The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Top skiers flash bony conditions
Say what you will about telemark skiing, i.e. fix the heel fix the problem, but the fact of the matter is the top men and women threw down at the 15th Annual US Extreme Freeskiing Telemark Championships last weekend at Crested Butte Mountain Resort.
Local women swept the top three of five spots on the podium and the MacMillan brothers finished second and third with Crested Butte Mountain Sports Team telemark coach Mark Robbins finishing in the money in fifth place in the men’s competition.
Sure, there were your standard issue freeheelers that tested the waters of the competitive telemark skiing scene making their way down the main part of the Headwall on day one and then the main part of Staircase, dubbed Scarecase due to conditions, on the final day.
Still, given current snow conditions, my guess is there are few people, either alpine or telemark skiers, that would drop the Pocket Air and/or ski Angle Gully on the Headwall or tear down through the upper part of Staircase right now. As for Body Bag, good luck in there.
Yet, with a title on the line, the telemark competitors were doing just that and then some. At least the top ones were, and they were rewarded for their efforts.
Sydney Fuller won the women’s title last year and stepped it for the event this year to defend her title.
She set the bar high in her first run on the Headwall being the first woman in the competition to drop into Pocket Air.
“I was trying to do something a little different than the other women,” says Fuller. “It was definitely a little sketchy. I didn’t stick the take off but I did stick the landing.”
Fuller opted out of another drop into Pocket Air on her second run that day and finished the afternoon in second place heading into the finals on Saturday to ski the Staircase/Body Bag/Slot Rocks venue.
While conditions were overall a bit bony, the snow quality held up thanks to warm temperatures and a favorable aspect.
“The snow in the whole Body Bag alley was really good,” says Fuller. “I scouted it in the morning and determined where I would ski and stuck to that plan.”
Fuller’s biggest concern on the finals day was her competition sitting in third place.
“I was pretty confident I would be good in Body Bag, my main concern was Mackenzie Mailly. She knows the terrain really well also.”
Despite a slight hiccup on her exit air out of Body Bag, Fuller moved into first place for the Superfinal run and then sealed the deal on her final run of the day.
After greasing her way through Rock-N-Roll Glades, she charged right down Body Bag and stuck the landing on the exit air to take the title, $1,000 cash, a Mountain Hardware sleeping bag and a “big bottle of beer.”
Fuller admits going into the event, defending her title was her first priority with a caveat of self-preservation.
“My goal was to stay on my feet so I wouldn’t end up in a body bag,” says Fuller.
Mailly finished the competition in second place and finished the season as the overall tour champion, earning an invitation to compete in the Tailgate Alaska competition outside of Valdez, Alaska. Kirsten Fraser completed the Crested Butte sweep of the top three spots, moving from fifth place into third on the final day.
On the men’s side of things, the competition started off a little squirrelly for Colin MacMillan.
MacMillan opted to hit Pocket Air in his first run on the Headwall on day one and nearly dropped out of the competition completely.
“I did not stick my landing, or my take off for that matter,” says MacMillan.
That left MacMillan in a bit of fix as he had to decide what next for his second run to salvage the weekend.
“I didn’t count myself out but I didn’t want to go into Pocket Air because it was getting worse,” says MacMillan. “My second run I went up for redemption and threw down a fun run. It was a crowd pleaser that paid off.”
Meanwhile, his bother Seaton “El Nueva” MacMillan put together a near flawless run through Pocket Air and came into the final in third place in the standings
Colin had some work ahead of him on the final day coming into the finals in 12th place but he jumped eight spots on his first run in Body Bag to qualify for the Superfinal in fourth place.
“It was a line I had been looking at for awhile and it all came together,” says Colin.
He followed with a similar line on his Superfinal run but lined up the landing out of the exit air just right to rocket through the trees and hit one last kicker and boost through the tree branches, taking one with him as he flew through, into the bottom of Staircase and across the finish line.
“Somehow I landed it right and pointed it and hit that for glory,” says Colin.
The move pushed him into second place for good. Seaton finished the competition in third place and Robbins was steady throughout coming into the day in fifth place and staying there.
Colin’s second place pushed him into third in the final overall points standings for the series and also earned an invitation to the Tailgate Alaska/World Telemark Freeskiing Championships April 1-10.
