Crested Butte Freeride World Tour Stop # 1

Crested Butte is always a tough venue for me and always leave disliking the competition. This year I tried to have a better attitude and go into it knowing that I am a strong skier and I should be able to ski all the venues on the tour. Day one was in a place called Dead End and Body Bag. These runs are two really steep cliffed areas that are very rocky especially on the bottom half. I picked out a line in Body Bag and felt pretty good about my line. I convinced myself that I could ski this steep chute and do some strong hop turns, I definitely excel more when I am able to do wide open fast turns. I had a pretty strong run except I sat my butt down on one of my hop turns when the snow fell away underneath my skis. I was docked pretty hard for my butt down, but was only two points out of first. I knew I still had a chance at the podium if I skied strong the next day.
The finals were held in The Hourglass a permanently closed area that is only skied when our competition comes to the Butte or if people poach the area. It has only been used four times in the past 18 years so the ski patrol love to be able to let us use the venue. I was able to compete in the Hourglass last year and it definitely got the best of me so I had a little different approach this year. I decided to ski a place called Bed Bath and Beyond, which is full of pillows and steep shots. The problem with Hourglass is that it is not open so it does not get skied and therefore is very sugary and has no base. This makes it hard to ski fluid or fast, I picked out a line that had a few pillows and then moved into a mandatory air at the bottom of the venue.
I started fourth which was a good start position and just told myself to slow down so that my tips would not dig in and I would not fall over due to the variable conditions. I had one of the best runs I have ever had in Crested Butte and was stoked with my run, I moved from 9th place up to 1st. They decided only to take three of us up for the Superfinal run due to the large point spread between third and fourth place. I knew all I had to do was stay on my feet and I could have won my first world tour event. I watched the other two girls ski and heard their scores. I decided to stick with my same line because I knew the line well. The only problem with skiing my same line was that the snow had changed a lot since my first run. My fourth turn into my run my tips dug into the bad snow and I fell over. This fall obviously cost me my placing, but i ended up third which is still a good start to the season and also my best result I have ever had in the Butte.