Mountain Sports Team hits Squaw

Bound for Grand
Targhee this weekend

Crested Butte Mountain Sports Team (CBMST) members Sean Johnson, Matt Evans and Nolan Blunck traveled to Squaw Valley, Calif. for stop #2 on the Junior Free-skiing Tour this past week March 8-11 with head free ride coach Woody Lindenmeyr.
While the area reported some five feet of snow a week prior to our arrival, the California sun, wind and unreasonably warm temps had shrunk the recent snow to about five inches or less. This warm weather continued for the duration of our trip, reaching 60 degrees one day. This obviously had a drastic impact on the conditions, providing an icy venue until the snow warmed up later in the day.
Having a group consisting of all one age group (15–18 guys) provided some free time after inspection runs to ski around the resort, including Alpine Meadows. Alpine and Squaw are now owned by the same company and are all on one ticket. Since the crew had never been to either area before this was a lot of fun for all of us, and we hooked up with former CBMST free-ride coach Hans Von Briesen.
Day one for our competitors was on Saturday. Sean Johnson went first for the team in his debut competition of the season. The snow was just beginning to thaw a bit, and Sean skied well, but came off his line slightly, missing his bottom air, costing him some points. His second run was going according to plan until he had an unfortunate crash at the bottom of the course. This would prevent him from qualifying for the finals.
Nolan Blunck followed shortly after Sean and was determined to finish his runs cleanly. Nolan did just that. Skiing so well he made the conditions look easy, stomping airs and carving the variable snow pack with ease on both of his runs to qualify into the finals in 19th out of the 50 boys 15-18—a great confidence booster for Nolan in a very, very competitive field.
Matt Evans was in the back of the pack and had a spectacular run going until he came off his second air and landed in the tracks of a few fellow competitors. This resulted in the loss of a ski and his qualifying chances. Matt, being a great competitor, took his second run anyway and wowed the crowd with 360s and backflips, which were being thrown rampantly. One competitor threw an impressive 360 off a 30-foot cliff complete with a beautiful grab. Again, these juniors are going off, to say the least.
The finals were slated for Sunday and Nolan had his sights set on moving on up the standings but Mother Nature had another plan. We awoke to the notorious Tahoe winds, snow and colder temps. Having two runs under everyone’s belt, the decision was smartly made to not compete on the mixed ice and drifting powder. Results would stand as they were.
With some free time before awards we decided to make some more runs in the blizzard conditions. We sought out ex-Buttian Chris Gray, now a supervisor on the Squaw Valley ski patrol. He was very happy to see us and provided a very special guided tour of the famed KT-22 terrain, hearing some good stories and skiing the fantastic terrain that is served by this lift.
Then it was time for the awards. After naming the podium winners it was announced that Matt Evans had won the coveted Blizzard/Technica Free mountain award, given out at each stop to a stand-out athlete that is not only a tremendous skier, but a great sportsman as well. Matt was given a pair of Technica boots and Blizzard skis and will be in the running for full sponsorship at the end of the year.
This was a fantastic trip despite the conditions and was complete with a dip in the frigid Lake Tahoe—coach excluded.