Figure 8 skiing involves teams of
two skiers looking to find a synchronized line through a field of uncut
snow - preferably powder. Judges
observing from below give scores for
roundness of turns, turn symmetry,
synchronization and fall-line skiing.
Local and Front Range skiers dominated the event, and most of them attributed their success to plenty of practice in variable conditions.
Figure 8 skiing involves teams of
two skiers looking to find a synchronized line through a field of uncut
snow - preferably powder. Judges
observing from below give scores for
roundness of turns, turn symmetry,
synchronization and fall-line skiing.
"You've got to stay strong and be focused," said Rick "Powder Pup" Ascher, defending champion in the event. Ascher and his partner, Paul Krause, both of Breckenridge, competed as Team Wad, and pulled off a clean and rhythmic line in the preliminary round, drawing cheers from a small but vocal crowd of jealous kibbitzers - the competitors paid $50 per team for the privilege of cutting first tracks into the unbroken East Wall terrain - not a bad deal at $25 per person.
Several of the teams might have gladly traded places with the spectators, when the exceedingly tricky conditions led to a parade of synchronized sitzmarks in the runout zone.
Under ideal conditions, a figure 8 run is perfectly executed duet, with each move the lead skier makes being duplicated by the tail gunner.
Fueled by gravity, the pair leaves behind a braided track, stitched from the invisible thread of the fall line. And if all the pieces fall in place - harmony, balance, rhythm - the result is pure white magic.
Ascher and Krause out-dueled Littleton's Todd and Mike Saemisch to repeat as champs, while the duo of Dan Rosenthal,of Alma, and Rob Sprague, a former Breck ski instructor now living in Longmont, took third.
This was our first contest on non-conventional skis. Todd and I had just bought some Olin Selkirk's; a mid-fat shaped ski that had proven to be great in crappy snow and good in powder, too. We were looking forward to a good contest since our practice runs on these skis had generally been better than we had ever done before. We were skiing bigger, faster, rounder turns which seems to be the way the contests are going now. The only concern was Todd's ankle. He had taken a bad fall a couple of weeks earlier and it was swollen to about the size of his ski boot. We had not practiced for a few weeks since he was taking it easy and saving his strength for possibly tough snow.
The snow was tough. Our first run was on sun-baked-breakable-ice-frozen-white-crap. About half the teams fell including the Vail guys. Our run was fine with some trouble at the end throwing us off just a little. We made the biggest turns in the preliminaries - something that we have never done. We skied first which was a little disconcerting. We were able to stay in the crud and make nice turns, though. Our new skis must have made it look better than it was because another team commented that they thought the snow was good on our run since they saw stuff getting kicked up.
The finals consisted of Pup and Frosty, Rob and Dan, an A-Basin team and us. The snow was much better for the first two-thirds of the run. The bottom part was like the first run. All the teams did great and we had one of the best runs we have ever had in competition. We skied second and placed second. We agreed with the judging based on the tracks. We did not do duals for the finals this year since there was not enough snow to hike up into the chutes and the management was anxious to get the area open.