The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
“Overall, we did a good job there”
By Than Acuff
Fourteen Crested Butte Mountain Sports Team (CBMST) freeride athletes headed to Alaska March 3-6 with coaches Grant Spear, Evan Marcus and Clara Lantz to compete in a IFSA Junior Freeride 3* National competition at Alyeska Resort. They finished with a podium as Atalaya Hausdoerffer took second among the u19 women, and a top 10 result as Liam Hadley skied to a sixth-place finish among the u19 men skiers.
It was the first CBMST trip up to Alaska in the program’s history bringing an entirely new experience to the athletes.
“We went up there not knowing what to expect,” says Spear. “There were a lot of high-level riders we don’t normally compete against. It was great to have a good contingent of Crested Butte kids up there.”
In addition, the event conditions posed a new challenge for the CBMST skiers. While Crested Butte kids are no strangers to hard pack, the qualifier day was a different kind of hardpack snow conditions.
“Their firm snow is different from ours, it’s a Maritime type of snow and it was something that took getting used to,” says Spear.
Fortunately, they were treated to bluebird, albeit cold, conditions and the plan was in place for the CBMST team on the interesting venue.
“It was a small venue and complicated that made it hard to link features,” says Spear. “We just told them to find smart lines that they could ski well.”
In the end, over half of the CBMST skiers followed the plan and executed clean runs as Hausdoerffer, Ayla Donaldson and Anika Mueller all qualified for the finals among the CBMST women and Hadley, Max Naughton, Tobin Mueller, Magnus Sandusky and Sam Anderson moved on to the final day as well.
The finals day was a bit of a hot mess for organizers, and the coaches and athletes as well, as they had to resort to a third option for the final’s venue. Not only that, but athletes had little to work with when inspecting as flat light dominated the inspection.
“It was a huge feature with weird transitions, and it was tough to get eyes on entrances,” says Spear. “It did have some soft snow depending on aspect but chunky snow in other parts.”
The sun did break out for the actual competition and when the scores were tallied Hausdoerffer finished in second place, Donaldson in 17th and Anika Mueller in 18th place.
On the u19 men’s side, Hadley led with the sixth-place finish, Naughton took 11th, Tobin Mueller 18th, Sandusky 22nd and Anderson 26th after losing a ski during his run.
“Overall, we did a good job there,” says Spear. “All of our kids either kept their spots or moved up a few after the final.”
The CBMST currently has four athletes qualified for the Junior Freeride Championships with u15 athletes Alpine Leonard and Sol Hausdoerffer and u19 athletes Atalaya Hausdoerffer and Brie Polster already in. Meanwhile, several are on the bubble and have a 3* event in Taos and a 2* event at A-Basin coming up to make the cut.
“We have the potential for 10 more kids to qualify if everything goes well,” says Spear.
