The BSF Freeski Team traveled to Park City to compete in Slopestyle and Rail Jam at Woodward over the second week of January. We were given an awesome window of weather and skiing was a lot of fun! Aside from the competition it was a great week of progression and exposure to the level of skiing outside of our region. The athletes love the opportunity to ski terrain parks in other parts of the country. One of the coolest parts about skiing at Woodward is their indoor facility with trampolines, foam pits, skateparks, and much more! It's like a Disneyland for action sports junkies.
Tuesday kicked off competitions for the week with the rail jam event. The setup was less than ideal and really had us appreciating the course at Big Sky. The athletes still did great making the best of the features. The level of competition in these events was much higher than what our athletes are accustomed to in our region. Rising to the occasion in the rail jam was Kaiser Pellmann, an athlete on our snowboard competition team. Putting down some incredible tricks like a cab 270 on continuing 270 and a cab 180 to Tamedog (frontflip) off of the rail! The announcer of the event loved that one by Kaiser! He came close to the podium with a 5th place finish but regardless, he had a great showing.
On Wednesday the team had a free day and we went over to Park City Mountain Resort to ski their terrain park. This was everyone's first time skiing in Park City and up to this point they had only seen it on social media. Everyone was stoked when we pulled up. It was a great afternoon with lots of laughs, big airs, and getting “clips”.
Thursday was our slopestyle event. We were met with great conditions, no wind and blue skies. The whole field of athletes were throwing down in training and the nerves were showing as the start of the competition closed in. In the 11-12 age bracket, Hudson Dail showed PC what Montana has to offer with two very solid runs. His second run scored a 70.00 with both a cork 7 and upright 7 safety that had so much style! His run put him on the podium with a third place finish. In the Men’s 15-16 age group, Emmett Turner also put down one of his best comp runs. He spun both ways, took off switch and forward, and had a huge cork 7 which was good enough to put him on the podium with a second place finish!
These trips are so much more than trying to put your best run down and end up on the podium. That part is considered a bonus! Seeing the crew bond over their shared passion of freeskiing, laughing at the dumbest things, and creating memories is what it is all about.
Here's a short edit from the trip:
