Red Bull Cold Rush brings skiing back to its roots, but at the same time brings the sport to extreme levels that have never been seen before.
Nestled in the beautiful yet daunting high country of the historic gold-mining town of Silverton, the Cold Rush is a backcountry freestyle skiing event that brings some of the best skiers from across the world. All are pushing themselves to their limits in a big mountain, freestyle and cliffs competition, resulting in some of the most athletic and dangerous maneuvers on skis known to man.
The Red Bull Cold Rush Big Mountain competition course in Silverton, Colorado. Monday was the first day of the backcountry skiing events. (For the CU Independent/Christopher Morgan)
But with such a dangerous competition, the proper safety precautions have to be made. This past weekend, dangerous avalanches occurred when the Silverton Mountain crew were blasting in the cliffs competition area of the trail map. The avalanches caused the competition administration to cancel the cliffs portion of the event and close off over half of the big mountain course.
“We were almost not going to have the contest because of how bad the avalanche conditions are,” said 19-year-old phenom Sean Pettit. “Sure enough, we secured runs that are safe enough to shred on. The big mountain venue is half the size it’s supposed to be but it’s okay. We’re making the best of it and conditions are better than we originally thought.”
Nevertheless, two-time returning Cold Rush champion Pettit and company took it hard to the extreme terrain on Monday in the big mountain portion of the competition. This year, the stakes were even higher with NBC filming to broadcast the event on March 24 to a national audience.
“This is the first time we’ve had these types of elements come into play for the Cold Rush,” said returning women’s Cold Rush champion Grete Eliassen, who was not competing this year due to a recent ACL tear. “It’s been really warm everywhere this year so we’re just doing the best we can with the snow this year, but everyone’s been throwing down no matter what the conditions.”
After being snowmobiled up to “The Lake” portion of Silverton Mountain, a vast horseshoe-shaped bowl underneath several narrow chutes and dozens of cliffs, the athletes were taken on helicopters to the top of the peaks where they would take on the extreme terrain one by one, choosing their individual path of action.
At this point, it was make or literally break for the athletes, all of them throwing down as hard as they could on some of the most difficult lines in the country. One standout performance came from skier Dane Tudor, who was one of the last competitors to go down and had by far one of the best runs of the day.
“I skied a similar version of my first run,” Tudor said. “It was really nice, fresh tracks. This time I just tried to up it, I hit a bigger cliff up top, a 360 in the middle and double staged at the bottom. I pretty much just tried to elevate the level of the run I did before.”
Tudor set the tone for tomorrow’s slopestyle competition, which should have less natural distractions than Monday’s big mountain section.
“Big mountain today was pretty sick,” Tudor said. “I had a good day. Tomorrow we’re going into the jumps. I’ve been training for the past three months in the park, so I’ll have some tricks and hopefully all goes well.”
The first day of the Red Bull Cold Rush was one to remember, and all of America will have the chance to see it with NBC’s upcoming coverage. With the national publicity, backcountry freestyle skiing may be reaching a new level of popularity.
Sal Masekela, well-known X Games commentator and as some say, the face and voice of action sports, said he holds high hopes for the Red Bull Cold Rush.
“I think the whole Red Bull Signature Series and people being able to see action sports on a regular basis in these speciality events [X-Games and Red Bull Cold Rush] can have a huge effect on the sport,” Masekela said. “For NBC to get involved, it’s a big deal because it showcases freestyle skiing to a whole other audience.”
“This [Red Bull Cold Rush] brings the sport back to its roots,” Masekela continued. “Everybody getting together and coming out to the backcountry and pushing each other makes it really enjoyable. I think the athletes get to really just let it all hang out at a whole different level [than the X-Games], so it’s cool.”
The competition continues tomorrow with a slopestyle event followed by a video review in which the athletes themselves will vote to decide who has performed the best for the past two days. With the cliffs event cancelled, the Cold Rush may end on Tuesday. Plans to incorporate a different third event are being made, but nothing has been finalized as of Monday night.
Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Joseph Wirth at Joseph.wirth@colorado.edu.
