CRESTED BUTTE — Big-mountain freeskier Rex Wehrman remembers the exact moment he was scared away from competing ever again in the U.S. Extreme Freeskiing Championships at Crested Butte.
“I was taking a line through ‘Body Bag Chutes’ and wound up going off the final jump on one ski, with my other one behind me,” said the two-time U.S. Extremes champion from Summit County. “As soon as I took off, I just thought, ‘That’s it. I’m never doing this again.’ ”
Wehrman, 38, managed to pull it together in midair and land the unforgiving 30-foot jump wedged between jagged rocks and thick timber, and even advance to the final round among the 2006 contest’s elite the following day. But his heart was no longer in it. And that’s no way to approach what may be the most difficult and dangerous in-bounds ski terrain in Colorado.
Wehrman now applies his extreme skiing expertise as a judge at the event, which celebrated its 18th anniversary Saturday.
He still professes his love for “watching how the next generation of rippers is changing the way we view the mountains.” For Wehrman, that change might be traced to a split second when he realized his heart had overruled his head.
“I could question my decision-making process at the top. I saw some other people stick a line that I’d looked at, but never inspected it. I watched them from below and said, ‘I can do that, no problem. It doesn’t look that hard,’ ” he said. “Then I got to the top and it was three times as big as I thought, and it was really serious. It was a contest, so I said, ‘OK, there’s where I need to be,’ and I just went.
“It didn’t work out the way I planned, but I pulled it off because it wasn’t an option to land on one ski at 60 mph. Right then I decided I wasn’t going to do that anymore.”
Given the consequential potential for catastrophe, the question most often asked of big-mountain freeskiers is: Why do it in the first place?
The answers are as varied as the athletes, who venture from as far as Canada, Europe and South America to compete in the longest-running extreme skiing competition on the continent. But for the nearly 170 competitors lined up to challenge themselves on precipitous rock-riddled slopes of up to 60 degrees and cliffs pushing 80 feet, the rewards clearly outweigh the risks.
“I think it’s the classic battle between you and yourself: Can you put your mind to something and follow through?” Wehrman said. “It’s just the struggle of overcoming an obstacle and persevering and trying to do the best that you can. It’s good life training.”
Making a career as a big-mountain freeskier is arguably more difficult than the skiing itself. With the winners at Crested Butte — one of the most prestigious on the five-event Subaru Freeskiing World Tour — pulling in a mere $5,000, it is passion, not prize money, that continues to attract top athletes nearly 20 years after its inception.
Finding a comfort level
For some, such as 51-year-old masters division champion Scott Kennett of Telluride, that fervor shows no sign of fading.
“I just love competing. It’s a good thing. If you don’t compete and push yourself, you’re not ever going to reach those upper levels of skiing,” Kennett said. “It’s kind of a comfort level.”
What Kennett and other competitors consider “comfortable,” the casual observer typically considers “crazy.” But it is the decision process, the sound judgment that evolves through years of skiing, that allow the sport’s best to remain in the game.
Scoring at a big-mountain freeskiing contest is based foremost upon “line choice,” the difficulty of the terrain a skier selects. All other points, awarded for control, fluidity and technique, are relative. In other words, if you want to win, first you have to go big.
There’s a reasonable argument that such a scoring system might drive skiers to take unnecessary risks, to ski beyond their abilities for the sake of a high score or to lay claim to the coveted “Sick Bird” award handed out to the competitor who takes the most spirited line at every event. This year’s winner, Alex Else of Crested Butte, landed in a tree on his final run.
Competitors will argue the contest inspires the opposite attitude, however.
“Going in (to the finals), I just knew I had to keep it on my feet because it does take three good, solid runs to compete,” said overall winner Cliff Bennett, a Boulder native currently skiing out of Snowbird, Utah. “I’ve kind of learned what it takes to impress the judges and taken the initiative to show that in my runs.”
Bennett, 27, blasted out of 13th place in the finals by stomping a double cliff-drop into a 30-foot air that rocketed the former racer to the finish area in a course-record time of 48 seconds.
It takes daring, and intelligence too
To Bennett’s way of thinking, the technique demanded by skiing such a technical, high- speed line demonstrates a purity and prowess that can’t be duplicated in the sort of one-and- done stunt skiing some of his peers offer for films outside of competition.
“I don’t really see going out and hucking over 100 feet as feasible or smart,” Bennett said. “That’s why I stuck with what I consider true big mountain skiing — stuff you can actually stomp and land on your feet with a crazy backslap or whatever.”
For judges like Wehrman, runs like Bennett’s exemplify a new style of extreme skiing that emphasizes intelligence along with ability.
“It’s changing the sport of skiing,” Wehrman said. “I think this event in particular showed how smart the competitors are these days. We had no injuries up there. Nobody took a sled ride out. There were only a couple of instances where we were really nervous that somebody wound up where they shouldn’t have been, but they made smart decisions even though they were in over their heads.”
The lesson has clearly caught on with the next generation of skiers still attracted to the challenges of Crested Butte’s terrain while following the lead of their elders.
“What’s the difference between a good athlete and a great athlete? The great ones are smart,” said Travis Wolfe, 23, from Telluride. “They don’t get hurt.”
Scott Willoughby: 303-954-1993 or swilloughby@denverpost.com
