The Mountain Sports Festival kicks off this Friday, May 29, for a weekend of fun. Sure, we have our own take on the three-day festival: A handy guide to the events — that’s free music, lots of kid activities, plenty of competitions, and a host of clinics and demonstrations. The guide also features a new twist: What’s it feels like to … get hit by a dodgeball, or survive a kayak run down the Green River’s class-5-plus rapids? Click here to check it out.
Most of the festival takes place down at Carrier Park on Amboy Road (if you haven’t visited this park, get on down there: Carrier offers a cycling track, a playground, a volleyball sandpit, picnic areas, trails, lots of open fields, a rollerhockey rink and more). Festival Village (aka Carrier Park) is down by the French Broad River, and the weather forecast looks great for this weekend. MSF includes a variety of free music. Let us repeat that: FREE MUSIC. You can also check out events taking place in the area: The grueling Rock2Rock Trail Run over at Camp Rockmount, disc golf at Richmond Hill Park, a mountain-bike demo up at Alexander Park, climbing competitions downtown at ClimbMax, the Stampede Run that starts at Martin Luther King Jr. Park, and an “urban skins” disc-golf challenge that will take place on the streets of downtown. Click here to see the festival’s city-sponsored homepage.
But here’s the real deal: We’d like to hear from you this weekend. We’re on the lookout for competition results as quick as you can get them to us. We’d also like to hear from folks who try some of the clinics — backpacking tips, off-road winch-recovery, bicycle maintenance, and more. And send us pictures you’d like to share. Click here for our Flickr connection. And let us know what you think of the bands (there’s everything from jazz to 1960s rock). For Twitter, use the hashtag #mxmsf.
Here’s the tweet challenge from our publisher, Jeff Fobes: “Will MSF attendees tweet event winners and fotos of sporting heroism? Will citizen journalism deliver at 2009 AVL event? #mxmsf.” Stay tuned.
— Margaret Williams
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