Freeskier Magazine Ski Test:  Day 2  (all photos by Shay Williams)

Day two was a lot like day one.  However, the sun decided to hide behind the clouds, which left the snow firmer than we have seen this week.  By 11am, the recreational skiers on the hill had lazy-turned their way down enough to shave a nice layer of softy-slough snow on the surface of every groomer – a recipe for absolute ridiculousness.

As if testing a different ski every couple of runs wasn’t enough to shake me out of my comfort zone, Shay Williams decided to gather a flock of freeskiers to send a blind knoll on the front side of Copper Mountain.  With Kevin Kruse’s ecstatic motivational stories of a youth spent avoiding ski patrol wrist-slappings on the very knoll we were about to send, my confidence began to build.  It was when our group of twelve broke into sessions of three or four and pointed it towards the lip at mach-schnell, that I decided that whatever went down would become quite the story, not to mention the photographic evidence to go along.

Then I found myself dodging the last few gapers on the hill, following Steele and his friend through the orange maze just before the knoll, thinking only of the ridiculous skis I had on my feet.  It was my first run on them, and I had no opportunity to build any ability to believe they handle stomp a big landing, let alone the DIN quality of the demo bindings.  But there I was, topping 30 mph towards a blind take-off, my only confidence based on the positive movements Shay was demonstrating from behind the lens as he perched right at the lip and waved his free hand.

Whoosh.  Tip grab.  Stomp.  Sweet, I’m still on my skis and in my bindings.  My mind rushed; I could barely recall Steele’s friend tossing the smooth 360 not more than three feet ahead of me as we sailed through the air.  Confidence rushed right back into my brain as I slid a few turns to a stop.  These skis rip, I say to myself.

“I think they call that a Zudnik!” someone yelled from my right, stomping his landing, afterbang in full effect.  Blindly ignoring the trees rushing past him to the side, Henrik Lampert dropped his hips and slashed a turn, spraying snow up in the air and covering the nearest tree.

“Sure!”  I replied; it didn’t matter the name of the trick, or even how big.  The general stoke of the situation was enough to pull even the most hungover of testers out of bastardness.  High-fives all around, our little group of ski testers and reps alike laughed about our ‘rebel’ act, our minds wandering back to the task at hand.  Length? 181. Radius? 38. Tip profile? Lowered.  Shop talk aside, the session exacted its meaning upon us: we were here to have fun.  Beer and nachos at the end of the day only helped grease the fires for the evening’s debauchery, but that is a story for another time.

Check back for more hot Freeskier Fest action on Day Three at Copper Mountain Resort.