Someone get the duct tape out. We’ve got this year’s winners of the Baker Banked Slalom.
Harry Kearney is the winner of the men’s pro class with a time of 1:09.19. Mary Rand is your women’s pro class winner, representing the northeast with a time of 1:14.41.
The Baker Banked is also known as the Legendary Banked Slalom. It has been held nearly every year (with just few exceptions thanks to little snow cover or Covid-19) at Mt. Baker Ski Area in Washington since 1985. The winner goes home with a duct tape trophy and an embroidered Carhartt jacket.
"The energy you feel during the weekend is a hard thing to describe and its a really hard thing to capture,” operations manager Gwyn Howat told Transworld Snowboarding in 2018. “But for people who experience it, you know exactly what it means. There’s no other way to really get a sense of it unless you’re here."
Past winners include some of the most legendary names in snowboarding: Tom Sims, Shaun Palmer, Craig Kelly, Rob Morrow, Marie-France Roy and Barrett Christy have all taken home the duct tape. Maëlle Ricker won every women’s contest from 2007 to 2013.
The contest made its much-welcomed return this year after being cancelled in 2024. Rain and warm weather caused the Mt. Baker Ski Area’s snow base to recede by 14 inches in just a few days.
On the men’s side, Kearney barely nudged out U.S. Snowboard team member Chase Josey with, beating his time by just .09 seconds. Cannon Cummins – whose mother and father Barrett Christy and Temple Cummins won the event in 2001 — came in third place with a 1:09.65. Mindnich brothers Hans and Nils, Big Air Jared Elson, Felix Dallaire, Arthur Longo, Karel Van Goor and Blair Habenicht rounded out the top-10, all with times in the 1:10 range.
Rand, who grew up in Narrgansett, Rhode Island, beat out Amalia Pelchat by a full second for the pro women’s win. Katie Anderson followed closely behind with a time of 1:15.84, and Ellery Manning came in fourth with a 1:16.33. It capped off a big week for Rand, as The North Face released a video compilation of her leftover backcountry footage from 2004 as a part of a video part titled Strike.
Rand locked up her invitation to the Natural Selection Tour last month. She’ll compete at Revelstoke Mountain Resort between March 10-17.