Kicking Horse

The weather window is open: Friday morning is competition time. Thursday remains for arriving and exploring. The snow conditions? Okay, but better on the face than in the rest of the area - thanks to weeks of closures. This year, it's back to the Ozone Face, right next to the top chairlift and accessible via the so-called Stairway to Heaven. Short, crisp and radical - so get ready for one-hit wonder lines and fast charging!

In keeping with the winter comeback, there's also a VdW comeback. We present Moonlines!, yesterday's snow with Guido Perrini, a climate debate, the FWT revue in Kicking Horse and finally Sam Anthamatten's backpack. We wish you good entertainment - winter is back!

At the second stop of the Freeride World Tour, the best freeriders started the competition on Thursday afternoon. Kicking Horse once again showed its best side, making for some spectacular sporting action. The French team in particular was extremely strong, winning in several categories and taking several podiums. Basically, I had the feeling that the field of athletes was still finding its legs. A few crashes in Verbier and the cancellation of the second stop in the Pyrenees were already putting pressure on some riders. Nevertheless, even participants who had collected only few points so far showed very ambitious and courageous lines.

A westerly weather pattern is establishing itself and the short and medium-term outlook is warm and wet. We'll report on it as far as we can bear it. Then we broaden our horizons and take a look at a few well-known but distant ski destinations in the northern hemisphere and the state of the cryosphere.

On Friday, the FWT made up for the stop planned as the start of the tour at the infamous Ozone Face in Kicking Horse, Canada. The highest art of freeriding was on offer: Snowboarder Liam Rivera won as a rookie for Mexico, on skis Max Hitzig and Valentin Rainer confirmed their huge potential, and in the women's event rookie Megane Betend won on skis and Michaela Davis-Meehan on snowboard. The riders have been cut and are now heading to the finals in Fieberbrunn and Verbier.

The VdW are all about the tour stop planned for today in Kicking Horse, Canada. The stop was originally planned as a prelude, but was postponed due to difficult conditions. Now 40 cm of fresh snow have been reported in the Ozone face and everything is now set for a great show. We have put together some background reports as a pre-program, enjoy!

The first two stops of the FWT have already been completed and although the snow conditions were difficult, the action was impressive. In Andorra, the race was held on the Pic Des Les Planes, in the same face as the 2022 stop. This terrain offers many options for line choice, starting with a steep and technical section and then offering countless small to medium-sized obstacles, mostly characterized by flat landings.

The FWT season starts next weekend. As many have already noticed, the Freeride World Tour has been swallowed up by the FIS. Little will change in the upcoming season, at least for spectators. What this step means for the medium-term future of contest freeriding is still up in the air.

A little insight into the ContestHappening of 2022 will also be provided this year on PowderGuide. The first part of the Freeride World Tour is already over. In a few weeks, you can look forward to an exciting finale including a new format.

There are freeriders, not only you and me from the German speaking parts of the Alps, but also Japanese freeriders, like Yu Sasaki. He is familiar to us from FWT competitions. I watched Kicking Horse and Yu's run i.m.h.o. would have been the winning line if he hadn't screwed up the drop from the wind lip on top of the face, which was penalized by the judges. ContestHappening didn't mention his run, thus, in order to let justice and mercy prevail, we honor Yu's great line and big drop here!

Good snow conditions and solid riding performances were on show at the replay of the FWT contest on Sunday evening. At the second tour stop of the FWT 2020 in Kicking Horse, Golden, BC, Jessica Hotter (NZL), Marion Haerty (FRA), Kristofer Turdell (SWE) and Jonathan Penfield (USA) were crowned winners.

The third ContestHappening of the season is about the Freeride Junior World Championships in Kappl, the FWQs in Engadin and Les Arcs, as well as a new season wildcard for the FWT and two more wildcards for the Kicking Horse stop.