Shredders send it for the Taos Freeride Championships
Unlike half-pipe or slopestyle competitions, there’s more at stake at the Taos Freeride World Qualifier than just reputation. Granted, attaining the glory of Freeride champion at Taos Ski Valley is the stuff of legends and never-ending legacy.
On the flip side, serious bodily harm is a possibility for the slightest of mishaps or miscalculation. The margin for error on a 40-plusfoot-drop with bone crushing obstacles in the form of boulders down below is razor-thin.
In one of the subsections of the International Freeskiers and Snowboarders Association Freeride World Qualifier handbook it states unequivocally: Big Mountain Freeride competitions are activities with inherent risks of serious personal injury, disability and/or death.
For this reason, athletes that are no strangers to danger must wear back protectors during the competition. Still, the threat is always there, and it’s part and parcel for the draw to mountains with imposing precipices for both spectators and daredevils.
Locals grabbed their favorite brews and set up a makeshift snow beach lounge at the bottom of West Basin to watch the spectacle Thursday (March 3).
The first day featured all of the 4-star athletes for men’s skiing and snowboarding, and women’s skiing and snowboarding, plus the masters (any skier who is still competing in the Freeride Qualifiers past the age of 40) competing to make the cut for the finals on Friday (March 4). Only a third of the athletes get to make the cut.
The conditions weren’t great on the West Basin on Thursday. Most riders chose conservative lines with few serious risks involved. They were just trying to do enough to show out on Friday. The announcer for the event found ways to keep the crowd entertained, saying something along the lines of, “the skier is making it through some tough and technical terrain, give them a round of applause.” Those athletes really do make it look so easy.
The few that decided to go big were devastated by the deceiving surface from one of the big rocks close to the St. Bernard side of West Basin, resulting in a couple total “yard sales,” the term used to describe a big fall that leaves a skier’s gear strewn about the run.
One of the better runs of the day, according to a bartender underneath a beer tent near West Basin, came from a skier who “came down the center line and then there’s that lowest rock cliff, 360 offed that. Yeah. Came in hot!
Flying just above that last tree in the middle there, did a huge jump to straight air, and then came off that other little cliff that everyone was jumping in, this way [he points in a right to left direction]. He did like a 360, but like 270 style…and it was a smoothsmooth 360.”
Master skier Roy Leckonby talked about his game plan versus reality. It’s a common scenario for all levels of skiers and snowboarders. You scope out a nice-looking line on the ski lift that could generate some good air time, and then when you get to the spot, it’s either more intimidating up above than from down below or other
factors make the approach unfavorable to you having a safe time out on the slopes.
For Master Leckonby it went like this:
“There’s The Air Up There [an unofficial run on the ridge]. Came down the really rocky section. Had a few really good turns before getting into the trees there. And the snow was great there. The snow was freaking awesome. After the top part was just like snow, rock, snow, rock, snow, rock. Came out of the trees and cut back across through the woods into the Turbinator chute and came off a rock there. But as I was coming through the transfer, a tree ... or some sort of troll. Something grabbed my pole. So I lost my pole in the trees. I was about to air a cliff with one pole and mentally I’m discombobulated a little bit…. You know? It’s like you spend so
much time and mental energy thinking about the visualization of your run and what you’re going to do and all of a sudden you do your run and it’s like ‘what if I had just done this?’ It’s like the mental process and the mental stages as you roll through. Yeah, that’s kind of my love of the sport.”
For context, Leckonby, with a crowd cheering him on in the 2008 Freeride competition, jumped off a super steep cliff, somewhere near the Dahlbredines; it looks to be in the 60-footplus range, if not more. His body sinks back as he’s falling toward another set of rocks and snow, and he essentially just disappears and becomes one with the landscape. Ski patrollers had to dig him out and sled him down to urgent medical care.
On Friday, due to it being the
finals and the conditions being a bit more agreeable, the athletes pulled out all the stops. Skiers were hitting spread eagles while getting huge amounts of air. Chanc Deschamps-Prescott, riding from out of Alyeska as his home resort, hit a backflip that he held for what seemed like several seconds. On the lower portion of Kachina, he hit a 180 and a casual 360. It was good enough for a sixth place finish.
Isaac Huber won first place in the men’s ski category. Kelsey Hyche won first place in the women’s ski category.
Holden Samuels won first place in the men’s snowboard category. Michelle Locke won first place in the women’s snowboard category.
The Junior Freeride was set for Sunday afternoon (March 6) but a powder day created poor visibility, blocking the judges’ views. It was a disappointment for so many athletes who traveled to Taos for this event, and for the local Taos Winter Sport Team free ride athletes ready to show out in front of their home crowd. On the bright side, the conditions were excellent for shredding the gnar for purely personal reasons.
The next big event for the juniors is the Southern Series Alpine championships which will be held in Taos March 26-27.