The only visitors to the Telluride Ski Resort's Air Garden after this weekend's closing will be wildlife of the furry variety. But wildlife of the snowboard type will find terrain park action alive and well on the Front Range, when hundreds of the nation's best snowboarders converge on Copper Mountain's top-notch park next week for the USA Snowboarding Association's Nationals competition.

Four of Telluride's young snowboarding specialists have been invited to compete in the event, which begins tomorrow and continues through April 9. The Telluride Ski and Snowboard Club's Fletcher Reich and Michael Nelson have qualified for the national championship event, as has the Telluride Mountain School Snowboard Team's Harry and Hagen Kearney.

TSSC's Reich earned his spot at Nationals following stellar season-long finishes in the Grommet Boys (ages 8-9) class. Reich will be strutting his stuff at Copper in the Slalom, Giant Slalom and Bordercross events.

Fourteen-year-old Nelson also received accolades thanks to his winning 2004-05 season, and will be representing Telluride in the Youth Men's division in Slopestyle, Halfpipe and Bordercross.

TMS's snowboarding Kearney brotherhood will be flying Telluride colors at the National Championship in Slopestyle, Halfpipe and Bordercross. TMS's head snowboard coach Jason Troth, no stranger himself to high-level national competition (Troth has been a national-level snowboard competitor for over a decade), explains that the upcoming event will give Telluride snowboarders the chance to meet the nation's best young snowboard athletes and gain valuable big-competition experience.

"Hundreds of the best snowboarders in the nation will be there, and it's great that a few of our own will also be there to represent Telluride," Troth says.