The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Set sights on Snowbird
With the Crested Butte Junior Freeskiing event cancelled, the Crested Butte Mountain Sports Team (CBMST) hit the road to get another competition in before the season ending show at Snowbird April 4-8.
Last weekend, CBMST freeride coach Ed Dujardin took four of his athletes to compete in a Junior Events Tour of the Americas (JETA) big mountain competition at Taos Ski Valley. In the end, three of them stepped onto the podium.
JETA is a new big mountain tour organizer this year and the Taos event was their first ever.
Athletes in both the 12-14 age group and the 15-18-year-old age group were handed the daunting task of skiing off of Kachina Peak. Not only that, but they were required to make it there the only way possible, via a 45-minute boot pack.
The competition opened on Friday, March 30 with day one of the 12-14-year-olds. CBMST skier Brittany Barefield stepped to the top of Kachina Peak and flashed her line to leave the competition in the dust, finishing the first day in first place with a two-point lead.
“She crushed it,” says Dujardin. “She was faster and more fluid than everyone else. We tried to play a conservative line and she just aced it.”
Barefield sealed the win on the final day, Sunday, skiing a near-similar line with the same fluidity finishing over two points ahead of second place.
“She dominated,” says Dujardin.
The 15-18-year-old age group opened their competition on Saturday, March 31. Josie Byron was the first CBMST athlete to drop in and followed Barefield’s lead on line choice to close day one in third place.
Matt Evans and Nolan Blunck stayed conservative on the first day as well to finish in sixth and 11th place, respectively, and ensure a spot in the finals on Sunday.
Byron, skiing on broken skis, upped the ante in her finals run to link a C-shaped straight-line that finished with a little air time and hold her third-place finish overall, just .2 points behind second place.
Blunck had some tough luck on the finals day. He had a line in mind that no one was planning on skiing that included two 15-foot drops but he stuffed on the first air, leaving him short of a shot at the podium.
Evans, on the other hand, charged his finals run linking three airs complete with 360’s on each to post the second-highest score of the day and move into third place overall.
“It was pretty rad,” says Dujardin. “I was stoked.”
You can catch video of both Blunck’s and Evans’ final run on westelkproject.com.
The CBMST will close the season out in Snowbird with three other skiers joining Blunck, Evans, Barefield and Byron. Last year both Barefield and Byron finished on the podium and Evans was sitting in first place until his final run, so the team is gearing up for some repeat performances and some serious redemption.
