The buckin' bronco
Kicking Horse Mountain Resort played host to the second annual Wrangle the Chute freeski competition held on CPR Ridge off the top of the mountain. Saturday brought bright blue skies and lots of sun; perfect conditions for the competitors and spectators that gathered to celebrate some western vibes. The KHMR Big Mountain Centre even had the venue roped off all week prior to the event to preserve the snow. Doing that makes for happy competitors and a much better show for the spectators.
A quick summary of the event: first, the competitors choose a line down some extremely steep cliffs, chutes, and treed out sections of CPR Ridge. Then, at the bottom of the run-out, in the gully, the resort built a huge step-up park style jump that boosted athletes 40-60 feet up towards the party at Heaven’s Door yurt. As if that weren’t enought to test the stamina of any freeski competitor, the last part of the competition involved ditching skis and poles and climbing on a human-powered buckin’ bronco. The longer an athlete stays on, the higher score applied to the total score and they bask in the glory of the ride in front of a rowdy crowd.
Competitors dogpile for Wrangler gear
After two days of this competition, especially fighting the fog on Sunday, competitors were whooped. But that didn’t hold them back from the massive dogpile that ensued as the generous folks at Wrangler jeans dumped a bunch of product on the crash mat for the competitors and volunteers. I ended up with a new pair of jeans and a nice button-up shirt to rock while I finish my trip up here in BC.
The competition had one of the most easy going vibes I’ve ever experienced, and every competitor was there to have fun, first and foremost. It was great meeting the Canadian freeskiing talent pool – Leah Evans, Izzy and Zoya Lynch, Austin Ross, Carter MacMillan, Justin Todd, and many more. Highlights of the comp were Chris Turpin’s two full runs skiing switch (that’s backwards!) down the entire venue and throwing switch tricks off the jump. I even heard over the radio that he dropped a couple of cliffs switch too! There were a ton of sweet tricks thrown from Stu Bilodeau’s styley 900s off the big air jump to Justin Todd’s cork 540 0ff the bottom cliff band. Full results can be found here.
Oh yeah, and I finished strong with a 5th place with some steep skiing up top, a couple of big 540s and some long bronco rides. So stoked to ski through a whole comp and not fall…believe me, that doesn’t happen very often. Thanks to the fine athletes of the Rossignol house for letting Justin and I party hard with them at the after party and crashing on their couches. Big ups for that one!
2010 Wrangle the Chute athletes
Tags: big mountain centre, Christatsuno.com, khmr, kicking horse mountain resort, wrangle the chute, wrangler jeans, zoya lynch
