somehow still made it. Our new longer turn radius approach leaves me with plenty of energy at the end of the run.
They took 7 teams for the finals rather than the normal 5 due to ties. We drew number 6 in the finals and had a great clean looking line that was probably about as steep as Peak 7 offers. Cool. All of the finals teams had a hidden hazard to deal with during the run; rocks, bumps, bushes, or in our case, a hard slick pack just under the snow. I lost an edge and was down so quickly that I did not have time to try and recover. I slid a ways and then stood back up and kept going. We finished the run without Todd having to stop.
The top three teams were really close in tracks. It could have gone to any of them (but we could not see the skiing from our finals spot). Cow bells and a nice crowd cheered everyone on. Franz and Hayden made huge turns and our friends at the bottom thought they did not have a very good run. We learned later that they complained loudly after placing fourth even though we thought that was too high.