Somehow we ended up with a snowstorm for a couple hours last night, but this morning we awoke to nothing but blue skies. Another crazy night at the Monster hotel left some people dragging their butts up to today’s superpipe qualifiers. Whistler/Blackcomb parks department has taken the drop-in bump for the pipe and turned it into a booter, dug a couple highways into the top of the pipe, and scattered assorted obstacles down the sides of the pipe, including a five foot tall stump.

Everything stayed pretty hard, but not as bad as yesterday, and the forecast now is for plenty of sun for another week.

Standouts today included Sammy Luebke, fresh from his golden ticket victory in the moguls he boosted and impressed everyone. Andy Finch was blasting airs even though he is in sling, Justin Lamoureux was working on his switch airs, Lucas Magoon worked the stump and Kael Hill won himself a golden ticket to the Grand Finale on Saturday night by spinning a nine over the fence. I was thinking about tony hawk over the fence at Del Mar, but then again, I'm old.

 Update: Here are the qualified riders for tomorrow:

11    Dennis     Bannock
12    Jeff    Batchelor
69    Dennis    Buongiomo
49    Sarah    Conrad
51    Dustin    Craven
315    Tanner    Davison
76    David    Fortin
101    Adam    Higgins
103    Kael    Hill
137    Justin     Lamoreux
139    Nick    Larson
288    Sammy    Luebke
153    Lucas    Magoon
156    Todd    Malus
291    Bobby    Meeks
171    Fred     Moisan
175    Guillaume     Morisset
185    Mike    Osachuk
201    Ryan     Rausch
202    Dan    Raymond
221    TJ    Schneider
228    Andrew    Skelhorn
232    Mark    Sollors
243    Kyle    Thomas
253    Jon    Versteeg
254    Louie    Vito
262    Charles     White
271    Korath    Wright

 Here are some more of Russell Dalby’s photos from the qualifiers.

Sammy is just blasting them.

 Justin in his comfort zone.

Can't keep finch down. Slingy fs air.

 Craven is stoked.