Ah, Vail. Remember Vail? When it hosted the luster-less US Freeskiing Open, Vail saw freeskiing careers made on its slopes. Remember when the Big Air came down to a showdown between Andy Woods’ 1260 and some 17 year-old Swede’s D-spin (can you actually do that trick anymore?) Remember when Phil Poirer ran halfpipe contests? Marc Andre switch frontflips, JP Auclair winning the first Open with a 720 and holding the first pair of 1080’s in his hand on the podium, TJ Schiller winning slope, Mikael Descheneux’s gorgeous switch 7, switch 9, switch 10 combo over the channel gap, the list could go on for an installment of Know Your Roots (I’d send along all my VHS recordings). Anyone whose parents would pay the money for a trip out to Vail from Vermont, because their kid thought they could get sponsored but crashed every run, made their way up I-70 every January to freeskiing’s biggest home-grown show.
Vail’s position in the freeski scene has changed significantly, going from the jib haven of yore with the first serious S-rail to a resort that gets talked about more frequently on the TGR forums by people arguing that it’s a better locale for the backcountry shredder than Aspen. During my time in Colorado I’d never gotten off in Vail except once to get lost on South Frontage Rd. for half an hour and then get drunk at my friend’s house. The sliver of trails you see from the highway seemed like a conduit to a far-off land of Back Bowls, those mythical formations that have been both hyped and hated. So when I was back out in Colorado last December, I had to make a stop by.
