Bougie Down at Lake Louise

J Dogg — Wed, 09 Mar 2005 00:00:00 -0500

Rating

The 3rd Big Mountain Challenge at Lake Louise got rolling with the inspection day on Wednesday March 6th. Warm bluebird weather welcomed us competitors scattered around the hill to guess at venue choices for the days to come. All was revealed at the afternoon's meeting when we were told 'ER 7' was the qualifier venue. Captain Jack Carey introduced head judge Jeff Holden and his team; Robin Corcelles, Dan Slater, Jen Ashton and Colin Puskas as well as Patrol's representative 'Rocket'. Every hill has its characters on patrol.

At Red we met 'Sparky,' in Lake 'Disease' (as Rocket calls it) we met Rocket. He gave us the low down on Rocky mountain snow pack, skiing PC (or not, which he was encouraging!) and some questionable advice on finding love & disease with his hometown girls! The judges and patrol had been spotted skiing a permanent closure and had gained 3 uninvited 'tag-alongs' who figured they could come too, prompting a minor lecture and excited rumours of the opening of PC areas for the finals. Only time would tell.

Day 1 of competition was held on ER7. A good-sized area of rocky, rotten spring snow offered a good selection of lines for an opening day venue. Above and below this section, hard chalky snow allowed good edging and fast skiing. The start sheet was showing a lot of new and unknown names to competitive freeskiing. With no pre-qualified athletes and scores being cumulative over 3 days each run really mattered. The ladies ran first with the run of the day going to Lindsay Forbes of Canmore for quick and powerful skiing.

For the men's run of the day Ryan Bougie picked a line nobody else skied. Skiing a fast top section into the rocks, Ryan hit a cliff landing on a tiny patch of snow, stomping it cleanly and flying through the rest of the course. A crowd pleasing 360 off a small air at the bottom completed the run. Special mention must go to Frenchman Jerome Baud who's back flip off a 5 foot rock booter was the only invert of the entire comp. While the crowd loved it his MCL wasn't so impressed with the crash landing! Have a quick recovery Jerome.

The second day saw the field cut to 8 women and 30 men with scores among the top competitors very close. Naming area's of the mountain is perhaps not Lake Louise's strongest asset ,as the day 2 venue was 'ER 3'. The course was basically split in two with the skiers left half being fast and smooth with several small cliffs, while the right side was heavily peppered rocks with some hollow, rotten snow to test skiers ablities. Simon Grafton of Whistler moved to the top of the leader board by skiing through the rocks and straight-lining out for the 3rd place run of the day. High score of 33.6 on day 2 though went to Stephan Brosseau who made his technical line look fast and smooth. The lady of the day was Karolina Ekman who also took over top spot going into the final day. Tim Haggerty defiantly takes the crash award for going huge over a rock gap at the bottom of the course. Unfortunately the explosion was instant and spectacular upon impact!

The gossip was confirmed by Captain Jack that 'ER 5' (yes you guessed it, the area between ER 3 & 7!), a permanently closed area, was to be the final venue. This was one of gnarliest looking spots on the hill and had the locals stoked to see lines being thrown down where they normally can't ski. Start gates were high on the skiers left ridge of the face. This gave competitors the option of a steep and narrow chute to start or a steep lower cliffed-out face. The rest of the face was covered with rocks poking though the shallow snow pack down to the central section which yielded cliffs and chutes to an open run out and finally the finish gates. This venue offered the additional challenge of unpredictability as it had not been skied by the public all season, leaving the snow sun affected and hollow in many spots.

Finals day got underway with the final 4 women running first in reverse order. Janina Kuzma from Fernie skied first and leap-frogged the field with the standout run for the women, becoming the overall women's winner. Her solid and speedy run had her shredding the top chute before heading to the skier's left of the course, and wrapping up by straightlining down to the cheering crowd below. With 32.4 points Kumzma scored 7.4 more than second place Ekman (25 pts) on the final day's run.

Some investigative journalism leads us to Bougie's winning secret. He's applying the doglotion minutes before his final day run!

Scores after day 2 had left the podium wide open for the top 5 men to fight it out. Only 2.2 points separated Grafton, Waring, Rubens, Bougie and Sedivy. However the crown was claimed emphatically by Bougie who left no need to guess at a winner. The 21 year old Blackcomb Patroller left everyone's jaws dropped as he double dropped out of the top diagonal chute to skiers left and charged the centre of the course. Yet another double drop led him down a sliver of snow before hitting the run out at high speed and slamming on the brakes for the finish gates. With the two main features of Ryan's line not hit by any other skier, his final day score was a well deserved 40.8... 11.6 points clear of Marcus Waring's second highest score of the day.

Day 2's leader Simon Grafton skied well, slid a place, but kept his podium spot to take second overall, 4th on the day. Scoring just 0.2 less than Grafton was Marcus Waring in 3rd overall. Rubens finished 4th and showed some of his park skills by taking a roll off a cliff and landing it switch where most of us would have stacked it! Rockies local Dave Yipp stole our attention with his crash of the day early in the running. Going for a double drop at the bottom Dave stopped to windup the crowd, then promptly hucked his first drop. Killing speed with his face and flips he then rolled off the second cliff... too bad because it would have been sweet! Whistler skiers can pat themselves on the back for a good showing.Joining Bougie and Grafton in the final 12 men were Micha Sedivy in 5th and Dom Melanson in 8th.

The skiers went as big at the party as they did on the hill, which led to all sorts of debauchery. One might say there was drinking, some breakages, sexual conquests, ejections from the bar and a certain running man incident culminating in the drunk tank. It might be rude to name names but don't worry, the Whistler crew held their own at night as they did by day! Hmmm, what do you do when the winnings are in cash! Overall it was a great week of skiing; the competitors were impressed with the venues, no bad injuries were incurred, and beer consumption was high. The events staff and volunteers did a great job, so I guess that's same time same place next season guys?

Until then maybe we'll see you all at Fernie's competition coming soon, March 16-20.

Judges Dan Slater and Jeff Holden with Captain Jack

QUOTES OF THE WEEK

"We're feeling you, we want you to feel us too!"- Captain Jack, event director and Grand wizard of freeskiing addressing competitors at the opening meeting.

"About 3 weeks ago I took CSIA level 1, and failed! So to that I say, **** them, everyone should ski how they want to ski"- Lake Louise Big Mountain Champion Ryan Bougie during his winning speech.

"Watch this guy, he's gonna ski straight over to the rocks then fall right through them, I bet ya"- Cheddar calls it 10 seconds before said skier does exactly that.

"Ski, booze, jacuze, snooze"- Mickey Sedivy's daily life plan, we like it!

DETAILS

This was the 3rd Annual Lake Louise Big Mountain Challenge, keep an eye out for round 4 in March 2006, dates TBA.

For more info on upcoming events at Lake Louise and other RCR shred spots, visit http://www.skircr.com/evolution/.

To register for the upcoming Salomon Fernie Freeskiing Competition, visit http://www.skircr.com/evolution/registration.asp

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Bougie Down at Lake Louise