Crested Butte’s top freeskiers take their show to Kirkwood

Louise Lintilhac places fifth

In a marathon weekend of ski competition at Kirkwood Mountain Resort outside Lake Tahoe, Calif., Crested Butte’s Louise Lintilhac slashed her way through four feet of fresh snow to place fifth in the women’s division, while Tom Runcie took 20th and Caleb Mullen battled through a deep field of international competition to finish 29th.
The North American Freeskiing Championships, part of the Freeskiing World Tour, has the distinction of being the only stop in North America that is also part of the largely European-based Nissan Freeride World Tour. As such, it always draws a large field of the world’s top skiers, among them J.T. Holmes, Henrik Winstedt, and Aurelien Ducroz. Despite the fierce competition, the trio from Crested Butte wasn’t fazed, throwing down solid runs on Kirkwood’s infamous permanently closed area, the Cirque.
In a departure from years past, the first day was held on the skier’s right side of the Cirque, featuring a 40-degree drop in above a jagged, broken cliff band into a giant hanging snowfield before dropping again into a series of chutes and cliffs. Adding spice to the mix was Kirkwood’s particularly grabby volcanic rock, which caught many competitors unaware and undoubtedly lined the pockets of a few ski repair shops at the resort.
Louise Lintilhac dropped in fourth to last out of a field of 27 women, working her way down the ridgeline, opting not to drop directly into the fall line from the start. She slashed her way into a chute near the “Hot Pocket,” a small, steep hanging snowfield with a broken cliff band at the bottom. She aired her way over a ten-footer and made quick work of her next turns, launching into a small hidden chute and stomping it clean before arcing fast GS turns down the untouched powder to the bottom, tying for eighth on the day.
Caleb Mullen was the first male competitor to drop, cruising down the ridge to hit a 30-footer onto the main part of the venue. He quickly made his way to the “Egg,” a 30-foot-tall rock in the dead center of the venue and pointed it off the nose, doing an amazing mid-air running man maneuver to find the transition and stomping it clean before arcing to the bottom and airing a final 15-footer to finish 19th.
Tom Runcie chose to follow Mullen’s line down the ridge before making his way to a tight rocky straight-line untouched by the previous 40 skiers, skiing it clean and finishing the day in seventh place.
Sunday’s venue, on the skier’s right side of the Cirque, featured a steeper drop in than day one, many smaller cliff bands and rock drops, and several tight chutes, giving competitors a number of options to play with. Lintilhac went second, lacing turns down to the top of a chute called the ‘Hourglass,’ scraping her way down to a decent take-off and airing out the bottom where she quickly doubled it up over another 10-footer.
At the bottom of her run, she admits that she got a little lost, accidentally airing a 15-footer and stomping it clean. “I was stoked,” says Lintilhac, “because I feel like I skied a comp run the way I normally ski every day.”
Mullen was the next Buttian to ski, staying high on the venue and working his way down to a chute in what locals call the “Broom Closet,” a jagged broken cliff band with small barely skiable chutes throughout. Mullen started in, but got hung up on some volcanic ski-grabbing rock and began to lose control, picking up speed as he careened out the bottom off-camber section of the chute and losing a ski, shooting out the bottom exit a good 35 feet beyond the jagged rocks. “The Broom Closet swept me up,” Mullen said. He placed 29th out of an original 70 skiers.
Runcie went last of the Crested Butte contingent, again choosing to pioneer a line that none of the previous competitors had touched. In a section called the “Crescent Couloir,”’ where most skiers had been skiing the couloir proper, Runcie chose to launch himself into it via a small hanging snowfield, hitting the apex of the crescent. The speed proved to be too much, as prior ski tracks had left his landing deeply rutted and off-camber, spitting him out nearly horizontally.
“A lot of people before me fell and I debated whether or not to lighten up on my line and play it safe, but I went for the win. It didn’t quite work out, but I’m happy with it,” Runcie said. He finished in 20th place.
Angel Collinson of Snowbird/Alta continued her domination of the women’s tour with a first-place finish, followed by Janina Kuzma from New Zealand in second, and Rebecca Selig of Timber Ridge in third. Kirkwood local Josh Daiek blazed a comeback to the tour after a two-year break due to injuries, placing first every day including during the qualifier and taking first overall. Kevin O’Meara of Squaw Valley finished second, and France’s Guerlain Chicherit placed third.