Seth Wescott, Olympic gold medalist cut the red ribbon on the newest ski and snowboard course Saturday at Sugarloaf. The new Sidewinder Snowboardcross course, designed by Wescott was opened to the public after he and several lucky riders took their inaugural run.

The 32-year-old Olympic athlete spent several days riding in snow cats putting the final touches on the Sidewinder course prior to his ribbon cutting run.

"Snowboardcross is definitely a growing sport," Wescott said. "For me to go out and win the first Olympic gold medal in this discipline has been the realization of a lot of years of hard work and it's really nice to be able to create the new training and competition facility for that here. It's been great fun being able to design the course from scratch, and I hope people will enjoy it."

Traveling through an ice storm to go skiing isn't exactly my idea of much fun. But getting through the worst of it in New Hampshire, and arriving at Okemo Mountain Resort in Vermont, things changed for the best.

There was plenty of snow as we headed up the mountain from the Jackson Gore Inn for first tracks early Saturday morning, and although a brisk wind with chilling temps, had some of the chairs swinging, the snow conditions were fantastic.