Day 2: Women Tie, Shane McConkey Men's Best
The second day on the second stop of the Freeskiing World Tour at Snowbird, Utah, was the kind of extreme event organizers dream about. In the past 2 weeks, the Wasatch Mountains have been pummeled with more than five feet of snow, making avalanche conditions outrageous out of bounds, but providing deep, champagne powder for hero-turns in-bounds.

Today’s course, High Mount Baldy off the northwest face of Snowbird, rarely opens unless such conditions exist. Known for its precipitously narrow chutes, granite kickers, and a sprinkling of cliff bands, it needs more than lot of snow cover. It needs, like five feet.

"The main thing about this competition is to memorize your line. You have to memorize every rock and every tree and every cliffband to make it work..."— Shane McConkey

First up in the morning were the women, and everyone had their eye on the 1960 Olympic silver medalist, 56-year-old Glenn McConkey.

"I’m not sure how it came about that I would compete in this extreme event," said Shane’s mom, "but next thing I new, I was at the top, checking my line, and coming down the mountain."

Her strategy? Follow the falline. And a steep fall-line it was. Although Mrs. McConkey’s run lacked the cliff drops of her younger fellow female competitors, it was smooth and fast—key components for a top score— she got hung-up on a rock and was knocked out of the running.

As for the rest of the women’s field, scores were so close, rankings between first (a tie) and 9th (because there was another tie for 5th) spanned only tenths of points. Both Shamai Mushen from Crested Butte, Colorado, and Jennifer Berg, from Truckee, California, worked the mountain until their big toes probably bled from jammed landings after a couple of rock kickers each—not to mention their fine needlework threading a torturous upper chute that looked more like a bouldering funpark than a skiable option.

Mushen's and Berg's scores tied at 30.6, placing them at the top for tomorrow’s final heat. As for the favorites, injuries off the X Games took out Allison Gannet and 1996-97 World Extreme Champion Wendy Fischer, while last year's World Extreme Champion, Francine Moreillon, was off filming a James Bond movie in Europe, leaving Linda Peterson, the winner from the Whistler competition earlier in the month, even more bummed about her bum knee as she watched from the sidelines. Which makes tomorrow’s story, a new story in more ways than just a new day as the field blows wide open for a whole new breed of extreme freeskiing women. Such is the life of the extreme freeskiing circuit.

As for the men, Shane McConkey, last year's overall World Tour Champion and current President of the International Freeskiing Association (IFSA), came away with such a clean line including several cliff drops and a sweet 25-footer at the bottom launched from a double pole-plant, that it was no surprise when his score of 45 was unchallenged all day. Claiming he still gets nervous about the young guns out there, you wouldn’t know it by his smooth style.

"When I’m skiing I’m thinking about breathing and looking ahead," said McConkey. "It’s so different, this sort of competition from say mogul competition or World Cup downhill. The main thing about this competition is to memorize your line. You have to memorize every rock and every tree and every cliffband to make it work. The snow conditions are really poor up at the top there so we had to be creative on our landings."

When former US Ski Team Mogul God, Jim Moran, charged super hard down the mountain pulling fun cross-up 360’s along the way, he seemed the inevitable winner. Unfortunately, it wasn’t until the bottom that we noticed he was skiing with only one pole (the other had ripped off his hand at the top in- between some rocks) and it threw off his balance when he launched the most impressive big air of any competitor near the bottom.

Unfortunately, he pitched too far forward and had a single-release, forcing him to hike back up to retrieve his ski. Undeterred, he clicked back in, tucked it, then threw a high-speed heli off a 10-foot rock, and another cross-up mutegrab off an unforeseen snow kicker just before the mesh fencing.

Other bonus runs included second place finisher at Whistler, Peter Sowar from Crested Butte, CO with his twisted helis, Brian Swenson who wracked a tree branch so high in the air mid-mountain, it ripped off and flew with him over the 20-foot cliff, and Dave "The Grom" Richards who at the end of his run tucked it like a downhiller before pumping his fists to the crowd in a personal "raise-the-roof" tribute.

Jeff Holden, the winner in Whistler earlier this month month, also advanced to the finals, but I was interviewing Moran at the time and missed it. Local surprise, Ben Wheeler, who made it into the semi’s after yesterday’s fine performance, was on a role and went squeaky clean into tomorrow’s finals as well. Mr. Extreme Professional, Chris Davenport from Aspen was late for his run, but it was worth the wait. Picking a line unique to his own style topped off with a simple bow to the crowd at mock speed made us all bow back. The man is gifted, I tell you. And it runs in the family: Younger brother Ted, 18, pulled an impressive first extreme showing and I believe, also advanced into tomorrow’s finals.

Other intriguing moments today included 72-year old Junior Bounous, Snowbird’s Director of Skiing, who was also the forerunner for the course. Although forerunning such a course has its own well of challenges, Junior claims he "only skis it within reason. I mean, I’m not taking some of those lines those young folks are taking!"

Ex-US Ski teamer Jeremy Nobis also checked out the scene from the sidelines. He says he’s over the competition thing and besides, he’s gearing up for a 20,000-foot ascent/ski with Rick Armstrong of a peak in the Himalayas in a month and wasn’t into getting messed up from an extreme freeskiing competition.

Finally, it wasn’t until IFSA VP Lhotse Merriam mentioned it that we realized only Baldy Peak had sunlight all day. Down below, the rest of the mountain was socked in with snow and fog.

Stay tuned tomorrow for the finals of the US Freeskiing Nationals when more heroes will be made.

—Kathleen Gasperini reporting from the Greatest Snow on Earth for The Mountain Zone

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