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freestyle

Blackcomb bump run honors mountain designer Garry Davies spent 15 years tramping around in the bush on Blackcomb and when he passed away last summer most of the runs on the mountain stood as a legacy to his dedication to mountain design.

Blackcomb bump run honors mountain designer Garry Davies spent 15 years tramping around in the bush on Blackcomb and when he passed away last summer most of the runs on the mountain stood as a legacy to his dedication to mountain design. Davies, who was Blackcomb's Planning and Construction Manager, was the first staff member Blackcomb President Hugh Smythe hired in 1979. When mogul competitors take their runs over the bumps at the Owens Corning World Freestyle event on Blackcomb Jan. 6-8, the legacy of Garry Davies will continue. The mogul event has been moved from Overbite to a new run, called Davies' Dervish. It was cut just above the Glacier Creek Restaurant this summer. According to John Birrell, Blackcomb's general manager, Blackcomb was looking to create a new mogul run because of a number of problems with Overbite. "Overbite was well known as the toughest run on the freestyle circuit," Birrell says. "Steep, narrow and with an inconstant pitch, the run was not a cakewalk." The major factor in the decision to cut a new freestyle bump run was the fact that the Glacier Express quad impeded the vision of judges, so the lift had to be closed during competition. Other factors, such as the move to a dual mogul race format in the future, made a wider, more consistent run necessary. "The location and the terrain directly above the bottom of the Glacier Express allows for great spectating opportunities and gives an overall better run," Birrell says. A plaque will be erected on a cairn at the top of Davies' Dervish - a tribute to the man that helped build Blackcomb.