March 5, Crystal Mountain

A transition day from the early week light pow to more usual cut and packed runs.  9" new in the sun early turned to thick cut snow in the sun and heat, then nice skied out packed snow after some skier grooming.  Then, the sunny aspects got crunchy late in the day as they cooled.  Shaded aspects stayed soft and light but not untracked.  The crowd headed north and south and Rex line went to zero.  25 minutes for C6 in the morning I heard, still 10 minutes mid-day.  Extremo Junior comp on The King tomorrow will lock up some of the southback.  Today they were on Grubstake Peak.  Sun turned to fog after 1.5 hours and we stuck to the trees.    More:

Hey CMskier,

I appreciate your reports, but I'd like to suggest just a bit more respect for the kids in the "The big Extremo Junior competition" (your words) this weekend, and yes, I am biased as one of mine competes in these events and his younger brother will be joining him next year. I spent these last two days watching this event and supporting my young athlete and have done the same at many other Junior comps in the last three years.

While it may appear to you to be worthy of the dismissiveness and condescension you display here and on your blog, many of these very passionate young people are skiing very well beyond what most adults on the hill will ever achieve and are worthy of not only our respect, but our support and praise.

I wonder, would you (or would you have been at 12 years old) be willing to ski, by yourself, in front of an audience, the most technically challenging line you can find in Elk Chutes or the King and be judged by some of the best skiers around on the difficulty of your line choice, the technique you displayed, your fluidity and grace, and the style and creativity you expressed while doing so? If so, then please feel free to enter the next big mountain competition for adults (or ski against the 12-14 year olds for that matter) and see how you come out. If this doesn't sound appealing, spend the day chasing these kids around the mountain if you can keep up which ain't easy (they're really not so much into the groomers, no matter the conditions) and perhaps they'll be less a target for your disdain.

These young skiers, who travel from all over the west to participate, are the future of skiing and its progression. They are the people who'll be populating ski movies and magazines, designing the next technological innovations and pushing the envelope of skiing for the next 10-20 years. They are passionate, well trained, highly skilled skiers and - for the most part - pretty damn nice people who outski 98.9% of the adults on the hill on any given day including me and just maybe you too.

I could go on, but someone would probably say I was attacking you (not my intention), so let's be a bit more open minded and respectful, shall we? You're slagging off my family here, not to mention the future of the sport.

Hey CMskier,

I appreciate your reports, but I'd like to suggest just a bit more respect for the kids in the "The big Extremo Junior competition" (your words) this weekend, and yes, I am biased as one of mine competes in these events and his younger brother will be joining him next year. I spent these last two days watching this event and supporting my young athlete and have done the same at many other Junior comps in the last three years.

While it may appear to you to be worthy of the dismissiveness and condescension you display here and on your blog, many of these very passionate young people are skiing very well beyond what most adults on the hill will ever achieve and are worthy of not only our respect, but our support and praise.

I wonder, would you (or would you have been at 12 years old) be willing to ski, by yourself, in front of an audience, the most technically challenging line you can find in Elk Chutes or the King and be judged by some of the best skiers around on the difficulty of your line choice, the technique you displayed, your fluidity and grace, and the style and creativity you expressed while doing so? If so, then please feel free to enter the next big mountain competition for adults (or ski against the 12-14 year olds for that matter) and see how you come out. If this doesn't sound appealing, spend the day chasing these kids around the mountain if you can keep up which ain't easy (they're really not so much into the groomers, no matter the conditions) and perhaps they'll be less a target for your disdain.

These young skiers, who travel from all over the west to participate, are the future of skiing and its progression. They are the people who'll be populating ski movies and magazines, designing the next technological innovations and pushing the envelope of skiing for the next 10-20 years. They are passionate, well trained, highly skilled skiers and - for the most part - pretty damn nice people who outski 98.9% of the adults on the hill on any given day including me and just maybe you too.

I could go on, but someone would probably say I was attacking you (not my intention), so let's be a bit more open minded and respectful, shall we? You're slagging off my family here, not to mention the future of the sport.

Oftpiste, you posted all that stuff in reply to

Extremo Junior comp on The King tomorrow will lock up some of the southback.  Today they were on Grubstake Peak.

plus this from his blog:

The big Extremo Junior competition was happening on Grubstake Peak.  We stopped for a minute, and it looked more like stop, slide up to a rock, stop, jump the rock, stop, slide, stop, slide down a rock, straight-line to the bottom to me.  Tomorrow they’re on the King.

Don't you think that your response is totally out of proportion (and totally out of line) compared to what CMSkier wrote? At most there may be a hint of dismissiveness and condescension in the second sentence of the quote above from his blog ("stop, slide" etc), but there appears to be no such thing at all in his post on TAY. In any case, it's nothing compared to what's in any number of your own posts. Including the one above -- where you display a far greater degree of dismissiveness and condescension towards CMSkier than anything he displayed towards the juniors.

Of course, if CMSkier had originally posted something much nastier on his blog (which he then deleted), then your response may be appropriate. But certainly based on what is currently online, your response is not. You really do need to re-examine and think more carefully about the appropriateness and tone of what you post online -- some type of essential filtering or self-moderation appears to be missing from posts such as this.

By the way, as far I know, I've never met either of you -- so I'm totally unbiased here regarding the two of you.

Not really. I think this is pretty dismissive.

"We stopped for a minute, and it looked more like stop, slide up to a rock, stop, jump the rock, stop, slide, stop, slide down a rock, straight-line to the bottom to me."

If you stopped for a minute this is what it would look like. If you took the time to really watch you would have seen some extraordinary and very gutsy skiing.

Remember, these are CHILDREN as young as 12 whose very hard work is being described this way. They train hard, ski all the time with coaches and friends and put themselves at some degree of risk - both physically and spiritually - to participate in these competitions. And as I said, some of these kids are already sponsored, published and heading toward being professional skiers who will push the existing boundary lines of the sport we love. Not to mention the efforts of parents who travel, pay, drive and support their kids.

My participant, who approaches comps in a pretty workmanlike manner and works every time he skis to improve his technique, go bigger and faster, fell in his qualifying run and didn't make it to day two. He was very disappointed and sad, but spent all day Sunday at the bottom of the King supporting his teammates and the other athletes instead of shredding around on that gorgeous day.

It's a community of devoted kids and parents who work hard, play hard and watch out for each other. Some of them are only twelve years old! To describe their exceptional work ethics and skill as skiers this way is derisive and I think that not only do they deserve better, but they deserve our support and praise.

Last but not least, until one is prepared to do what they do - which is not quite is simple as described above - one should probably not make such comments. They're kids for chrissakes! As far as I'm concerned any time a young person is devoted to a sport, an art, academics, whatever they deserve nothing but our highest praise, and I don't think people who may not be familiar with this particular activity should be left with the impression that all they do is " stop, slide up to a rock, stop, jump the rock, stop, slide, stop, slide down a rock, straight-line to the bottom....."

Ask anyone who watched the finals yesterday and they'll tell you there was some very fine, creative and ballsy skiing going on, and the kids didn't get there without working their butts off. For the record I also support his two little brothers as racers, and I don't think I've ever seen racers efforts described in this light (though I'm fully aware some of the young racers are not the most popular kids on the hill).

Bottom line, all these kids rip and have worked hard to do it. Do what they do, then be critical but until you've walked a mile in their proverbial shoes......

Amar, I hope we do meet sometime. I'm really not a bad guy. At least not as bad as scotsman  . I hope to meet CM skier too. I don't think he's a bad guy either, I just took some offense at his characterization of these kick-ass kids. I'm not sure where I was derisive or condescending to him. My response is factual and respectful disagreement. I did not attack him, but challenged his statement. I stated up front that I enjoy his reports.

I will challenge anyone (including myself) to ski with the upper tier of these kids too, not a personal attack, just a fact. They're fast, skilled, strong and boy do they LOVE to ski, and usually the steepest, cruddiest conditions they can find. If you can keep up with them for more than a couple of runs, you are a VERY good skier indeed.

Funny that this is one of the first lift served posts I've ever read and it fits right into the current discussion on TAY atmosphere. I've gotta agree with Amar on this oftpiste, your response is a bit over the top given what was posted here. Seems like a PM would have been more appropriate, esp. to address anything he wrote in his blog.

"We stopped for a minute, and it looked more like stop, slide up to a rock, stop, jump the rock, stop, slide, stop, slide down a rock, straight-line to the bottom to me."

Oftpiste, I have to agree about the overreacting. A minute was not likely a fully representative sample of the skills these kids show. A minute may have been enough to see some of the lesser skilled skiers, form an opinion of the whole event and move on without seeing the whole gambit of skills from most likely a very wide ranging array of talents on display. Another minute later and CMSkier could have seen the future Powdermag coverboy/girl and then would have been possibly raving about the event! People are entitled to their opinions, and 1st impressions, although maybe wrong, usually stick.