Well, after a long night of little sleep, I found myself loading the Snowbird Tram once again on a quest to make it into the Freeskiing World Tour stop in Utah.  After a conversation with some of the event staff last night at the Tram Club, thoughts of how to make something happen at this comp began to swirl in my head.  It was almost unbearable, especially since we had discussed ways to tone back my ‘go for broke’ approach.  This is something I just haven’t been able to do, and today’s qualifier was no different.

After my inspection run early this morning – well before the sun crested the ridge of West Baldy – I couldn’t choose anything on the venue that looked good.  All the snow had hardened up overnight after yesterday’s warmth and sunshine cooked the recent snowfall that graced the slopes of Snowbird’s steeps.  All the take-offs and landings on any air I could find were either too difficult to maneuver or too icy for what I could see as a successful attempt.  And, being as it were that I was running fairly early in the start order, I couldn’t hope for the sun to have enough time to warm up the snow before my run.

Luckily, the event staff understood the less-than-ideal situation confronting all of us qualifiers, and they decided to push back the start time to give the venue a chance to get a peek of that bright, warm orb in the sky.  This was exactly what I needed to get out there and just shred.

With that call made by the organizers, and after a pep talk by my good friend Andy , I finally came to a decision on the line I would ski.  And boy oh boy, am I happy about that!  There is nothing worse than sitting in a qualifier, not knowing exactly what to do or where to go with no more chances to on-hill inspect the venue.  So I decided to go for a similar line to my last year’s qualifier that had placed me in 8th.

This is a quick couple of turns with an air or two, followed by a straightline down a chute and finishes up by chattering across old traverse tracks and down through the finish.  It is fast and highly consequential if I fall, so that was exactly my plan: don’ fall.

With my run finished, I could finally breath again and I began to look at tomorrow’s venue with a little more zest.  If I had fallen today, my weekend would only consist of drinking beers at the bottom while watching my peers ski sweet lines in each venue.  So, with no fall, I was now able to pick out some fun features to catch air and ski fast on tomorrow’s venue, hoping only for a good start position.

Whew…

Well, here I am in Snowbird once again for the US Freeskiing Nationals.  I have drawn a start number of 18 for tomorrow’s qualifier, meaning I will be running fairly early in the start order of 65 guys.  And this is after the first qualifier heat went off all day today.  Wow.  The popularity of these comps is greatly represented by the number of qualifier participants, not to mention the record fast time for the comp to sell out online.

And with more skiers comes a depth of talent ever better each year.  I like that.  It’ll feel better to win it all with so many good skiers out there.

But, I’ve gotta get through this qualifier first.  Eat, sleep, wake, shower, eat, and shred.  The name of the game tomorrow is fast, fluid and show that I deserve to be in the big show.  More to come tomorrow…

This past season, I found myself recovering from a minor knee injury right in the middle of comp season. I had already missed the Jackson Hole Freeskiing event by the time US Freeskiing Nationals at Snowbird, UT was rolling around. With my knee at less than full capacity, I decided I would take it easy and keep my feet on the ground. What I thought would be just a quick fun-run in the qualifier, with no chance to advance, turned out to be an epic weekend full of high-speed adventure!

Editor’s note: I can’t seem to embed the video right here on this post, so CLICK HERE to watch the hot skiing action!

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I’ve recently updated my photo albums on Facebook. These are a few pics from my newest album, entitled “The TatsVan invades the US Freeskiing Nationals” Enjoy!

Click here to view the rest of the album. Also, be sure to check out all the other photos I’ve uploaded from my cell phone over the past few months.