4-2

Today was my last of the season, and it was awesome. Today was one of my few legitimate powder days this year with 3 feet in the last week, and was the Junior Freeskiing Championships.

The Freeskiing competition is two runs down big mountain faces, with judging on challenge, fluidity, aggression, control, and form/technique. The first run was today on Elk Chutes.

More information in judging is here- http://freeskiingworldtour.com/events_press.html?id=174

Before the competition began, there was an hour allotted for venue inspection, and we loaded the lifts before the public to get started on that early.

Here is the line at Chinook at 8:30. Everyone came for the powder day.

Day one was the elk chutes, and here's several pictures of the venue. For a larger picture, click on it.

From the top.

From the side.

From the bottom.

Even though Crystal had received several feet of snow in the last week, and there were four inches overnight, the venue wasn't great. It was incredibly skied out, and the middle chute right under the peak was very icy, with random ice chunks and rocks poking out. Farther down, conditions were better, but worsened progressively throughout the day. The lower cliff section skier's right of the trees was especially bad. Rocks started coming out everywhere. Props to everyone who went big.

I was unable to compete because the competition continued on Easter, so I was able to forerun (Thanks Rob Greener!) A forerun is the first run of the competition, and warms up the judges and stokes the crowd. The run is supposed to be fast and fluid, without major features, so that's just what I did. After two inspection runs, here is my line roughly (I'm not the best with photoshop). You can click to zoom in.

It went ok. Hearing the announcer say my name, and the crowd cheering was incredible. I skied much better because of it. The top section went well, but I ran into a little problem in the lower section. The chute I went into skier's left of the "Shark's Teeth Cliff" was much rockier than during my inspection runs, and when I unexpectedly unearthed even more rocks, I slid a bit down the chute. However, I regained control, and continued to the finish. That run was so much fun!

MSI even got some photos of me!

http://freeskiingworldtour.com/photos.html (I'm in photos 1 and 2 for Crystal Mountain Jr. Freeride)

I'm definitely competing for real next year.

My forerun was scheduled for 9:30am, but it actually occurred around 10. That gave me the opportunity to watch enormous amounts of people line up at the Northway Gates. At its height, gate one had over 50 people in line. I had never ever seen that before. Once the gate opened, it was like a cross-country ski race to get to the goods. Quite entertaining to see.

This picture was taken about 5 minutes after gate one opened. If you click on it, you can see just how many people crowded Northway. My friend Drew skied over there, and said the lift line was ridiculous.

After the forerun, we met up and skied Niagras about six times. It was finally open! Mostly untracked, with many pillows made for some awesome skiing. Later after watching some incredible competitors, we headed out to Teddy Bear, and hit up some spines I hadn't noticed previously. This was one of the best days of my season, and a perfect way to end it.

Shakers Area of Niagras