Big Mountain Hochfügen 4*

This weekend the 4* FWQ Big Mountain Hochfügen has been taken place,
since Hochfügen is just 50 minutes from Innsbruck it felt like a home-race and I was pretty focused to show a good run.



So I had some discussions with my buddies Max and Alex about the snowconditions and possible lines.


Finally I decided to ski as it is shown in the pic. It was a line which allows you to ski fast and fluid, but still with a lot of jumps and features in it. (the view is from the side, so it looks a bit like traversing)
On competition day it was sunny, but we had a strong wind at the top. Luckily the snowconditions were not bad, a bit changing from a windpressed start, to a tracked but powdery middlepart and a hard endzone. The venue is a bit hard to orientate at the top, because there is a plateau which is rolling into the next plateau and then it gets steep at the bottom part.
3, 2, 1 drop in


A small drop at the start oft he run,


some turns heading forward to the double drop,


which actually did not has a nice middle-landing anymore,


then I wanted to do a backflip over this kicker-rock, but I underestimated the transition to the steep take off, so I lost all my speed and I barely jumped a straight air over it.


Afterwards I had to ski down through a tight, pretty skied out steep passage to reach my exit drop,


I didn`t jump with too much speed, because I was not sure about the snow conditions in the landing and didn`t want to lose my skis again at the last drop.
I stomped it and I was so happy to reach the finish gate on my skis after a safe and fluid run.
Of course there were some passages I could have skied harder or some bigger cliffs I could have taken, but I got 9th!!!

That`s a good result for not taking too much risk and it`s nice to know that there is even more possible... stoked :-)


So I`m looking forward to go to the Montafon this weekend, for Eric Themels invitational freeride festival…

Fotos has been shot by:
Tobias Haller (Pics 2 & 10)
Daniel Zangerl (Pics 4 & 5)
Big Mountain Hochfügen photographer (Pics 7 & 9)

Cheers,
Burger