Big mountain snowboarding
“When you’re coaching slopestyle, it’s more about the maneuvers. Bryant has been his coach since then, and the two spend most weekends simply riding around Breck, tracking from one spot to the other in search of drops, cliffs, rocks, bushes - anything that looks fun, no man-made features required. “Some of the best pros in the world will have enormous falls, and those are almost more important to watch than the clean runs.”Įver since that first contest, Obleski has been going bigger and faster and harder every season, moving from the small, windblown trees and bushes in Contest Bowl to the legitimate double black diamond terrain on Peak 6. “I’ll go home after skiing and watch every Freeride World Tour run from the past year, even the ones with falls,” said Obleski, who plays lacrosse for Denver South High School when he’s not on skis. He took fourth place and was hooked immediately.
He got his first taste of big-mountain skiing as a 12-year-old, when he was taking advanced ski school classes and competed in the resort-sponsored freeride competition in Contest Bowl. Over the past four seasons, Obleski has made the trip from Denver to Breckenridge almost every weekend to train with Hawks and Team Breck.
I get to see cool resorts, and when you have that good competition - when you have that good result on a new line - it’s the best feeling in the world.” Love at first ski “This is more fun,” he said, and then paused for a long, long time, as if to say that’s all I needed to know. These days, the Team Breck freeride program is split almost evenly between big-mountain riders and slope or pipe riders - a far cry from the early glory days of slope and pipe in the mid-2000s. They range in age from 7 years old to 18 and older, but most share one thing in common: a fanatical love of freeskiing and snowboarding.
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Dubbed Hawks Freeride after director and former pro Chris Hawks, the program covers the gamut of freeriding - superpipe, slopestyle and big mountain - and boasts roughly 60 athletes this season. “Just watch out for the mogul on the landing,” Bryant told Obleski, his protégé and a four-year member of the Team Breckenridge freeski program. I’m just not sure if he considered it before dropping. When Clay Bryant told Nic Obleski to steer clear of a mogul beneath the deceptively small drop in Horseshoe Bowl, I’m pretty sure the 17-year-old skier from Denver heard him. The venue is home to the annual GoPro Big Mountain Challenge, a March event that drew 170 youth freeskiers from across the country last season and returns this season in late March. Like most terrain at Breck, the runs are short and sweet, but it’s an exhilarating ride from the top of a wind-blown ridge to the lower basin. Slopes there range from 25 to nearly 45 degrees, with dozens of line options, ranging from large to XXL.
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The Six Senses - a series of hike-to cliffs and chutes south of Kensho SuperChair between Peak 6 and Peak 7 - is Breck’s Holy Grail for aspiring big-mountain riders, Bryant said. When Breckenridge expanded to Peak 6 in December 2013, it gave skiers direct lift access to some of the gnarliest terrain on the Tenmile Range. Once you’re comfortable simply being in the air, Bryant suggests heading to the far east side of the bowl for practice with run-outs and landings on tight, gladed slopes. It’s home to larger rock drops (15-10 feet) and other features, including several drops surrounded by trees, rocks and nasty rollers. They range in size from barely there to 15 feet, Bryant said, and all end in relatively short run-outs on slopes ranging from 25 to 35 degrees.Īccessed from the T-Bar lift, Horseshoe Bowl is Contest Bowl’s bigger, badder brother. It’s filled with bushes and small trees that get buried with windblown snow - and become near-perfect training jumps. One of the first (and best) practice venues for aspiring big-mountain riders is Contest Bowl, the southern face of the wide-open bowl directly above Colorado SuperChair.
“You want to encourage, but you don’t want to be dangerous.”īryant breaks down the cliff progression at Breckenridge. “You don’t want to be pushing someone off something they’re just not ready for,” said Clay Bryant, head big mountain coach for Team Breckenridge. But how does a big-mountain skier go from staying grounded to hucking off 35-foot cliffs? One word: progression.