Red Bull Skiing: February 2008 Archives

What drives today’s ski world? Sledding out to shred the biggest backcountry peak, dropping massive cliffs, terrain parks or a little old-school hike and ride? This weekend at Red Mountain Resort in Rossland, BC, Red Bull Cold Rush proved it isn’t the format that matters, but the talent. 18 of the sports elite competed for the title of most versatile and best all-around skier, first hitting a natural cliff zone for a slopestyle session, followed by a freeski big mountain component, and finally a summit approach to make sure the athletes are well… athletic. So who is the king of all disciplines? According to a video-judging session conducted by the athletes themselves, it’s Golden, BC, resident Dave Treadway.

By weekend`s end, Treadway was undoubtedly the most consistent performer, taking first place in the big mountain descent of Mt. Robert, eighth place in the slopestyle session, and showing that sometimes it pays to leave the sled at home,  Dave posted the fastest time in the summit approach at one hour and 11 minutes. The multi-skills on multi-disciplines earned Treadway a winner-take-all purse of $5,000.00. Points were awarded for each component:  Summit - maximum 20 points; Freeskiing – max 40 points; Slopestyle – max 40 points.

15-year-old Sean Pettit of Pemberton, BC, showed why he’s widely regarded as the next in skiing, taking home $500 for his first place showing in the slopestyle session. Pettit also recorded a second in the big mountain freeski to finish second overall. JP Auclair performed consistently all weekend to earn third overall.

With the athlete’s choice determined, all that’s left is for the people’s voice to be heard. Ski fans everywhere can vote for their favourite athlete performance by logging onto www.rip.tv and voting for the Red Bull Cold Rush People’s Choice Award. Voting opens Feb. 12 by 11:59 pm PST and closes March 1, with each voter automatically entered into a draw for a free pair of skis signed by the ultimate People’s Choice winner.

Featuring the top emerging and established talents in skiing, the athlete roster for Red Bull Cold Rush featured Whistler wunderkinds Sean and Callum Pettit, icons of the sport like JP Auclair, and a collection of other talents such as Andy Mahre, Dana Flahr, and Anthony Boronowski …just to name a few. Hosting the action will be one of the world’s foremost big mountain playgrounds, Red Mountain Resort. Located in Rossland, BC, Red offers a labyrinth of underground abandoned mining tunnels for the history buff, and 3,000 vertical feet of mountain surface detailed by chutes, glades and big lines – a perfect environment for mining the skills of today’s most progressive skiers.

Additional supporters of this event include Diamir, Colltex, and Red Mountain Resort.

Check the full photo gallery here!

For a full athlete roster, additional information on Cold Rush, and post-event images and video, please visit www.rip.tv or www.redbull.ca/coldrush.

RedBullSkiing.com caught up with Tanner Hall yesterday coming down from filming up on Donner Pass near Tahoe. It’s been nearly two weeks since he captured his third gold medal in SuperPipe at the Winter X Games. Tanner basically showed up in Aspen and won or achieved everything he possibly could have, with a good four months of skiing left to go. We ask him what is was like and what the future holds.

You won SuperPipe gold, again, for the third year in a row. Was there anything different about the 2008 X Games than there was in previous ones?

Basically, I had to work a lot harder to win this one. I saw last season that everyone was boosting higher, spinning to both sides, and just bringing a whole other level to the SuperPipe. I began training and thinking about it back in September in New Zealand and then spending a bunch of time in the park and pipe in Breck back in December. Basically, when I came to Aspen I had a good five months of training under my belt. I went in there and on my very first day of practice I was really laying down my runs and I didn’t really screw up on any of them. So, it was a really good feeling to go in there consistent and confident that when I drop in I’m going to lay my run down no matter what. That’s a good feeling. Confidence will give you a whole lot more than you ever thought you could have.

This season marks the first where your only competition was the SuperPipe event at Winter X. Is this your new deal, do X Games and then film the rest of the year?

I don’t want to say that I’m done with competitions or competitions other than X Games. I’m still really young and I feel like I have a lot left to do with skiing. This year I was really focused on the three-peat in SuperPipe and having the most medals overall of anyone at Winter X, and I did that. Now I’m focused on filming, but maybe that will change in future seasons.

The crowd wasn’t exactly behind you this year at the bottom of the SuperPipe. What was is like to hear the booing, how did you deal?

It definitely affected me a little bit, it hurt a little bit, but you know what? It’s all a part of it. The crowd likes to see drama. With the X Games Superpipe, it’s been coming down to me and Simon the last couple years and of course it came down to me and him again. I think, to the crowd, it looked like Simon won; and to the judges it looked like I won. I’m pretty happy with the way the judges took it, because I think it was a great night for halfpipe skiing and I think it opened up a lot of people’s eyes on how you can ski in a halfpipe. There’s so many different options that the sky’s literally the limit. I’m really interested to see what it’s gonna be like next year. But with the booing, you just need to brush it off and be a bigger man and just move on forward: turn negative vibes into positive vibes and keep your mission rolling.

Your latest movie release, “Believe,” has received tons of praise and won Movie of the Year at the 2008 POWDER Video Awards. Not to mention you walked away with the Best Line award and Best Male Performance. Had you already been getting respect before you walked into the PVAs?

Yeah, the great thing about our industry is a lot of the movie-makers have always shown respect and support for my career. From Matchstick Productions to Poorboyz to Teton Gravity Research, those guys started my career and it’s really cool to see how much support they’ve been showing through the years. I think they feel us nipping at their toes now though (laughs). We’re coming up with new cool ideas each and every day, and it’s just super fun to have a guy like Constantine right by my side. The guy’s the most on-point dude I’ve ever met in my life, and I think with my skiing and his filmmaking it’s a lethal combination. But I just got to say, respect to everybody out there on the film side of things. We’ve been shown a lot of respect on the film side of things and it just feels good.

How’d it feel to walk out of the Hotel Jerome with four awards in your arms?

It was one of the best feelings ever. I really tried to switch gears with my career and push it more in the backcountry. To still go the competition side—and still kill it on that side—then to be able to go and make a whole other movie outside of the competitions it was a really rewarding feeling and that’s what we set out to do last year. It was a dream come true to sit back and collect three of the biggest POWDER Video Awards, but that’s not gonna stop us. That was just the beginning. What we have in the works is based on killer ideas and with companies like Red Bull and Oakley supporting us, well, the sky is the limit. I keep saying that, but that’s my catch phrase for the week.

Your week in Aspen must have been really good for you. From winning SuperPipe, to your Red Bull party with Cali P performing, to winning the King of Quarters, to owning the POWDER Video Awards. How’d it go down in your book?

The week as a whole was just the best week of my life. I spent it with the most righteous people I know. I had good family and good friends all in town, and to have Cali P there was something that I’ve always wanted: to bring skiing and music together. I think the collaboration we’ve done with Cali P and the skiing that I’ve done is a great combination. This is just the beginning with me and him, as well. We’ve got a lot of things in the works with movies and him doing soundtracks and putting out a lot more music for us. It’s going to add a new little flavor and flare to these films that wasn’t added in the past.

Going forward, what have you been up to since X?

I went to Las Vegas for a couple days. That was really good. I got to hang out with my brother, Tyson, and I got to hang out at the Armada booth and see a lot of people I hadn’t seen in a long time. I hadn’t been down to the SIA show in five years, so it was good to go check it out and let off some steam. I got some partying out of my system and since I been back from Vegas we came out to Tahoe right away and we’ve been shooting the last couple days and have been getting some amazing stuff. We’ve been skinning up in Donner Pass getting some lines and some really big drops and doing some good stuff. It’s kind of cool getting on some skins and touring stuff, it’s a little different than what we did last year. The snow is really good out here right now and the weather went blue. We’ve got the perfect recipe to get the killer shots and that’s exactly the mission we’ve been on and that’s the mission we’re going to stay on.

How’s the new movie coming together?

Everything is coming together, “The Massive” is shaping up to be one of the best ski films ever made. Like I said, with the music from Cali P we’re going to have mixed in, it’s going to be good stuff. We’ve got a bunch of younger kids in the movie this year that are pushing the limits not only in the park, but in the backcountry. It’s going to be a great mix of everything in skiing. That’s what we’re focused on: all aspects of the sport, instead of just one. We’re just going to mix everything together and show how much fun we have at what we do. We lead the best lives in the world and we wouldn’t want it any other way.

It’s called “The Massive”. That sounds really big. Will it, in fact, be bigger?

We’re trying to do it real big, you know, between everything that we are doing from going to X Games and getting a three-peat in pipe and being tied with Shaun White for the record in medals. With all the filming we’ve done there’s been some pretty crazy stuff. The word “massive” is telling everybody we are stepping up our game on whole different level. I think everybody is going to be super stoked on what we are going to put out, it’s gonna be deadly!

How do you want “The Massive” to be different from “Believe”?

We’ve been doing a lot of different filming, looking at lines differently, just trying to be unique with the features that are put on the mountain. I’m looking at the mountain in a different way and that’s going to translate to the way I ski it, but everyone will just have to wait and see.

You’ve been redefining the future of the sport lately. Where do you see yourself in 5 and 10 years?

Just hopefully on my skis having fun. This is my one thing: the thing I love to do most in my life, my passion. It’s what I know most in my life and it’s my best friend. I just hope I’m healthy and happy and I’m still skiing.

Any final words?

Thanks everybody for listening to what I’ve got to say and one thing I’ve got to let everybody out there know is to definitely be on the lookout for my new ski film, “The Massive,” dropping next fall. Don’t even got a date yet for you: that’s top secret. But we’ve been filming like nuts we’ve got the best—and I’m not saying “some”—we’ve got the best footage we’ve ever had in our life. Expect to hear big things from the music side of it, too, and big things from a lot of new, younger up-and-coming backcountry slayers. And with the support of companies like Red Bull, I think there’s nothing stopping us from turning the ski-film world on its head with “The Massive.”

Colorado is cold. The kind of cold you suck up and brave for a killer pow day, and a week later parts of your feet are still numb to the touch. Parts of your face are peeling off too. The little crescent shaped part of check where your balaclava and the bottom of you goggles don’t quite come together. And your nose, it’s like a sunburn peeling. People back home in the much milder Pacific Northwest look at you kind of crazy.

We pulled out of Aspen Monday night following a full week of events and parties at Winter X Games. There’s a traffic jam on Main Street already. Everyone’s trying to get out of town, but they are all a bit too afraid to hit the gas and go for it. Trucks are chaining up way down in the flats by the airport.

The drive from Aspen to Breckenridge is nearly indescribable. It’s like fallout beyond the comfort of the SUV’s cabin, and it’s hard to see past the hood. We get passed by a VW Beetle. We’re okay with it. It’s some taillights to follow. We don’t want to be responsible for leading the train of cars and trucks off the highway, where it’s now nearly impossible to distinguish the edges. What should be a two-hour drive is four.

All logic suggests the next day at Breck would be good. At least eight inches fell and the sky is bluebird. But the wind, oh the wind. Breckenridge is the most wind-scoured mountain we’ve seen in a long time. Deep in the trees the snow is so wind-affected it’s not rideable. Skiing the “fresh” is a scene of flailing appendages. Calling the snow “grippy” would’ve been the understatement of the year.

Faced with sub-zero temps, ripping winds, and good snow gone bad, the only thing to do was hop in the car and drive. We set our course to the Southwest. Wolf Creek gets more snow than anywhere in Colorado (it’s on par with Mt. Baker right now) and we heard the snow phone was currently off the hook.

A five-hour drive to do anything else would suck. Somehow, on a ski trip, it’s no big deal. Nothing is amusing like the middle of nowhere Colorado. Highlights of the drive included 60 mph cross winds, the Cowboy Cantina, finding a “Girls Gone Fly Fishing” calendar at a gas stop, and passing Colorado’s only alligator farm. Yes, I said, “alligator farm.”

Arriving at a completely new mountain in the midst of a storm cycle certainly bodes well for first impressions. Wolf Creek was serving up a foot of fresh and it was dumping. The layout of Wolf is pretty flat with some hero-pow runs through nicely spaced trees. On the outer edge, however, a ridge rises that is cake-walk of hike to get on top of. You can go either way down the ridgeline, but we preferred skiers left. Cornices galore and steep pow fields into trees and chutes stayed fresh and filled in all day long: partially due to the ripping wind and partially due to the fact there was maybe 20 people hitting the ridge all day long.

The ridge isn’t the only gem we found at Wolf Creek. If you meander through the flats long enough, or just get a trail map, you’ll inevitably come across the “Waterfall” area. Holy pillow lines, Batman! We hucked everything in sight, it was that deep. It was obvious if you could manage to miss the hard things like rocks and trees, the big ones anyway, you’d be fine.

Seven hours and no lunch after the first chair, we loaded up the last one with the patrollers. It was a full bell to bell day of untracked goodness and the only price to pay was a little bit of frostbite and another five hours back to Breck to catch a plane the next day. People who don’t know might call 10 hours of driving for 7 hours a skiing a bit crazy. If you ever find yourself freezing you butt off in Colorado, getting to Wolf Creek is the sanest thing you can do.

As the rage and the fury that is Winter X Games 2008 dissipates into the Aspen ether—and it returns again to the simple place where beer flows like wine and women flock like the Salmon of Capistrano—it’s an appropriate time to reflect on the damage team Red Bull inflicted on the competition.

The first night of X, featuring Men’s SuperPipe finals, may have been the most spectacular and anticipated event in professional freeskiing, ever. As the media played up the Tanner Hall vs. Simon Dumont angle, really the two, who are friends off the hill, were each focused on the task at hand and not worried about the other. In the end, Tanner’s technical prowess, spins to both sides, and seven hit runs impressed the judges into bestowing him with the gold. Simon’s performance was thoroughly awe-inspiring as well, as he came at the SuperPipe like a blazing yellow cannonball and continued to show that nobody pilots higher above the deck than he. He went home with the silver, and a promise to come back next year boosting even higher.

Under the Friday night lights, Jon Olsson lit up the Big Air venue in true rock-star fashion. He began the evening by shrugging off the massive 80-foot gap as “too small.” Despite this fact, he had no trouble giving the roaring crowd a lesson in the evolution of jumping on twin-tips: the double flip. Jon didn’t bust out the Hexo Flip. The world, and the “small” X Games jump, weren’t ready for it. He did, however, Kangaroo Flip himself through three head-to-head elimination rounds to capture the gold medal. He bested Red Bull teammate Simon Dumont in the first round, but had the event actually awarded 2nd and 3rd place, Simon surely would’ve been weighed down with another medal from X.

On the ski side, Saturday was lazy with Slopestyle practice, and a non-X Games quarterpipe comp at Ajax. Tanner showed up and bagged an easy $9K, before walking into the historic Hotel Jerome to claim four awards, including Movie of the Year for “Believe”, at the 2008 POWDER Magazine Video Awards.

Super Sunday kicked off with Daron Rahlves taking a last second gamble in a qualifying run to sneak into the Skier X finals. Obviously he was just trying to keep it interesting for the crowd as he absolutely destroyed the field in the finals run. In third place out the gates, he wasted little time in bowling past everyone in the FIRST TURN. Nobody really saw him after that, except for the frantic crowd at the bottom. Another gold captured for Team Red Bull!

X ended for skiing with the Men’s Slopestyle finals. Jon Olsson laid down some clean and calculated runs topped off with a Kangaroo flip at the bottom. It wasn’t the gold medal he, and his car dealer, were hoping for, but a bronze medal and podium finish amongst the best skiers in the world is nothing to scoff at.

Congratulations to the Red Bull Ski Team for dominating this year’s X. In case you weren’t counting, that’s five medals—three of them gold—in four events. Keep checking in to redbullskiing.com as we keep track of the team as they span out across the globe to slay pow and more comps throughout the season.