Beautiful pow skiing In JH and a broken rib!

Julie Weinberg Photo




Today I went out on an early tram with my photographer friend Julie Weinberg and got some beautiful powder shots. The temperature dropped to negative one which made for very nice and light powder skiing, what I like to call cowboy pow. We got some beautiful shots with the Jackson valley in the background. I felt so lucky to be up there skiing on such an awesome day with nobody around. Watching the tram go up and down from the valley floor through the fog. After I was done shooting photos I was really excited to go ski Cody Peak and hopefully No Name face. I was struggling to find anyone to go with, because not a lot of people were around. I called my friend Hadley and she said she was just going to work on going off small airs, a part of me now wishes that I would have went and helped her because now she has a broken back and I have broken ribs. I feel so bad for her, because she is a lot worse off than me, but will recover fast. Getting injured is never a good thing, it is so hard to come back strong and confident. I met up with my friend Alex and we decided to go do Twice is Nice, something I have skied a lot before. We got fresh tracks in Twice which was awesome but we had to deal with a little with slough management. I skied down the right fin and had some amazing pow shots but as I was cutting over to him in the safe zone the slough caused me to lose my balance and I landed right on my side on a huge boulder that somehow must have come down with the snow because it was right on top of the snow. Bad luck, I jumped right back up and thought I was fine, but I definitely was having a hard time breathing. I skied the rest of the technical chute with no problems and thought I could hike up to No Name face to ski. That was definitely was not going to happen, so I slowly tried to ski out. I was in so much pain every little bump brought on nausea and dizziness. The pain was pretty excruciating and at the end of the traverse I ran into my friends Griffin and Matt, I was so excited to see them! When you are injured it is so nice to be around people that are so supportive and helpful. (thanks Alex and Brian also!) I just need to rest for a few days and I am hoping to be skiing in no time, super painful and it is dumping. My good friend and fellow competitor Jess Mcmillan is also injured so we were able to go on a walk today which was the highlight of my day! I hope her and Hadley heal fast and we will all be abel to rip around together again. When you are injured you never realize how much you love to ski!!! I cant' wait to get back out there.



Twice is Nice

Beer Camp!

We al traveled to Sierra Nevada to learn about the beer! Pretty impressive, they are great people to have sponsor the tour! Very sustainable and professional. Enjoy the video

http://sierrafreeski.com/videos.html

Jackson Hole open Wall to Wall in November!!!

Brooke Edwards Photos!!

For the first time and history Jackson Hole Mountain Resort opened the entire mountain including the hobacks and lower faces on November 27th. This is the highest snowpack ever recorded in history this early in the year! It was definitely a memorable day and one I will never forget. I have skied Jackson Hole ever since I was 2 years old and never remember skiing so much powder so early in the year. Also the entire day on Saturday there were no lines, which was also really very special. Everyone that was out skiing was locals and the energy on the hill was amazing! With our amazing tram, it shuttles 100 people up the mountain so it spread people out quickly. Also a lot of people were done skiing by 12, because of being tired. They needed their ski fitness! Ha ha! I did a lot of fast laps with no lines, I could not remember the last time that I had skied so much in bounds and gotten so many powder runs, that were not getting tracked. I definitely slept well that night, I was glad I had been strength training for

skiing, but the long and fast runs were still hard. I think this winter is shaping up to be amazing and I can't wait to be a part of it!

A few good turns.

Nov. 17th Skiing on Teton Pass, Wyoming from Brian Mulvihill on Vimeo.

Opening Day at the Village should be good!

Ski and Snowboard Fitness

This year has been a really successful year for me with ski/snowboard fitness, I sold out my two classes for my first session which was shocking. I have a great mix of skiers that do not like to workout in your typical gym setting, so Mountain Athlete has been the perfect place for everyone. Thanks Rob!! I can not emphasize how important it is to become strong for your recreational sport and in this instance skiing/snowboarding. The more you can strengthen your muscles independently the stronger you will be as a whole and you will be less susceptible to injury. The other key element in ski/snowboard fitness is helping people recover from an injury, when you leave physical therapy that does not mean that you are ready to ski or snowboard. There are still a lot of strengthening exercises that need to be done in preparation to be physically and mentally strong to return to skiing/snowboarding. My class focuses on injury prevention and strength through balance, stabilization, agility and flexibility. Also it is really nice to have someone to push you so the class setting is really great.
Check out my training blog here

I have not felt this strong for skiing in a long time, my body just feels better and overall I feel more confident with skiing. I have learned so much working with different athletes from your ski bum to young freeriders to older ski enthusiasts. It has been a great learnning experience and I can not emphasize the importance. If you have a chance to prevent injury and feel stronger skiing/snowboarding why would you not want to try? I am really excited for the upcoming season and hopefully Jackson Hole has a great year! We are already off to a great start.

First Turns of the Season!!!

Monday and Tuesday we had a huge storm sweep through Jackson depositing about 41 inches of snow! It was crazy because two days prior I was hiking Jackson peak and mountain biking. We hiked glory bowl and skied twin slides, which actually had really good coverage and I was able to ski more aggressively than I expected! We then skinned over and skied Avalanche Bowl, which was as good as it gets in my opinion, really light and fluffy snow! It felt great to get back on my skis again in Jackson Hole! I have been spending a lot of time at Mountain Athlete trying to get strong for the upcoming season. Doing a ton of strength and agility exercises. Also have been teaching about 4 ski fitness classes and hoping to get the rest of the ski bum community in shape for the season. I hope we have an amazing winter in Jackson!!!

No more women on the Freeride Tour!

No more women on the Freeride World Tour! Very disappointing, but for some reason not hard for me to believe. Last year was my first and only year on the tour and I thought it was one of the most amazing competition experiences I had ever had. The only problem was the lack of support that I felt with the women especially compared to the Subaru Freeskiing Tour. When I won that tour in 2009 Julien Lopez who won for the guys and I had the exact same amount of press and exposure it was so awesome to be treated equal with the guys champion. My first competition in Chamonix was exciting, nerve racking and intimidating. I definitely never felt completely welcome as a female and I already thought it was a little ridiculous that the men and women were skiing the same venue spending the same amount of money and the men won $8,000 for first and the women only won $2500. I do not think we should be completely equal with prize money, because there is more of the guys , but I think we should be a lot closer in earnings.
The women had to go second in Chamonix which at first I did not mind because there was a lot of slough management because of the temperature changes. I had picked an aesthetic line that I knew I had to do, but knew by the time the ladies ran it would not be the best snow. I went for it anyway and landed in hardened avy debris, I was bummed but excited I had skied that line. When the guys were running there was a helicopter flying and filming. Approximately a hundred journalist supposedly were just there for the men. When the women started all the press and helicopter left! It felt so weird to me like I was not really competing. I know we do not ski like the guys, but we are all pushing ourselves and the level for women. In Squaw this year it was some of the most amazing women skiing I had ever seen. Everyone was throwing down on the same guys lines. The winning girls line was the same as the guys. The women had to go second again on a small venue that we should have at least been able to go first for one of the two runs. I crashed twice and the second run the air I had taken had been so bombed out by the men that I landed one leg in one of their bomb holes one out and knocked myself out for second and definitely could not walk for 3 days after. The point is this is regressing our sport as women when last year I thought our sport had taken such a huge step on both tours. The Subaru tour still has amazing amount of competition and I hope women will still continue to push themselves and want to try or continue competing!

Termas De Chillan Part 2!!!

My last day at Termas was a little more of a challenge, but still a great adventure. I decided I wanted to skin up another volcano, this one was just to the right of the first one and opened up to a valley of more great terrain. I was told I could ski down and then be able to hike up the back side of another volcano and ski back into the resort. As I got to the top of Volcano Viejo the clouds started to come in with a thick fog. I waited for it to clear a bit and then had an awesome long run down the volcano proper. I decided to keep going into the valley hoping to be able to find my way out to the side. As I kept going further down, I knew I was on the backside of a lot of terrain called the fingers, I had skied in the resort, but I was not seeing how I could get out of the valley I was in! I followed some tracks (never a good idea) and found myself cliffed out by two canyons with a beautiful stream running through. I definitely was not getting across, so my only choice was to skin back out of the valley I had skied down, which was about 3,000 vertical feet. It was pretty socked in with fog at this point and I could see the track from the cat so started to head for that and followed the track up. 2 hours later I was back in the resort and had done about 3 hours of skinning so had gotten some good exercise for the day! I took a few more runs and then went and had a beer with my new friend at the Iglu, she likes dance music and speaks English so we bonded!! ha! ha! I then packed up and left Termas and took a 7 am bus to Santiago and then a night bus to Mendoza! I loved Termas and will definitely go back soon, hopefully I can learn some Spanish by then!

Termas De Chillan!!!

So after Portillo I was not sure what to do, because my ski partners had to bail. I thought about going to Las Lenas anyways, but there was not lodging for me. My friend Claire Smallwood is working in Termas De Chillan a very cute small resort in southern Chile.Thanks Claire for everything!!! I had never heard of the place, but now I am stoked that I decided to give it a try! I hopped on a bus and went about 6 hours south of Santiago. I definitely need to brush up on my Spanish because I was the only American on the bus and had a horrible time trying to communicate. My wine also spilled in my backpack and started dripping on the Chileans, needless to say I was not a real popular person on the bus. I am a red head (so I get weird looks anyway), a wino and do not speak Spanish. I was the last person on the bus and they dropped me off at a nice little hostel called Chil'in. I was able to communicate to get a room and have been here the last four days. It is perfect spring skiing here, which is awesome! Any kind of skiing is fun this time of year.
Termas has one main lift and it takes 22 minutes to get to the top. Long runs, but wow is it a long chairlift ride when you are by yourself. I decided to do some touring, because the options are endless. The first day I skinned to the top of a volcano and it was such an eery feeling with it steaming all around me. Awesome corn skiing down with some really steep pitches one after another. Yesterday I saw an amazing face that looked like it was only an hour away as I started skinning I realized that it was a few canyons away! It took me two hours to get to the first sub peak and I decided that would be a good stopping point! I had a great adventure skiing down not knowing exactly where I was going. That was the story of my entire trip here just exploring and seeing new things and meeting some great people that I could not communicate with. I had some good alone time and skied some great snow! tomorrow I go to Santiago and then to Mendoza and then home!!! I am excited to get home and get back to work!

Portillo and Super-C!!!!!!!!

My first couple days in Portillo did not start out like I wanted, I got some type of food poisoning or a flu. I was stuck in bed for 2 days, but the last two days have been so much fun that it has made up for the horrible days in bed! Yesterday Johnathan (selkophoto.com) and I went out and made some really amazing photos with not great snow conditions, but the scenery here is breathtaking so that definitely helps and of course my amazing Arcteryx colors also did their job! I also have met some great new people and five of us today decided to ski the Super- C Couloir, I had not heard much about this except that Chris Davenport has said that Is one of the best in the world! Coming from a person like Dav that goes a very long way so I was stoked. We started hiking around 10 am because it was definitely a little cloudy and snowy. My hiking and skiing partners include my friend Joni from SLC, my new friends Tucker and Axle from California and Gabe from Canada! We had a nurse, a ski patrol, a medical tech and a geologist on board and oh me a personal trainer/waitress/river guide/skier whatever I am. (ha ha). It was a pretty steep hike and I believe we all made it to the top in about 2 hours, we topped out at 13,100 and probably hiked about 2500 vertical feet. When we got to the top it was beautiful, even though we could not see much I knew we were surround by huge mountains. On a clear day you can see Aconcagua (22,841). I looked down and I could not wait to ski! The top part was probably about 50-55 degrees and some dust on crust. I made the first turns and totally fell in love with this couloir, because it was steep and just kept going and going! Huge beautiful volcanic walls on either side. The couloir I believe was about 3,500 vertical feet! We even got some amazing deep pow turns! In the last year I have skied some pretty amazing couloirs from the Tetons, to La Grave and Chamonix and this one definitely is very high on my list!!! I just love all couloirs!!! Can't wait to ski more!!!

Second Place!!! Las Lenas Argentina!!!

I woke up this morning pretty nervous about competing! I knew my line, but only skiing two day before a comp had my nerves a title higher than normal. There was not a lot to my line, besides a technical straitline about halfway down that had an ice bulge in the middle. I was excited to ski it, I knew it would get my blood pumping! There is not a lot of snow in Lenas so there were not a lot of opportunities for air.
I was happy with the line I chose and felt really strong the entire way down the venue. Because of the lack of snow we were only going to have a one run competition, which is really tough especially when there was not a lot on this venue to separate ourselves from anyone else. I skied and then watched the rest of the girls also ski very strong, there were only 12 women competing, but it was a pretty stacked field. I ended up second by .20 behind friend and competitor Angel Collinson, I could not believe how close we were. Overall I was very happy with my results and am glad to have the comp behind me. Las Lenas did a wonderful job with awards and had a great band for us to follow. It was a lot of fun to see all my competition friends after not seeing them for about 4 months, it is like a second family and it was fun to watch all the guys ski super strong. Now I am headed to Portillo, Chile to shoot photos with my friend Johnathan Selkowitz!

Las Lenas comp one run tomorrow!!!!

So the comp was postponed until tomorrow, which was good and bad, a part of me was ready to compete today so we could have a full comp, but another part of me needed a little more time to ski to feel more physically and mentally prepared. I am excited about the venue because it is steep and long. There are not a lot of airs because Las Lenas does not have a lot of snow and the takeoffs are receded. I am just hoping the line I have chosen is strong enough. I do not really have a lot of features just some technical skiing. It is hard when it is only a one run comp because it is anyones game! I went and skied a long run that involved a 20 minute hike which was really fun and it was good to know that my body still remembers how to ski. I feel pretty strong thanks to Rob and Mountain Athlete! Hopefully the sun will shine for us tomorrow and the comp will be a great success! This is the first time that any of us have competed in Las Lenas! Also the first time there has been a comp since 1994! The terrain here looks endless when they have snow. I hope to be able to come back and ski. I am posting a photo of the venue and the surrounding areas. We have to walk down on dirt to get to the entrance, pretty crazy. Mt Eduardo here we come manana!!!

South America!!! Finally after crazy summer!

I have finally arrived in Mendoza Argentina after flying for about 24 hours. I am waiting to catch a 2 am bus to Las Lenas and then will be competing on Thursday. I know I am pushing it a bit, but I was not able to get out of work any earlier and I really wanted to do my annual girls pack trip!! Cramming everything in at the last minute, but I am not regretting doing any of it. I arrived in Mendoza today around 100 pm. I am staying at a really hip hostel downtown called Damajuana. So far I love Argentina and the food. Mendoza is a great running city and I went for run around a large park. I probably saw about 100 runners in my 30 minute run. It is definitely a night area! All the bars are just starting to open and it is 9 pm, I am trying to go to sleep so I can wake up and catch a bus to Lenas at 2 am and ski all day tomorrow. I am really excited, I have never been here and I am already enjoying the culture and the food!! Here are a few photos of Mendoza, I will keep you updated with the competition, because it will be live webcasted.

Skiing in Alaska on Summer Solstice!

I decided to do a spur of the moment to Alaska to see my good friends Brooke and Mike! I had no expectations, so it turned into one of the most amazing trips. On summer solstice a friend Jake and I decided to hike up a mountain behind cooper landing, it still had a nice strip of snow the entire way down. I borrowed Brooke's telemark setup, which was quite interesting because I am not a tele skier. I had her little race skis so just arced some alpine turns tried to drop a knee, but was not totally successful. Hiking up we had amazing views of Kenai Lake and the Kenai river. Mountains just went for days as far as the eye could see. Alaska is really beautiful in the summer time very green, but not super warm, which made for great skiing. On the way up we saw some pretty large grizzly bear tracks, which made me a little nervous. I was also informed that there was a bear kill in the drainage that we had to walk out, but it was a few weeks old. As we walked down the drainage we started to see pieces of a moose, this was not a small moose either. There was definitely not much left to him besides legs and bones. We made is safely past the kill and onto the road for the walk out! It was perfect spring skiing and made for a great summer solstice day. Nothing beats being in AK for the longest day of the year. It never really got dark that night, we ended the day with some fishing!!!

Life is to short

A week ago a friend and fellow competitor Arne Backstrom Died while skiing in Peru. This has hit our small close knit ski community very hard. I was not really close to Arne, but got to know him over the last two seasons of skiing on the freeskiing circuit and he had a great impact on me as a skier and a friend. The first time I met him, he skied up behind me and asked me my advice about a line. I was shocked because one of the best male skiers in the country was asking my advice. (ha ha) He was always soft spoken and very modest about his skiing, he also had more passion for skiing then anyone I had ever met. Last year after I won the Freeskiing World Tour he congratulated me and I told him next year you should win this thing. He gave a smug smile and said that would be his dream and that was what he was going to work toward the following season. This past season I watched him ski so well on the tour and barely win the tour by a point. That was the last time I saw him and he was so happy to have won the overall tour! I will always remember the big smile on his face after he accomplished the feat of winning the Freeskiing World Tour.
Some of my best friends I have met through the freeskiing tour and after just one season of us skiing together we become very close. It is hard to explain, but when you are competing in a sport that involves high level of adrenaline and risk you gain a connection with people. There is also so much support between the men and the women which I have never seen in any other sport. The women support other women and the men and men support us as well. I will never forget all the people I have met over the last four years of competing. I hope to continue to build more memories skiing with these friends. We have had a lot of deaths to the community over the last couple years, but it never makes me regret what I do. It just makes me realize how short life is and how I want to always enjoy it and continue to ski the way I love to ski!

Southwest Couloir on Moran done!!!!

After my attempt about a week ago, I was ready to go back and ski the Southwest Couloir. I was hoping the snow would be a little more settled and this time I knew exactly where I was going. This time I was joined by three different guys Don, Patrick and Ben. These guys are some of my favorite ski buddies so I was stoked, they also are strong which is great for putting in boot packs. (ha ha.) We left the string lake parking lot around 4 am and started skinning toward the mountain. We were a little nervous about crossing Leigh lake, but we knew it would be faster and day was supposed to warm so we needed to get going. The lake seemed pretty frozen but the top layer was definitely weakening. We cruised across the lake with no major problems and jumped onto shore. We were hoping that the lake crossing was the crux of our trip. We started to skin up the canyon following Moran around. We passed quite a few bar tracks, a couple of them definitely belonging to a grizzly, this made me nervous. I really did not want to come face to face with a grizzly.
As we wove out of the trees and started to gain elevation the alpenglow on the mountains was so beautiful, there was no one in sight and the only tracks, besides the bears that we saw were the tracks from us the week before. We skinned as high as we could which was put us at 9500 feet only 3000 more to go! The snow was pretty frozen so we put on our crampons and started our boot pack up the gully that we had missed a week ago. We were able to move pretty quickly with the hard snow and continued switching off. We made it to the base of the couloir in about an hour and a half from when we had started boot packing, the base of couloir was at about 11,000 ft. We took a quick break and then started our ascent up the beautiful couloir with huge walls on either side and a mix of different types of rock. The snow was a little deeper in the couloir, which made for better skiing, but tough boot packing. The elevation also was starting to slow our pace we reached the top of the couloir at around 11 am and still had not seen any sun, but we knew as soon as we skied out of the couloir it would be really warm. We topped out at about 12,300 just about 300 feet from the summit, scrambling over rock and snow in an exposed area looked a little challenging so we opted out of trying to get to the summit. We clicked in and one at a time skied the long steep couloir. (about an average of 45 degrees entire way.) The snow was variable, but it was definitely high on my coolest couloir list. We skied out of the couloir and into the sun. The mountains around were starting to come alive with wet slides, so we boogied down the gully and out to a safe zone for a break. This time we had to go around the lake and do some bushwhacking, definitely took longer, but we were all glad that we had nothing to do with the lake. We made it back to the car right around 4 pm, made for a long day, but we were all psyched to have skied an aesthetic couloir on Moran!

Attempt of Southwest Couloir on Moran!

It had snowed about three feet in the last week, which was making for some winter conditions. A group of four of us decided to go and checkout and hopefully ski the Southwest Couloir on Mt Moran. I was not feeling totally optimistic, because of all the snow that we had received in the past week, but I was really excited to go and check out a new area. We left the String Lake parking lot at 5 am, the skies were clear and it was below freezing. We skinned across Leigh lake, which was still very frozen. The sun rose up over the lake and made fore a gorgeous sunrise. We stopped for water and food at the mouth of Leigh canyon on the far side of the lake. We then started to ascend up the canyon, the skinning was pretty tough with all the new snow we were trudging in snow up to our knees. I was glad that we had four of us to break trail, because we continually switched off as we climbed about 3800 vertical feet. Somehow we missed our turn and ended up at the bottom of Hidden Couloir on Thor Peak. Dan and Mark were sure we were going the right way and Brian and I were not totally convince, we somehow had veered away from Moran. We decided since we had already come this far that we would just start making our way up Hidden Couloir and get some good turns. We were skinning up the bottom when a small slide came barreling down above us, which seemed to be in slow motion. We were all able to get out of the way, but that was enough excitement to turn us around. We skied back down the skin track and decided to at least see if we could see the Southwest Couloir. We boot packed up a protected saddle and there right in front of us was the couloir, it looked pretty awesome. We knew with the conditions and time of day that we were not going to attempt to ski it. We skied over the saddled and decided to ski down the gully that we were supposed to ascend up. The skiing was really good, with just a few sharks here and there. Since we had not come up this way we were not sure if we could ski the entire way down. The gully narrowed more as the four of us descended in elevation and we all skied to the side in a safer zone and Brian skied down to see if the we could ski through. He said it was a no go, we then strapped on our crampons and got out our ice axes and decided to try and down climb the small ice section. Mark descended first and was having some difficulties so we started to look for another route. We climbed up and to the right and were relieved to find a way out. We skied out and to the lake and were psyched to have made it safely down. After seeing the couloir I can not wait to get back up there to hopefully ski have another chance to ski the Southwest Couloir!!!

Static Peak

My two good girlfriends and I decided to go and check out the conditions in Grand Teton National Park. We decided to ski Static Peak, which stands at 11,303 feet. It was a good start to the spring skiing in the Tetons. We started skinning around 730 am and reached the summit around 11 am. It was more of a trek than I had thought. I had been up there in the summer, but the winter approach is different. It was still pretty frozen at the top, which made for tough skiinning. The summit of Static is actually one of my favorite views in the park. You have a great view of Buck mountain and the Grand. It also drops off about 500 feet off the backside. it was still pretty cold when we reached the summit at 1120 am. We decided to just ski the main bowl back down to Stewarts draw. It was pretty nice corn and it was fun to rip big G.S. style turns the entire way down. I was pretty excited about skiing static it was a lot longer and steeper than I had thought. Now I think I am ready for something bigger!!!

The Desert Climbing and Biking

This past week I put my skis away just for a little and went down to the desert to enjoy some warm weather and some climbing and mountain biking. We started out our trip in St George, Ut in Snow Canyon, which actually has some great climbing and biking. I have not done a lot of climbing on sandstone, but the stuff I have done I absolutely love. It is very grippy and I can use my feet and feel more confident. There was also some great technical biking that I was not expecting over sandstone through slots in the rocks. Really fun and a great way to start out biking again! We climbed and biked everyday which was really fun! We then headed down to Red Rocks, Las Vegas. Red rocks is a a beautiful area with canyons and amazing climbing just out of Vegas. When you are climbing you can see the strip. It is pretty crazy because the differences between the two are like night and day. We climbed the entire time in Black Velvet Canyon which is a beautiful canyon with water running through and huge walls for climbing. The first day we climbed a classic called Frogland, which was six pitches of about 5.8. The next day we climbed Yellow Brick road, which is on Black Velvet wall. This climb was 5.10a and 5.10b which was a lot more challenging for me. Very steep and exposed, but it was one of my favorite climbs I have ever done. It was 4 pitches and pretty sustained the entire way. I am beginning to become more confident with climbing and I hope to eventually be comfortable leading trad. We had great weather the entire time and it was hard to leave, it was a great break from skiing after a long and crazy winter. I am excited to still do some skiing in the Tetons.

Podium and No crashing!!!!! Finally!!!!

Last weekend I competed in the Freeskiing World Tour Championships in Snowbird, Ut. I have been having a really rough and disappointing season so I really wanted to the end the season off on a positive note. I was really bummed about not qualifying for Verbier or even being able to have a judged run on the Freeride World Tour. I was excited to compete in Snowbird though, because it was the comp that I had won last year. I had hurt my knee in Kirkwood, so I was not sure how it would feel competing on hard pack in Snowbird. I wore a brace and my knee felt pretty good, I picked out a pretty mellow line on the day one venue but just really wanted to stay on my feet so I could ski my fun line on the finals venue. I did not score as well as I would have thought, but was only about 4 points out of first and 2 points out of the podium. I was in 8th place. Going into the finals I was so excited to ski my line on North Baldy, but my mindset was little different this year. I just wanted my confidence back and after my first run I had gotten it back. I moved from 8th to 2nd and was so excited for the superfinals to ski my line with more confidence and really charge. I won the superfinals run by 21/2 points, but it was not enough to move into first. I was just psyched because I skied like myself and ended my season with a solid second place finish!!!

if you want to see the top three runs go to http://www.freeskiingworldtour.com/video.html

Snowbird!!! Freeskiing World Tour Championships!!!

This year has been a very different year for me as far as competing goes. I have been participating on two different tours which has made it difficult for me to competitive on either tour for the overall. I have also had some tough luck with crashing, which has been tough on my confidence and my body. I crashed very hard in Kirkwood and have been rehabing my knee since, today was my third day skiing since the crash and I am feeling almost 100%. Last year I placed first here in Snowbird and won my first Freesking World Tour event by ten points. I am not sitting anywhere in the overall standings so I do not have the pressure. I just want to come out and finish my season strong and confidently. I have very similar lines picked out as last year, which I am excited about. I just want to make sure that I make it past tomorrow, so I can ski my fun line on Baldy that won me the competition last year. Tomorrow we compete on Silverfox, the conditions are definitely a little chalky and challenging. I just need to be aware of the landings and that I will accelerate after taking any type of air. I am ready and am feeling confident about my skiing! The event will be live at freeskiingworldtour.com
(the picture on the top is Silverfox and the one on bottom is Baldy.)

Kirkwood California Freeskiing World Tour Stop # 4

After Squaw I was pretty sore from crashing and had to take a few days off. I wanted to be ready for Kirkwood and be confident with my skiing. This has been a really tough year on me mentally and it has started to downward spiral my confidence. When you start to crash a lot it makes it hard to think about anything in the gate except crashing. Squaw was my 5th pretty large crash in a row. I arrived at Kirkwood feeling pretty confident but mentally a little off. I placed second there last year and wanted to just have a strong finish to make me feel confident about my skiing. The first day I I picked a pretty mellow line to just gain back confidence that I can ski and not crash. I did just that but did not feel that great about my run. I was sitting in 6th place going into the finals. Looking at the next days venue I picked out a little more rowdy of a line that I was really passionate about. The next morning I changed my mind and mellowed out my line again. My good friend Janina skied the line that I wanted to ski, I was so stoked for her, but it made me want to ski it on my superfinals run. I was sitting in 5th going into the superfinals so I figured I had nothing to lose. I went for the line, but as I was skiing into the chute I had a bad feeling. I needed more speed for where I wanted to ski and next thing I knew I was coming up short on the air and landing on some rocks and cartwheeling down the venue. I felt no pain at the moment, but as I started to hike up to get my ski I knew I had tweaked my knees pretty good. ( I think I have a slight tear in my MCL.) I ended up 5th, my friend Janina won and also won the coveted sickbird with the line I was so passionate about, I am so stoked for her, but wish my confidence would have been better to ski the line. The good news is I still ended up 5th out of 30 girls. I think I just need a little break from competing for a little while, I know I can ski but have had a tough year. I hope my knee will heal, so I can try to go defend my title in Snowbird next weekend.

Squaw Valley No Tram Face!!!!

I woke up really early to go scope lines on the Tram Face, I was really excited about my line it was more of a technical ski line not as many airs. I felt confident about my line because I just wanted to have a solid run to get my confidence back. It was a beautiful day and people were filing in to watch the comp, I felt like I was at a football game with people tailgating. It was so awesome to see that many people out to watch our sport. Right before they were going to send the first forerunner about a one foot crown broke sending an avalanche over the venue. This was not why Tram Face was canceled but had something to do with it and how the snow conditions would progress. So this left us to ski two runs on Silverado, which was a very short venue and not as much technical skiing. I picked a line that had two good features in it starting with a 25 foot air at the top. I landed the top air with no problems and was so excited! I then went into my technical waterfall line at the bottom and underestimated the landing. It was so flat that I just planted strait into the snow. I was super bummed, because I had a great line going. I tried to not be to bummed because I had one more chance to redeem myself. I also had nothing to lose, because to qualify for Verbier I needed to get 1st or 2nd. I figured my top air was money because it had been so smooth on the first run. I picked out a very technical steep air at the bottom that I was really excited about. I felt very confident about my line choice and new if I stuck this I would be very high in the placings. I went into my top air and as I was flying through the air I saw that my landing area was a huge bomb hole. I landed super hard bringing my knees to my face and knocking my goggles off my helmut. This was one of the hardest crashes of the year and I was not able to finish my run. I was so bummed, because if I just would have been a foot to the left I would not have hit the bomb hole. I could not believe that I had crashed again. This year has been really tough on me because I feel that I am skiing really well, but have just had some bad luck with line choices and not being able to stay on my feet. Last year I had one of the best years of my career and this year I am having one of the worsts, but I am also upping my skiing ability so hopefully soon it will pay off. Headed to Kirkwood for the Freeskiing World Tour.

Freeride World Tour Stop # 3 Tram Face (hopefully)

Squaw received 16 inches of heavy wet snow overnight last night, which made for some interesting but fun skiing conditions for today. I skied and then scoped Tram Face, I found a line that I am really excited about and just need to take into consideration that the conditions are not ideal. I feel that I have never skied a competition where the conditions are ideal so I feel that I am ready. At the meeting tonight they told us that we would not be skiing tram face tomorrow. This raised some concerns among the athletes. The tour has been trying to get a competition off on Tram Face for 3 years and everyone is psyched to try and get it done. I was bummed, I was really excited to ski the tram face and I knew this is probably the only chance that I will get. Jeremy Jones spoke up being a local and one of the best snowboarders in the world, he said this is as good as the face will get and why not ski it. Cody Townsend another local big mountain skier also felt the same. I was really glad that people were speaking up and the organizers were listening to the athletes. There is no final consensus that we will ski Tram Face, but it is looking pretty positive. I am planning on skiing my line tomorrow, but will be ready for whatever they throw at us. I just really would be excited to ski strong here and be able to build up some confidence with my skiing. My line that I am thinking about is pictured here and is more technical and not as many big airs. I am stoked to be able to ski such an awesome venue!!! Hope it happens.

The Sliver

I was only back in Jackson for a week, but I was really excited to get up into Grand Teton Park and do some skiing. I had one full day off, so I decided to go ski the Sliver, which is a really narrow couloir on Nez Perce. I had attempted to ski it last year, but the snow was so warm that we were only able to get to the top of Shadow Peak. I have been on a roll with skiing couloirs especially after Europe, so I could not wait to ski another one. It took us about 3 hours to get to the top of Shadow and then we had to drop down so we could boot up the Sliver. Booting up the sliver was a little challenging because the snow had all funneled through and it was like swimming up a 50 degree slope. We finally made it to the top after about an hour of boot packing. I was so excited to ski another couloir! It definitely compared to the couloirs in Europe just a little shorter but it was definitely 800 feet of pure steep, so that was awesome. We then skied the rest of the way down getting some awesome light fluffy face shots! I always feel so awesome after spending a day in the Tetons and realize how lucky I am to live in such an amazing place! I now am getting ready for the Freeride World Tour Stop # 3 in Squaw Valley, Ca. I hope the snow stays good there so we can ski the Tram Face....