Last week I started the contest season and went to the 3 star FWQ Engadin snow, which is always one of the best organized and most fun competitions each winter. This year I got the opportunity to start in the Ski Open too, so I was super motivated and wanted to show that I'm able to ski at the same level as the others. In short I wanted to reach the final, so I decided to set everything on one card... Either I stomp that cliff and I'm in, or I crash and I'm out...
So I was really focused on my drop, which had a little flat landing, so I needed to land it as clean as possible and all the power my legs could effort ... So I went of this cliff with good speed to minimize the bomb effect, but it was still a really hard impact (after 12m), which pressed me down for a butcheck, but I came up again and was still on my skis, fighting against the side rotation I got from the landing. For a second it felt like everything went good, but the rotation impulse was so strong, that I got pushed of my skis and started to thumble... f*** :-)
Anyway, there are really impressive mountains around St. Moritz ... the one in the middle is the famous bianco spine of the Piz Bernina.
The day after was the Final on the north face of mount Corvatsch. At the first view the face didn't look that bad, but there was much wind in it and the conditions were changing from icy crusts to compact snow to powder nearly all 20 meters. So you never knew what the next turn would look like... Because ot that I tried to ride safe, fluent and without any bigger drops. But the extremely flat light and the dispersed snow of the heli didn't make it easier... Finally I crashed in the outrun, so my run was nothing special at all...
Next stop was the Fieberbrunn Big Mountain 3 star Qualifier Final. Unfortunately the Open was cancelled, so I didn't got the opportunity to fight for a startingplace on ski. But I was set for the final on snowboard, where I've chosen a steep technical start and a speedy second half. So I managed the technical part pretty good, althought there was not much snow left for me but everything went good, till this medium size drop in the bottom third. I had a good feeling in the air and was sure that I'll stomp it, but when I landed my nose went under the snow and I thumled... so the run was fucked up and I was pretty frustrated in the outrun, I just wanted to get out of there...
In the picture you can see my line drawn in...
Despite of me, Max rode a really good line and won the competition, Congratulations! For more details look at
http://maxzipser.com/... therefore we partied all night long.
