Photos by Keith Carlsen, MSI.

Hundreds of spectators gathered on Telluride's Heritage plaza to witness the crowning of the 2006 Subaru Telluride Freeskiing Open champions. Amidst roaring applause, MSI event organizer and announcer John 'Dak' Williams started the ceremony by saying, "What you lack in snow, you can more than make up for in attitude."

A thin snowpack was the only downside to an otherwise flawless weekend - with incredible enthusiasm, zero injuries, and hard-charging skiing through extremely technical terrain.

"The energy that these guys put to the mountain and their technical ability was amazing today. They were going into areas that had never been skied before by the public," said Bobby Murphy, Executive Director of Resort Services at Telluride. "To see some of the best skiers in the world rip this mountain up was really exciting."

Variable snow pack forced competitors to be ready for anything.

"The conditions up there were burley," said head judge Eric Schmitz. "It went from pure ice to punchy to sugar over rocks. Definitely not favorable snow, and yet the level of skiing was phenomenal."

Women's competition was a battle for second place, with Carrie Jo Chernoff of Crested Butte, CO, holding a commanding lead all weekend. She had the highest combined score of the day, for men or women, in yesterday's semi-finals, and came into today leading by 12 points.

"I had a pretty big lead, so my focus was just to stay on my feet," said Chernoff. 'Not take it too easy, but ski something I knew I could finish." Despite her conservative approach, she pulled farther into the lead today, winning the event by over 13 points. Telluride local Galena Gleason came in second, followed by Lynn Kennen of Alpine Meadows, CA, in third.

The men's title went to Cliff Bennett of Snowbird, UT, who came out of fourth place in the semis to take the overall win - based on combined scores of two semi-final and two final runs.

"I came into yesterday's venue a little skeptical," said Bennett. There was a lot of weird snow in there, so I basically just skied down. Today, the venue was a lot more my style - really wide open, with cliffs I could air and then make big turns out."

esterday's semi-final winner Fred Mooney of Winter Park, CO, came in second, and Walker Willey of Salt Lake City, UT, rounded out the men's podium in third.

The final award of the weekend, the 'Sickbird' award, is perhaps as coveted as the win. Awarded to the competitor who lays it all on the line, this year's Sickbird award was given to Chris Tatsuno of Sun Valley, ID, whose risky, aggressive skiing all weekend earned him the highest single-run score in yesterday's semi-finals, and made him the clear choice for the award.

The Finals were held in the lower section of Palmyra Peak - a huge venue that is rarely open to the public and had yet to be skied this year. After airing off the top cornice and through one of three short, bony chutes, competitors arced high-speed turns down Mountain Quail's wide open couloir.

The four-stop 2006 Subaru U.S. Freeskiing series opened with the Subaru U.S. Freeskiing Nationals at Snowbird, UT, and continues on to the Jackson Hole Freeskiing Open presented by Subaru in Jackson Hole, WY, and the Subaru North American Freeskiing Championships in Kirkwood, CA.

Along with U.S. Freeskiing Series title sponsor Subaru of America and host mountain Telluride Ski Resort, strong support from tour partners Amstel Light, The North Face, Powder Magazine, Sportsinsurance.com, Nordica, and Smith Optics have allowed for a huge overall prize purse as well as expanded coverage of the competition. New for 2006, MSI is excited to present online, video-on-demand footage of all events, which will be uploaded weekly to www.usfreeskiing.com