March 5, Crystal Mountain

Have to agree about oftpiste's over reaction. It illustrates the making of a mountain out of a molehill school of thought. Be cool.

In the time it took to compose this, 4 more comments made. 

Oftpiste,
I mentioned the competition on TAY as a note that a good chunk of the southback would be closed sunday.  I made up the name Extremo Junior as I didn't know the actual title, just knew it was an "Extreme" skiing thing for juniors.  All I saw was the signup in the lodge and the 2 scheduled areas that would be skied.  Crystal had no signage for the event on the mountain and the event itself is closed off to the public.  We just see a lot of flags and loud PA and have to watch from the sidelines.

On my blog I mentioned a little more, not as a diss on the kids competing, but a description of the couple skiers I saw this year from the end of the Grubstake Traverse.  Especially, one skier that took a line skier's right near where we were standing.  He made only one turn on the lower ⅔ of the run where he didn't stop or end in a sideslip looking for a rock to jump.  I usually one see 3-4 competitors each time Crystal has one of these type events as the competition moves pretty slow and I'm too squirrelly to miss much more of my ski day.  However, the couple I saw this year match others I've seen earlier this year, previous years, both juniors and adults.  The skiers spend 85% of their run jump turning, sideslipping, and stopping, just to huck the biggest rock they can find.  Just my opinion, but these competitions don't promote the "fluidity and grace" that is the soul skiing.

Again, this was, and has been, my observation of specific skiers in these competitions.  On a one-on-one level, I rode up the chair with one of the competitors.  Nice kid, articulate, and very willing to joke around with some older school skiers.  He didn't exude any "I'm just 15 and bet I can beat you down the mountain vibe".  Hope he did well.  He wasn't so sure he'd make the finals as he went late in the comp and said after everyone made 2 scoping runs and by the time he went, the snow was pretty well hashed out.  Elk Chutes seems a pretty small area for the number of skiers they had.

Not sure why you took this personal, and, brought it into TAY, you could have commented on my blog, where my observation was posted.  I think you'll find that not everyone thinks competitions are cool, your kids are the greatest, or your view of the future of the sport where it should go.  That's not distain, dismissive, condescending, or slagging off (not sure what that means), just different.

Ken

Yeah, what Ken said.  And filbo.  And JimD.

Responses like Oftpiste will ensure that NOBODY will posts TRs EVER AGAIN. 

Ken goes out of his way to make the post, and include useful info about specific areas being affected.  Nothing Derogatory about that whatsoever. 

Thanks Ken for taking the time to post (and repost and stay cool).

My mind is reeling with disbelief.

1. I didn't take it personally and have no problem with CM skier whatsoever. My comments are MY OPINION, which everyone seems to think members are entitled to express (except me?). CM skier, however unintentionally, grossly mischaracterized something important to me and my kids. I felt it important to clarify and correct this mischaracterization. The blog link was posted on TAY, so as far as I can tell it's for all to see? TAY members read it, therefore I wanted to be sure those readers could see my clarification.

2. I made no personal or unpleasant comments about anyone, though it seems fine that I am publicly called out to be someone that will drive members from posting for ever, or am overreacting all of which, in typical TAY fashion, is fine as long as the poster is on the 'right' side, whatever that may be deemed to be by the wagon-circling bunch. 99% of what I posted was praise for kids. This is bad how?

3. Most of you seem to agree that spending a minute watching this event is not sufficient to get the feel for it. Gee, why didn't I think of mentioning that? If you are going to say something derogatory (and please don't try to tell me that wasn't, unintentional or not), know what you're talking about.

4. Pretend you're 12-16 years old. You just finished scaring the shit out of yourself skiing some very steep and challenging terrain in front of a bunch of people and you read, " ........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." How would you feel?

5. Pretend your kid is a spelling bee whiz and has worked hard to get there. I put something on my blog like, "I watched for a minute and it looked to me like all they had to do was spell simple, one-syllable words, and for this I couldn't use the gym all day. Tomorrow I won't be able to use the library because of it" How would you feel? Or how about this one in my imaginary blog, "while skiing around the mountain today I overheard a bunch of people talking about their TAY involvement. I thought, cool! I bet these people are great skiers. It looked to me, when they set off down Green Valley, that they had a lot of really nice equipment, but stopped an awful lot to pick their way through the moguls and didn't seem to have much skill". I bet that'd go over big!

6. OK, I'll take the overreacting criticism though I disagree (is this allowed or not?), but the way it looks to me is that the vitriol aimed in my direction is far more aggressive than anything I've posted in this thread.

CM skier, please keep posting your reports. I like them and I'd probably like you too. If you said what you wrote in your blog to me on the chairlift or in the elk I'd have said exactly the same thing to your face. Isn't this the test for the level of discourse everyone keeps talking about? Agreeing to disagree as long as it's civil?

Are none of you parents? I'm praising the kids and their efforts, not berating someone.

Astonishing.

One more clarification... these events are not closed to the public. The skiing venues are closed to the public for the safety of all. There are plenty of places anyone can watch from as long as you're not in the venue. Come and really watch sometime. It'll blow your mind to see what they're accomplishing, and the spirit that prevails at the finish line, unless of course you can't stand to see a bunch of kids who can ski circles around most of us. The freeskiing tour welcomes all observers. The more the merrier.

Overeaction on TAY! NOOOOO! not possible.!Never happens! Dual standards...absolutely not!
FWIW Brit and I went and sat and watched the comp yeterday at the base of Avy Basin. We hiked the Throne and skied the FALL LINE down to the comp because we were worried we would be castigated if we TRAVERESED to it from the Hamburger gate.

Kids were amazing, skiing confidently above tremendous exposure on the King face where I would have been in full gaper mode clutching vegetable belays and calling for my mommy.
One kid... I think Pollard, skied a fluid line at top speed with several hucks and no backsplatting.Very impressive.

Music was rocking...... Last song was Giv'me Shelter by the Stones...... yeahhhhh baby.
Giv'me Shelter.

The skiers spend 85% of their run jump turning, sideslipping, and stopping, just to huck the biggest rock they can find.  Just my opinion, but these competitions don't promote the "fluidity and grace" that is the soul skiing.

So, just curious, and no personal affront intended and maybe you are a way more skillful skier than I but how would you approach or look skiing those lines? Perhaps Pinball Chute/Ryans Face/L-Tree Chute and the like that were totally slayed by some of the kids yesterday? Would you need to stop before a mandatory air to scope it out (many of them didn't hesitate at all) and work up the nerve to send it,  or sideslip through a ski-length wide 45 degree boilerplate chute peppered with shark's teeth? I would. Could you backflip or flatspin any of the features in either of those areas, let alone a 20 foot rock that drops you above considerable exposure in Brain Damage at a very high rate of speed?

To ensure no one thinks I'm attacking or placing myself above I will emphatically state that I'd consider myself to be having a very good day if I were to ski any of those lines half as well as damn near any of the competitors. How can you make the above generalization if you admittedly didn't have the time to watch for more than a minute?

Edited to add a couple of photos to show you don't do stuff like this by sideslipping and stopping, or without considerable skill.

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and one to remind you who it is we're discussing.......
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