CRESTED BUTTE — The sick birds were flying high and fast from the traditionally off-limits perch known as “Big Hourglass” on Saturday. Whistler, British Columbia, skiers Jen Ashton and Brett Crabtree landed on the top of the podiums at the 17th annual Subaru U.S. Extreme Freeskiing Championships at Crested Butte Mountain Resort.
It was only the fourth time that patrollers dropped the ropes to the Big Hourglass and its daunting “Devil’s Triangle” rock formation for competition, and the competitors made the most of it.
“I was really nervous this morning,” Ashton said. “I tried to keep my focus on how fun this was going to be, not how daunting the course was. . . . I just tried to put the demons out of my mind and focus on keeping it fun.”
No one had more fun than Team Obermeyer skier Kiffor Berg from Aspen, who earned his second “Sick Bird” belt buckle in 10 years by stomping a massive 65-foot cliff drop with a twisted smirk on consecutive runs to finish fifth.
And perhaps no one left more disappointed than Dane Tudor, 18, of Red Mountain, British Columbia, who led the three-day contest until his final turn — a somersault landing off a 25-foot cliff drop — and settled for third place.
“I messed up,” Tudor said. “I had an easier line in the beginning for my second run, but I’m not one to take it easy, really. When I got there, I decided to do something different. I should have stuck with my original idea.”
Tudor raised the bar throughout the competition, flawlessly skiing his semifinal run through a chain of waterfall leaps before blowing the crowd away with a daring launch between two cliffs known as “Gary’s Gap,” a terrain feature never before successfully landed in competition. He capped the run with a clean 25-footer that included a 360-degree spin before stumbling in the finals.
“The hardest thing to do is ski with a lead,” Berg said. “He dropped into the hardest line in the venue (on his final run). I was surprised he went in there, but he went for it. He’s young and he’s going to win many of these to come.”
Ultimately, it was Crabtree’s clean skiing and perfect landings that earned him the title at the first stop of the Freeskiing World Tour with 112 points. Cliff Bennett of Snowbird, Utah, was second with 110.99 points, followed by Tudor with 110.75.
Colby Adams, 18, of Breckenridge finished second among the women, four points behind Ashton’s score of 93, and earned the North Face Young Gun award. Scott Kennett, 50, of Telluride took the men’s Masters award over Crested Butte’s Marc Schellhorn, 83.83-77.5. Teri Seibert of Vail was third in the women’s Masters division won by Nancy Elrod of Squaw Valley, Calif.
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