Sometimes I Just Can't Help Myself

Hind sight is always 20/20. My goal for the season is to challenge myself at every competition and scare myself just a little everyday. In Fieberbrun I stuck to my goals and chose a line that would be challenging and a little scary. It was not out of my ability, but was definitely not a conservative line. The line I chose started out with a 15 foot air at the top of my run, into a some great powder turns, down to a mandatory 35ft (some say 40, but I’m sticking to 35) air with a great landing!

The Line!

I was really excited to ski my chosen line. I hit my top air with no worries, but as I started ripping powder turns down to my mandatory air, the snow started ripping as well. I could feel the sluff piling up around my hips and had to pull over to let the sluff pass by me. This is not exactly what you want to do in a competition run. The idea is to be as fast and as fluid as possible, but a it’s not worth getting taken out above a lot of exposure. I didn’t think the snow would sluff as hard as it did because the slope looked benching. I thought the sluff would be slow and I would easily be able to out run it. Not true. The sluff was incredibly fast and for my safety I had to let it go by me.

After the sluff passed me, I skied right to my mandatory air and was sick about it when I arrived. The sluff that I had cut at the top of the line took out all of the snow above my take off. I had not really planned on this and was essentially cliffed out. I had to make way down all of the rocks to get to my take off and out of the line. It took three must make hop turns to get to the take off. Once I made it to my take off, I was stoked. I was home free. I pointed 15 feet above my take off so I would have enough speed to clear the cliff and popped. Everything went well until the last second when my right ski caught a rock and sent me spinning through the air. I landed on my side as opposed to my feet. Luckily, the snow was really soft and I popped up, skied to my last 15ft air and through the finish.

Mandatory Air with Snow

I had a ton of adrenaline pumping through my body at the finish. I was super stoked that I had challenged myself and made it through my line even though it had not gone as planned.

As I said, hind sight is always 20/20. At awards I felt the disappointment of defeat. The winning line was much more conservative. I didn’t need to chose such a challenging line to do well in the competition. I just couldn’t help myself. If the snow had been stable, the line would’ve been sick!