NY Times Freeskiing Article
The Slopes’ New Renegades? Skiers
December 28, 2003
By GWEN KILVERT
MAMMOTH, Calif.
ON a blustery day in mid-December, Chris Benchetler and his
friends were trudging forward in line for the Thunder Bound
Express chairlift at Mammoth Mountain in the eastern
Sierras of California.
Wearing oversize jackets and pants so voluminous that
waistlines and inseams were mere suggestions, and headed
for a terrain park where they looked forward to careering
in and out of half-pipes, they were the very models of
snowboard culture. Except for one thing: they were there to
ski.
Mr. Benchetler, 17, and his friends are in the forefront of
a growing trend in snow sports known as freeskiing or
"new-school skiing," which is breathing new and lucrative
life into the struggling ski industry. Using skis known as
twin-tips, which are designed so skiers can move backward
and forward down mountains, freeskiers borrow both the
creative moves of snowboarding, using obstacles like rails
and stumps for tricks, and, more important, something of
its renegade image.
"The level of skiing is almost equal with snowboarding
now," said Mr. Benchetler, who has been freeskiing for five
years and sports shoulder-length hair that curls up under
his hat and goggles. "And the style of clothing and even
the graphics on skis are cool now," he added.
In the six years since the first pair of twin-tip skis were
introduced by Salomon, new-school skiers have been
reclaiming status and mountain space lost to snowboarders.
Resort managers and ski instructors from Whistler-Blackcomb
in British Columbia to Stratton Mountain in Vermont say
they are transforming the scene on the slopes.
"There are more and more young skiers in our terrain park
each year," said Oren Tanzer the terrain park manager at
Mammoth. "Skiing was in decline, and now there are almost
just as many of them out there as snowboarders."
According to SnowSports Industries America, a national
trade group, the number of twin-tip skis sold (usually for
more than $500 a pair), shot up 65 percent last season to
23,000 over the previous winter. "We are starting to see a
lot of these freeski brands get traction with customers 30
years old and under," said Ira Rosh, the divisional
merchandise manager of Paragon Sports, the largest sporting
goods store in Manhattan. "Twin-tip ski and freeski apparel
sales are already stronger than last year."
Freeskiing has also spawned its own magazines, like
Freeskier and Freeze. "We have seen more change in the ski
industry in the past 12 months than we have in the past 20
years," said Brad Fayfield, the editor and publisher of
Freeskier, whose circulation has increased to 100,000 since
2002. "If our magazine's growth is an indicator, then the
ski industry is in for an epic ride."
And freeskiing is fast gaining legitimacy as a competitive
sport. Last year, it was included in world cup competition
for the first time. And the sport is aiming for an
invitation to the 2010 Olympic Games.
It has been a long time coming for Mike Douglas, known as
the godfather of new-school skiing. In 1997, Mr. Douglas, a
Canadian freestyle skier, was coaching the Canadian
Freestyle Ski team when he and four of his skiers began
doing tricks in snowboarders' half-pipes. (Not to be
confused with freeskiing, freestyle skiing is an Olympic
sport involving acrobatic jumping and mogul skiing.) But
the Canadians' single-tipped skis kept them from pushing as
far as they wanted to go.
At the time, ski manufacturers were focusing much of their
energies on snowboarding, which for years had been gaining
ground on skiing. Between 1993 and 1998 the number of
alpine skiers had dropped by 13 percent as the number of
snowboarders doubled. (Since then, skiing participation has
continued to drop, from 10.5 million in 1997 to 7.4 million
in 2003, while the number of snowboarders surged by more
than 50 percent, from 3.7 million to 5.6 million, mostly
among those under 24.)
Ski loyalists, meanwhile, who wanted to depart from the
standard downhill and mogul trails, were barred from the
half-pipes and jumps in what were then called snowboard
parks. Not surprisingly, the rapport between snowboarders
and skiers was tense. "We had become the ugly stepchild of
the new action-sports scene," Mr. Douglas said.
Afraid that the evolution of skiing might come to a
permanent halt, in August, 1997, Mr. Douglas put together a
video documenting the moves he and his friends had
perfected on skis and drafted a proposal for the
construction of a fatter, softer ski that could withstand
landings, with a turned-up tip in both the front and back
for skiing and landing backwards. (Twin-tip skis are 151 to
181 centimeters long, 60 to 71 inches.) After sending the
package to every major ski company, only Salomon, a company
known for its trendsetting innovations, wanted in.
The result was the Teneighty, the first twin-tip ski, which
reached the market in February 1998 and officially started
the freeski movement. "The Teneighty was not just a leap in
technology," said Hal Thomson, the communications manager
of Salomon North America, "but a cultural movement that may
be the biggest evolution ever in skiing."
Within a year, competing ski and snowboard makers began
producing twin-tips of their own, and both Freeze and
Freeskiing magazines were started. It was not until last
January, however, that new-school skiing gained wide-scale
notice and respect, when a French freeskier named Candide
Thovex sailed more than 20 feet off the ground in the
half-pipe competition at the 2003 Winter X Games. To
indicate just what a feat that was, ESPN compared his run
with that of Shaun White, the snowboard superpipe gold
medalist.
At times, Mr. Thovex had soared a full four feet higher out
of the half-pipe. "The minute Candide dropped in, you knew
he was taking skiing to a new place," said Salema Masekela,
the events commentator and a snowboarder. "I have never
seen anyone go that big in the pipe."
Skiing's new highs have attracted both alpine skiers and
snowboarders. Many of the early converts were people like
Justin Todd, 22, a skier all his life. Since new-school
skiing didn't really exist at his local mountain in
Montana, he didn't see his first pair of twin-tips until he
saw freeskiing in a video four years ago.
"Freeskiing is just more fun," said Mr. Todd, who moved to
California to have better access to the terrain park at
Mammoth. "I am not getting burnt out by it because there
are always new tricks to be done. At Mammoth, a skier not
on twin-tip skis is likely an adult."
In lesser numbers, snowboarders have been swapping their
boards for skis. Craig Coker, 19, who began snowboarding
when he was 6, took up freeskiing after watching it in the
1999 Winter X Games. "I liked that skiing felt so
different," said Mr. Coker, who also now lives near Mammoth
Mountain. "And that I didn't need to change the way I
dressed or leave the park."
Even professional snowboarders have been stepping onto
skis. Mr. Thomson of Salomon said the company has received
a surprising number of requests for skis this season from
its professional snowboard team. "When you spend as many
days of the year snowboarding as I do, it's fun to mix it
up," one of the athletes, Jason Ford, said. "You change the
platform you're on, and the mountain changes too."
And so have lift-line politics. Skiers and snowboarders now
huddle together, their clothes almost indistinguishable,
their iPods loaded with the same music. "Freeskiers share
the same lifestyle, culture and reason for being on the
hill as snowboarders," Mr. Fayfield said.
In short, it is now the thing your parents don't do. "It's
become the counterculture," said Finlay Torrance, Mammoth's
sports school manager. "I am seeing kids who are 10, an age
when they typically take up snowboarding, graduating from
our ski school wanting to keep skiing."
Freeskiing's next generation is now one-upping the
jaw-dropping moves pioneered by people like Mr. Douglas,
both in terrain parks and in the backcountry, where they
are launching themselves over 120-foot gaps: just wider
than the wingspan of a 727 plane. All this before they are
old enough to drink.
Beginning Jan. 27 in Aspen, Colo., spectators for the 2004
Winter X Games can expect to see the caliber of freeskiing
leap ahead once more. "People are going to be blown away by
the freeskiers this year," said Mr. Fayfield, who has been
charting the moves of the sport's newest stars in his
magazine. And for the first time, the games will be
broadcast live, on ESPN.
Skiers are certainly embracing new tribal bragging rights.
The ski maker Line has made "I am a Skier" T-shirts.
"Ten years ago a kid would be embarrassed to be a skier,"
said Jason Levinthal, the company's founder and president,
who began building twin-tip skis in his garage in 1995.
"The T-shirt is a way of saying I am proud to be a skier."
Re: NY Times Freeskiing Article
Quote:
Originally posted by road trip
[I]
"Ten years ago a kid would be embarrassed to be a skier,"
said Jason Levinthal, the company's founder and president,
who began building twin-tip skis in his garage in 1995.
:rolleyes:
