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For many years I had played with the idea to organize a deep snow race in the "Northern Chain" of the Innsbruck Mountains, which can be considered the roots of the European snowboard sport. Because the "Northern Chain" has predominantly southern slopes and is not much higher than 2000 m it is impossible to organize a programmed off-slope race. The probability of poor conditions is too high. But during the European Snowboard Open organized on the Northern Chain and Lizum, as there were lot of snowboard riders in town, a few days before the race there were heavy snowfalls. The snow settled for three days and after the avalanche committee declared the slope safe, there was nothing standing in the way of yet another race. The group start was high above Innsbruck. The majority of the Seegruben locals could not adjust to the idea that "strangers" were riding down their Holy Mountain, and that more were on their way to plough through the deep snow which usually belonged only to the locals. Despite it all, there were 55 snowboard riders standing in line at the Hafelekat Station, waiting for Tom Killian to give the start signal. Because the access to the gorge is very narrow, a group start with fastened boards would have been to dangerous, causing injuries, so there was a Le Mans start, the participants had to run for 20 m through the deep snow, fasten the board and then head down to Hungerburg. The gorge was quickly filling with riders fighting their way down in almost un-braked lines. From the Long Valley most of them took the route across the slope 2 to Hungerburg, where the finish was waiting in Red Bull arch for the riders with burning thighs. Although there were many "Not from Innsbruck" participating, the first places were occupied by local riders:
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