The Smith Optics Fernie Freeski Competition is a 3 day Big Mountain event run above the lift accessed terrain at Fernie Alpine Resort. Its all the amazing Big Mountain stuff you can see from the resort but have to hike up to – and days 2 and 3 were actually on permanently closed terrain.
Day one was pretty foggy and organisers threatened to run the qualifiers on what one could call a bumps run – but thank goodness the weather was so bad they pulled out the weather day card.
The next day was blue so all the competitors hiked straight up to Polar Peak – the highest peak above the resort – and skied their hardest down Polar Chutes – hitting cliffs and straightlines along the way.
Day 2 and the field was cut – Faction athletes Alex Wall, Ross Janzen and Martha Burley all making it through to ski the super exposed Lizard Headwall – a definite highlight was Alex styling it with a huge and sick 360 off the middle of the face – and the next cut again saw all 3 Faction athletes moving into the finals.
6 girls and 16 guys made it through to day 3, running right off Polar Peak into the Richards area of the Lizard Headwall – Ross found the biggest air of the day moving into 3rd place and picking up the Sickbird along the way. Alex Wall was close behind in 4th place and won the Travis Steeger award for his stylie moves and cool attitude. Martha Burley telemarked into 3rd place and of course the party was at Faction Headquarters that night!
Ross was competing on the 188 Alias, Alex on the 183 3.zero and Martha on the 175 3.zero mounted with tele bindings.
All the athletes were stoked with the chance to compete on such amazing venues – set your calendars for next year its going to happen all over again! http://www.skifernie.com
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