The Vill: World Gelande Quaffing Champs

Wednesday, March 05, 2008

By Brigid Mander

Jackson Hole, Wyo.-The best news this week is that spring has not yet sprung. Spring harbingers, such as pesky little flowers and green things, are not yet poking their heads up and things have just been buried under another fabulous layer of powder.
The bad news is that the spring hordes are officially here. Massive lift lines were the scene last week, notably on Sunday. Like the exasperated skier in the Village Cafe who exclaimed to the bar, “Time to move to another country! This place is done,” you could leave town, or conceivably, get used to it.

Though some fear that this will be the scene all the time with the new tram, as we have discussed before, there is hope. It seems tourists have no idea what is going on, which lift they are on, or perhaps even what resort they are at. We say this simply because multiple tourists this season have asked during gondola rides if they are on the tram. So, maybe we won’t see that many extra people next year…if they don’t know what a tram is, how can they rush out to ride a new one?

We may have witnessed the birth of another lasting legacy of the Jackson Hole Air Force last week when the World Gelande Quaffing Championship was held here at the base area. Originally the pass time of the Jackson Hole Air Force, back in the Bear Claw Café (now the Village Café), official gelande quaffing first made an appearance as a publicity tactic for ‘Swift Silent Deep’, Jon Klaczkiewicz’s upcoming JHAF movie, at the Outdoor Retailer Show in Salt Lake City.  It was a very big hit, necessitating a championship event. In the contests, a beer is slid down a bar, caught in the air, and chugged-many times.

With eight teams to start, it all came down to the Village Café versus the Ski Patrol, a very appropriate matchup, noted Howie Henderson, one of the founders of the Air Force. Back in the day, when gelande quaffing was born where the VC currently operates, “it was JHAF versus ski patrol in everything,” said Henderson. He and Benny Wilson, another founder, served as judges for the event. Much to the delight of onlookers, the VC team of Johhny Recchio, John Verdon, Reese Edwards, and Cody McInnes outdid the patrollers in front of a roaring crowd in the final round.

“We came in fired up from skiing a bunch of pow, and we were thirsty. We brought a bunch of stoke to the table and then we crushed it!” said John Verdon. With VC owner Dom Gagliardi as coach, there was no stopping the VC team. According to Verdon, “If we didn’t have him as coach, we wouldn’t have gone so far in the comp.”

Crowd turnout was huge, despite little publicity beforehand.  The crowd provided a deafening backdrop to the competition, and skiers of all ages and specialties came together and cheered as one big community for the beer drinkers.

Henderson, evidently pleased with the event, would certainly be echoed by many when he proclaimed, “This is the best thing that has happened for ski bum morale in this town for years!” Check out the slide show at www.gregepstein.com/ssdquaf, and more gelande footage on youtube.

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The Vill: World Gelande Quaffing Champs | Planet JH News Article: Sports & Recreation

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