The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
“I feel like I’ve joined an elite group”
Gunnison Valley skier Tom Runcie kicked off his fourth season on the freeskiing competitive tour back in August with two events in South America. Since then, he, and a close-knit group of local skiers, has been hitting the freeskiing tour circuit mixing in some training here in Crested Butte.
“I started skiing in Crested Butte on October 8,” says Runcie. “It was pretty thin.”
With thin conditions continuing through November and December, Runcie spent a majority of his time skiing the on Crested Butte Mountain, firing off laps on the terrain that were open.
“I got in a few months of hard pack,” says Runcie. “Honestly, I don’t think there’s a better way to train than skiing hard pack. It’s the best way to get in shape.”
Runcie and his local skiing peers fed their powder jones with a trip to Canada to prepare for the first competition of the North American season at Revelstoke.
Runcie fell short of reaching the finals in Revelstoke and the next two competitions of the tour were either delayed or cancelled.
Runcie returned to Crested Butte and as more terrain opened, he was able to up the ante on exposure. Following the mishap in Revelstoke and the lack of competitions on the tour, Runcie headed to Taos, N.M. for a qualifier event March 1-3 and ended up placing third. Runcie was joined on the podium by local skiers Rob Dickinson, who took second, and Brandon Clabaugh, who won the Taos event.
Local women dominated in Taos as well, with Ashley Bembenek winning the event and Alex Riedman taking third.
“Taos was a nice confidence booster,” says Runcie, although he does admit that the months of hard pack training and lack of competitions has had one adverse effect.
“The one thing I noticed in Taos is I haven’t been hitting many cliffs,” explains Runcie. “I’m definitely a bit nervous and I don’t remember being that way before.”
On the other hand, Runcie believes he is on top of the head games associated with competitive freeskiing.
“I’m definitely getting better at the mental part of it,” says Runcie. “Once I tip in, I think ski hard and ski well.”
Runcie carried his momentum from Taos into the Subaru North American Freeskiing Championships at Snowbird March 14-17.
Thanks to Runcie’s success on the tour last year, he was pre-qualified for the Snowbird event and was able to sit out the qualifier day.
“I don’t like skiing qualifier days,” says Runcie. “It costs $180 and there’s a huge cut. That $180 can disappear really quick.”
Athletes were met with hard pack and thin conditions on the day one venue, Silver Fox. During the inspection of Silver Fox, Runcie eyed a line that many of his peers were shying away from, which involved a double drop in an area with big consequences.
“I thought it made sense to me,” says Runcie. “I would hit a 10 to 12-footer into the chute and then have half a second to adjust and hit a 20 to 25-foot air out. My biggest concern was if anything happened wrong at all I could fall off the second air. When I skied it though, everything went just as planned.”
A hand drag on his second air dropped a couple points off Runcie’s score but he posted the highest line score to end up in sixth place on the day and received his first nomination for the coveted Sickbird Award.
Meanwhile, Dickinson flashed a similar line to finish the day in second place overall.
Heading into day two on the North Baldy, Runcie was in a bit of a conundrum. While sixth place is in the money, it’s not the podium so he chose a line that would keep him in the money as well as move him up if any other skiers above him in the standings suffered a mishap.
“The podium was calling me—I really wanted to move up,” says Runcie.
His run included another double drop on his exit move, which he stuck. His finals run moved Runcie into third place overall and, more important, garnered him his first-ever Sickbird Award, a coveted award given at each tour stop to a skier who had an outstanding run or trick.
“It’s quite an honor,” says Runcie. “I feel like I’ve joined an elite group.”
Runcie closed the Snowbird trip skiing 36 inches of powder the next two days following the competition.
The next stop for Runcie and company is Kirkwood for the final stop of the tour April 4-9.
“Hoping to head over there with the Crested Butte crew,” says Runcie. “It’s good to have that same group with you that you ski with all of the time. They help push my skiing.”
