Hey all, just wanted to share some footage from two comps recently held in the Wasatch.
This first video is of the Intelligent Design TTR World Tour event at Park City Mountain, fusing Slopestyle, Halfpipe and Quarterpipe into a single run.
And, here are some highlights of the big lines taken during the Freeskiing World Tour Nationals hosted by Snowbird.
Big thanks to Park City TV for the footage!
Jake Kirshner is a junior at the University of Utah
Last week came and went in a blur. The six-day journey Nik and I took to New Mexico for the Freeride Championships was completely uncharted territory. New ski area, new event (Freeride World Tour), and a new judging system. Overall, it was a very fun experience and something I’d like to do again next season.
Here’s some helmetcam footage from my finals run at the 2009 Extreme Freeride Championships in Taos Ski Valley, NM. Unfortunately, I forgot to record my qualifier line which was, admittedly, 90% more badass.
This line earned me 27th overall in the comp, which was a step down from my Kachina Peak line that had me in 16th after the qualifiers.
Day 1: Leaving Salt Lake
The drive down opened my eyes to a few things:
-There is a 3:1 ratio of Wal-Marts to people in Southern Colorado
-After 8 hours in a car with no radio, you will be convinced that every car on the road is following you
-The night-shift employees at the Chama, NM, Chevron station will force you to take magazine surveys if you want to charge your cell phone at the register
-The internet doesn’t exist after you pass the La Sal Junction
This doesn’t look sketchy at all…
Day 2: Inspection
Any first day at a ski resort is weird, especially when it is for a competition. You really only ski one area and you analyze it a bunch trying to figure out the best places to score big. Taos was no exception, especially when the venue changed the first day from West Basin to Kachina Peak. This changed the hike to the start gate from a 10-minute walk to a 45-minute assault up a ridgeline with 50+ mph winds. Also, any ski event sponsored by Red Bull is a very good thing.
Day 3: Qualifier
Qualifier day provided some cool things and some less cool things.
Cool:
-Kachina Peak is an awesome venue
-Sunshine during your run is always nice
Less Cool:
-Inspecting at 8:00a and having to be back on top of the peak at 9:00a
-Trying to find a place to pee on an exposed ridge with heavy winds
My run went more or less according to plan and I finished 16th (of 54 or so) overall. Nik got hung up a bit, but managed to beat the cut and finish 35th.
Now that’s what I call a Big Mountain Venue!
Day 4: Weather Day
Day 4 was kind of a junk show as it began dumping heavy snow early in the morning and it became clear that it would be next to impossible to run a comp in those conditions. A weather day was called and ultimately the venue was moved back to West Basin, which left those of us unfamiliar with that area a bit bewildered.
Nik wishing he’d taken more pictures of West Basin when there was sunshine…
Day 5: Finals
Finals was a bit hectic as the conditions kept going from blue bird to complete flat light. That being said, there was still some major gnar thrown down.
Snowbird local Cliff Bennett took 1st for the men and Michelle Gmitro finished in top position for the women.
I ended up skiing a line in a bit tamer section of the venue as I didn’t know the area too well and finished 27th. Nik took his go-to approach for top finishes and hucked about 30 feet off an air at the top and straight-lined the rest of the venue. He earned himself 19th.
However, it was University of Utah sophomore, McKenna Peterson who stole the show, placing 2nd for the women. Show-off :-p
Sean Sullivan is a senior majoring in photgraphy at the U.
Perfect sunny park weather graced the weekend for the Intelligent Design event at Park City. It was awesome. It definitely tested the mettle of these so-called “pro snowboarders”; some really struggled and proved that it’s the well-rounded boarder that can truly handle jumps, rails, and transitions.
While some struggled, others excelled, and events like this will push pro riding to the next level as riders have to push their repertoire beyond a few tricks in a single discipline.
Then, late on Sunday night, the snow began to fall. At 9 am on Monday morning there was a good 6 inches on top of the harder snow from the weekends sunshine and it was absolutely dumping. By lunch, the POW WAS BOTTOMLESS.
I mobbed around with the Nikita girls while we attempted to scout locations to shoot next year’s outerwear, and we basically just ditched the cameras to shred all of Brighton’s sick tree runs. The snow kept falling through the night and by 9 am on Tuesday the storm had pretty much blown through. It was super cold out, and blowing winds, but by 11 or so it was pretty much bluebird, with the resort reporting 25 inches. EPIC.
University of Utah students Jake Kirshner, Nik Aksamit, and McKenna Peterson will be competing in the Freskiing World Tour Nationals event, which kicks off today at the ‘Bird with the first of two days of qualifying runs.
Aksamit, the math wiz from Idaho, and Kirshner, the Bay area business and computer science major (who also provides some great content for this blog), had respectable showings at last week’s Taos Freeride comp, placing 19th and 27th respectively. Both look to fare well at their home mountain despite the fact that over 200 athletes have registered for the event.
Peterson, who finished 2nd at Taos, looks to maintain that stellar performance, and finish near the top of the women’s leaderboard.
Proposed venues include Snowbird’s Peruvian Gulch, Mt. Baldy and weather/conditions permitting, a heli-accessed super final on the fabled Mt. Superior.
You can follow the competition live this Friday and Saturday at the Freeskiing World Tour homepage.
Here’s some footage from the FWT Juniors comp at Snowbird that ended Tuesday.
