Close your eyes. Imagine your favorite people drinking hot cider and cocoa before and after fun laps down a lil’ race course designed specifically for a good (non-stressful) time. Now open them. Watch the video. The Dirksen Derby was basically everything you imagined and more, right?
With nine divisions and a $35 entry fee (though it is $100 for the Elite), there is enough snow to go around for everyone. The best part may very well be the reasoning for these shenanigans: raising money and stoke for good friend and Derby competitor Tyler Eklund. Around seven years ago, the snowboarder crashed during a national championship in Reno, Nevada, paralyzing him from the shoulders down, putting him in a wheel chair and on a ventilator to breathe.
Yet, in spite of the terrible turn a little while back, Eklund always puts on a face of true courage and exudes nothing but high spirits at the Derby.
Held annually at Mt. Bachelor’s West Village base area — the course is above the Snowblast Tubing Park off Pine Marten Chair — it is an all-around awesome event. As a snowboarder and mountain man of sorts, these shows of community mean the world to me. The Dirksen Derby is a nice, swift kick in the pants that snowboarding is so much more than the newest tech or latest styles. Snowboarding may only be a sport, but it is a sport that occasionally rises above the occasion, bringing forth an unparalleled passion for a shared pursuit, a passion that has the power to do good.
“The kind of people that end up coming here make it special,” they say. They are completely right.
