Part of Maxie’s season up in the mountains involves competing at a handful of International Freeskier and Snowboarder Association (IFSA) freeride comps across Northern California. His first was on home turf at Sugar Bowl last weekend, a bit of a tall order to have comp number one on deck only seven days after the season started, but Max and his team were prepping for it a lot in the week prior and being able to scope the course early definitely helped.
On competition day it was an early morning arrival for an 8AM athlete meeting in trying conditions: a few inches of exceedingly high moisture content snow covered the course the night prior and continued to fall during competition. There was a bit of a delay as ski patrol blasted the course for avalanches, after which the competitors were allowed to sideslip the course for an hour of inspection. Fortunately Maxie was seventh out of the gates so didn’t have to wait around all day for his run at the steeps, he did a great job sticking to the line he’d scoped out in the week prior and launched big off the first of the three drops he planned. A bit of a stall on the takeoff for drop two lost him some judging points, but I think he was most bummed about skipping the third of his three drops. Lots of pressure for his first comp, but we were super proud of him making it down in one piece and the judges awarded him with a respectable 29 on the leaderboard out of the 46 athletes in his division. The caliber of some of the the U15 competitors was phenomenal: the top 10-or-so kids absolutely blazed down the steeps of Avalanche (the run on which the source was held), hucking off boulders and cliffs pulling everything from shiftys to 360s on a whim. Very impressive…
I cobbled together a some of the videos Lisa and I snapped on our phones, a little hard to see him at the top of the run but if you look closely you can make out him boosting of the first of the three of his planned drops.
Stop two on the Tahoe Junior Freeride Series was at Palisades today. Wild Man spent the day inspecting the course with his team yesterday before school in the afternoon, I caught him practicing his line in his bedroom last night before heading off to bed! It was all systems go and another early start this morning – seems to be a theme of late – to make it down to Palisades for the 8AM athlete pre-comp meeting. As we pulled off the interstate in Truckee I was quickly reminded why we abandoned Squaw/Alpine back in 2023 after the horrendous crowds over Christmas/New Year beak: even at 7:20AM this morning, on a non-powder day, we sat through more than eight miles of stop and go traffic to get to the resort. No bueno… When we did arrive, the lack of cloud cover made for an exceedingly chilly morning and I made the silly decision to carry my skis without gloves to the pre-comp conference center in the 10°F/-12°C weather. It took me about an hour to get the feeling back in my fingertips.
Palisades ops was kind enough to get KT-22 open 30 minutes before official opening time so the boys could do a final once-over of the course. It was fun riding up KT with the coaches at 8:30AM in the early morning light with the stoke of the comp on everyone’s minds. I chatted with them about why they all moved to California, all of us reminiscing about being teens and watching Greg Stump movies, wishing we were at Squaw with Glen Plake and Scott Schmidt instead of wherever our parents chose to raise us!
Enchanted Forest off KT-22 was an excellent venue for the comp: endless places for the kids to huck and great snow conditions after the cold temps this week. Unfortunately Wild Man took a spill on his first drop, which not only smashed his confidence but also prevented him from attempting any other airs on the course (comp rules: no airs after falling). This put him way down on the leaderboard for the day – 36 out of 43 – but a good learning experience for him nonetheless. I was bummed to see all his prep work wasted as a result of his fall, but was certainly not complaining at being able to spend the rest of the day lapping Squaw from top to bottom with him on some excellent north-facing snow conditions. It is such a great mountain, and it was good to be back after a few years, although the crowds… It was like playing Pac-Man on some of the groomers! We cruised everything from Granite Chief to Squaw Creek, a great time hitting all the runs we used to lap when the kids were mighty mites. I was again reminded I’m the one that needs to concentrate on keeping up these days! My ski pole didn’t make it thought the last run Max took me down under the Red Dog lift line, all in a good day of fun…
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Am assuming Max is still in the academy? This a is a GREAT opportunity for him.
Yup! Third week this week at school.