2nd – 15th Annual Verbier X-Treme

It has been a crazy couple of days. My flight from the US was unexpectedly turned around and I arrived late to Verbier. Luckily, I had an hour to look at the face of the Bec De Rose the day before the competition.

The afternoon was filled with autographs signing.

The bib draw followed the autograph session.

It felt like had been awake for days when I finally crawled in bed at 11:00 p.m. My alarm went off at 5:30 the next morning. The day was not exactly what I was hoping for. The sky was cloudy and it was raining at the bottom of the mountain. It didn’t look like we would compete. Dutifully, all of the competitors loaded the lifts and headed to the top of the Mont Fort. As we approached the top, it looked less likely that we would compete because we could barely see the face of the Bec De Rosas.

Almost convinced that the competition would be postponed, all of the competitors headed inside the lodge for a coffee.

One hour later it was announced that there would be a window of blue sky from 10:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. It was hard to believe considering the wind was blowing hard and it was snowing out. Yet, the man predicting the weather from Chamonix (who also predicts weather for Everest expeditions) assured us that it would magically turn blue. With little hope, all of the girls started the hour hike to the top. I couldn’t believe it. As I crested over the ridge at the top, the sky almost instantly turned blue and the sun was bright. We would be skiing.

I was disappointed with my run. The line I had chosen was a winning line, but I skied with a lot of hesitation. I don’t know if it was the lack of sleep or the jet-lag, regardless I wasn’t charging down the mountain as I had hoped.

The final results for the women: 1st – Ane Enderud, 2nd – Jess McMillan, 3rd – Julia Mancuso. It is the fourth year in a row that I have finished 2nd in Verbier. Not a bad record, but I would really like to win this event one year!