Taylor Seaton in 4th at US Open!

The 12th annual US Freeskiing Open went down this weekend in Copper Colorado and Orage athletes Taylor Seaton and JL Ratchel were on site to throw down.

The weather conditions were tough for practice and qualifying the first couple of days. Over a foot of snow fell and the winds were brutal gusting up to 30 mp/h at times!

JL and Taylor both skied well and practiced hard. JL came up a little short in semis and wasn't able to move on. Taylor was stomping his runs and really tweaking his grabs earning him a spot in the finals.

After hurting his heel the first run in finals Taylor kept skiing through the pain and posted even better scores on his final two runs landing a solid 4th place finish, just a few tenths of a point shy of the podium.

Justin Dorey, Matt Philippi and Mike Riddle threw down like never before making this event one of the better pipe comps of the year. Taylor is off to Japan tomorrow for the FIS World Championships where he will hope to reclaim a spot on the podium.

Photos: John Vandervalk