CHAD'S GAP: The gap no one can shut up about
Additional reporting by Rachael Hodson
Chad’s Gap; the “gap” no one can shut up about. It has nothing to do with Chad’s actual gap- the one where his front tooth used to be until a speeding motorist clobbered Chad while he was walking home drunk from a party. No; though this Chad’s Gap can knock teeth loose, it’s a much, much bigger gaping hole. Every ski magazine has written something about Chad’s Gap – the one that munched Park City All-Star freerider Tanner Hall (SG April ’05). But few have pondered the power of the Gap itself- first introduced to the world in Powder Magazine in 1999 by local photographer Brent Benson.
Urban legend has it that the Michigan City Mine in Alta’s Grizzly Gulch was supposedly haunted when local cook Chad Zurinskas went on a little vision quest. He eventually found himself lying on the road between two mine tailing piles and a mine. At the same time, filmmaker Kris Ostness was living in another abandoned mine near the area. It was there the two of them came up with the idea for jumping the distance between the piles. Hmmm. The snowboarding community credits Travis Rice with the first clearing of the jump and defecates on the skier’s version. (see www.dcshoes.com/home; click on view all James Lipton commercials, Travis Rice).
Benson’s tale sounds more believable: Pro-snowboarder Andy Brewer had scouted the location, told Chad and Brent about it, and said, “You think you can clear that nipple?” They, along with Candide Thovex and Ostness, headed up. Brent turned to Chad and said, “Well, you think you can clear it?” Chad said, “Yup, no problem.” Then “guinea pigged” twice into the wall.
Thovex stepped up, crashed once and then stuck the first-ever landing of Chad Gap’s- sailing about 100 feet with a mute grab – to the awe of all in attendance. Motivated, and a few days later, Chad succeeded on his third attempt and Benson got the shot seen ‘round the world.
After Ostness filmed Chad clearing the Gap for his film Clay Pigeons, he dubbed it “Chad’s Gap.” “I preferred The Nipple,” said Benson. Soon readers and viewers had seen Chad’s Gap in action and wanted a piece. “The pictures blew everything else away. They hadn’t seen anything like that,” said Benson. “Back then, it was a crappy five-foot long take-off and crappy five-foot landing. We had no idea what we were doing. Then all the nutswingers like TGR came down and started shooting it.” Today, the ramp is a 14-foot buffed ski run that leads to a 120-foot soar on big days. “There have always been ‘gap jumps’, just like there have always been ‘extreme skiers’,” said Ski To Live Coach Kristen Ulmer. “But Chad’s Gap started the craze.”
The stories about this gem of a huck circulate throughout Little Cottonwood Canyon and now the world. From the best of the best to the grovelingly inexperienced, they all find their way to the Gap, the way surfers land at Mavericks; and, like California’s perilous surfspot, it’s on every jibber’s “To Do Before I Die” list. “We never dreamed it’d be this big. It was just something to do,” said Benson about Chad’s Gap.
But with stardom comes territorialism. The real hucksters don’t talk. They want to keep the Gap secret. They reveal not a fear that someone will crunch a bone or stick a pole through their face but that the inexperienced will desecrate the sacred takeoff ramp.
Building the ramp takes as much motivation, energy and skill as it does to actually huck. Two to three full days of six people’s labor go into polishing the in-run. If it’s not ‘just right’ you could miscalculate your life into the deceased skier’s hall of shame. Often, however, the countless hours spent building the jump are laid to waste the next day by poachers or film crews taping the glory and stomping out the evidence.
Chad’s Gap might have survived as an underground, legendary playground for Utah’s freeriding elite if Hall hadn’t beefed big time in the glaring spotlight of every major ski publication and filmmaker last March. Now the word is out.
Ostness and Henrik Rostrups filmed Hall’s session at the Gap for the Teddybear Crisis. Hall attempted a switch 900, pulled up short, slammed into a wall, pitched into a cartwheel and ragdolled about 100 feet past the landing. “He was screaming bloody murder,” said freeskiing pro Gordy Peifer who had taken his Straightline Adventures’ group to watch the Gap that day. “The impact was so loud it was like a car wreck.” The warm spring sun had softened the snow, slowing Hall’s approach speed. He broke both ankles.
These days, if you are in the right circles or do your homework, you’ll determine the whereabouts of the Gap. But the location is in the avalanche-prone Wasatch backcountry. Even getting there is deadly. But let’s say you make it. Hall’s accident reminds us why it’s better to ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’ from the sidelines than charge 100-foot gaps. Sage Cattabriga-Alosa, Chris and Matt Collins, Tanner Hall, Candide Thovex, Romain DeMarchi, Travis Rice. They made history but you might make your grave.
As for Chad Zurinskas? He saw a dentist and hasn’t been back to the Gap in years. “He’s old now,” said Benson. “He’s in his 30s.” Yep. He’s been there, done that and walked away clean; leaving a legacy even he couldn’t comprehend.