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They come from ski areas across Colorado, drawn by the chance to show off their latest tricks and win a little cash at the 40-foot jump on the side of Fanny Hill.
Their goal is to fly high while twisting, turning and flipping and then land flawlessly. Big Air means amplitude with attitude.
In Snowmass, the riders and skiers who strive to touch the sky start by hiking up a narrow trail. To get enough height the chute crosses a residential one-way road which has been covered with snow by volunteers.
Up and up they hike, carrying their skis or boards.
At the top, the tabletop jump looks small. Looking down at the jump, Matt Terral of Aspen can't distinguish his father, Tim, who stands atop the giant bump that will catapult his son into the air.
Tim has done it for years. He's watched his son jump since he did his first back flip on the snow when he was only nine years old. Now Matt is 20 and attending college at CU-Boulder, but he came back home for the weekend to jump.
When he was 13 years old, Matt won Big Air in Snowmass three times. He was so good at doing his signature trick, the D-9, it was eventually outlawed. The D-9 is a backward flip with a twist and 900- degree rotation.
“My favorite jump now is a switch corked 900. We learn all the tricks on the trampoline first and then work them out in the slopestyle park. I also love powder skiing on Rock Island and the Wall,” he said.
At last week's Bud Lite Big Air competition, the fourth meet in an eight-week series, Matt Terral jumped his way to the top of the podium for skiers and won $300.
“They don't do it for the money, they do it for the love of it,” said Tim Terral.
For Matt, It's just another step in his freestyle career which started at the Aspen Valley Ski & Snowboard Club and includes winning gold at the Junior Olympics. He's only taken time out to recuperate from crashes.
Tim Terral has seen a lot of them and that's partly why he's standing atop the jump and waiting for his son to ski down. Just in case.
“Matt has broken his heel, his collarbone, his ankle and his thumb, all in separate incidents. It's a very dangerous sport. A lot of these extreme guys have died. I wish he'd played golf, instead,” said Tim Terral.
Yet he supports his son's passion and comes to watch him jump.
Like a spinning top
Kelly Selby also has a jones for jumping. He graduated from Aspen High School last year and spent a semester at CMC-Spring Valley campus and then took the winter off to ski. At last Friday's Big Air, he finished in third place behind his friend Charlie Lasser and Terral.
Another AVSC skier, he gives credit to his coaches for giving him a solid foundation in the basics of ski mechanics and helping to build his technique.
“They helped me become a jumper, but now I decided to ski on my own,” Selby said.
Like Terral, he's competed in slopestyle at the Junior Olympics and won silver in 2008.
He and his friends, Charlie Lasser and Aiden Sheehan of Aspen, like to ski at Snowmass and they trade places on the podium at the Big Air competitions.
“My favorite jump is the Rodeo 900, where I hold the grab for the whole trick. I also love jumping switch,” he said about a jump that starts with him skiing backwards off the lip.
He does a double flip and a Switch 1080, where he's like a spinning top for the few second that he's in the air.
It's so fast that the spectators and judges have trouble counting the rotations.
For the jumpers though, once they hit the jump and are airborne time slows down. It changes dimensions as they soar to the apex of their trajectory and then begin to descend as gravity pulls them back down.
Landing well is a matter of finesse, “Every jump is different and each jump changes every single day. That's why we do a straight jump for the first time each day,” he said.
Landing is the key. A bad landing can be the end to a career or at least until the injury has been healed. Two years ago at the Thanksgiving competition, he landed on his head while doing a back flip.
“I got a serious concussion and broke my collarbone and wrist. I lost two and a half months on the snow. As soon as I got back on skis I did the same trick. I had to,” he said.
At last week's Big Air, Selby got another injury. It wasn't due to a bad landing, though. As he and a group of other competitors were hiking up for another chance to fly, a snowboarder lost control after coming across the road and crashed into three of them.
Four bodies on the ground in the chute. Four bodies that took their time in getting up again. But they're tough and they all recovered enough to take their next jump. For Selby, he'll sport a black eye for a while, but he finished the finals and won third place, glad to get on the podium for the first time this year.
He'll be competing at the rest of the Big Air competitions and at the KickAspen Big Air Invitational on March 19.
Terral and Selby do their tricks on skis. Mike Hogan of Snowmass Village is on a snowboard when he launches off the jump. At 25, he's one of the older riders and his life revolves around snow.
“My dad taught me to snowboard when I was four years old and I've been addicted ever since. I'm a snow junkie, I love snow,” he said.
He rides daily in the winter, while also working at D&E, and in the summer he's a snowboard coach at Windell's at Mount Hood.
“I want to keep snowboarding alive. Young snowboarders are the future of the ski industry,” he said.
Hogan started competing at age nine with AVSC and is still with the club. Now he is sponsored by the Colorado-based ski and snowboard manufacturer High Society and credits them with a lot of his success. He competed in the Aspen Open recently on the X-Games course at Buttermilk and made it to the finals.
His favorite trick is an inverted backside 540 and his favorite place to ride is Snowmass.
“It never gets old. You can do something new every day and you can constantly get better,” he said.
Last Friday, Hogan came in third at the Big Air competition behind Scott See and Mike Sherer.
For jumpers, the Bud Lite Big Air in Snowmass is the premier weekly venue to show off their stuff. The Friday competitions will continue through April 2 when series winners will be awarded.
Good luck and good health to them all.
Their goal is to fly high while twisting, turning and flipping and then land flawlessly. Big Air means amplitude with attitude.
In Snowmass, the riders and skiers who strive to touch the sky start by hiking up a narrow trail. To get enough height the chute crosses a residential one-way road which has been covered with snow by volunteers.
Up and up they hike, carrying their skis or boards.
At the top, the tabletop jump looks small. Looking down at the jump, Matt Terral of Aspen can't distinguish his father, Tim, who stands atop the giant bump that will catapult his son into the air.
Tim has done it for years. He's watched his son jump since he did his first back flip on the snow when he was only nine years old. Now Matt is 20 and attending college at CU-Boulder, but he came back home for the weekend to jump.
When he was 13 years old, Matt won Big Air in Snowmass three times. He was so good at doing his signature trick, the D-9, it was eventually outlawed. The D-9 is a backward flip with a twist and 900- degree rotation.
“My favorite jump now is a switch corked 900. We learn all the tricks on the trampoline first and then work them out in the slopestyle park. I also love powder skiing on Rock Island and the Wall,” he said.
At last week's Bud Lite Big Air competition, the fourth meet in an eight-week series, Matt Terral jumped his way to the top of the podium for skiers and won $300.
“They don't do it for the money, they do it for the love of it,” said Tim Terral.
For Matt, It's just another step in his freestyle career which started at the Aspen Valley Ski & Snowboard Club and includes winning gold at the Junior Olympics. He's only taken time out to recuperate from crashes.
Tim Terral has seen a lot of them and that's partly why he's standing atop the jump and waiting for his son to ski down. Just in case.
“Matt has broken his heel, his collarbone, his ankle and his thumb, all in separate incidents. It's a very dangerous sport. A lot of these extreme guys have died. I wish he'd played golf, instead,” said Tim Terral.
Yet he supports his son's passion and comes to watch him jump.
Like a spinning top
Kelly Selby also has a jones for jumping. He graduated from Aspen High School last year and spent a semester at CMC-Spring Valley campus and then took the winter off to ski. At last Friday's Big Air, he finished in third place behind his friend Charlie Lasser and Terral.
Another AVSC skier, he gives credit to his coaches for giving him a solid foundation in the basics of ski mechanics and helping to build his technique.
“They helped me become a jumper, but now I decided to ski on my own,” Selby said.
Like Terral, he's competed in slopestyle at the Junior Olympics and won silver in 2008.
He and his friends, Charlie Lasser and Aiden Sheehan of Aspen, like to ski at Snowmass and they trade places on the podium at the Big Air competitions.
“My favorite jump is the Rodeo 900, where I hold the grab for the whole trick. I also love jumping switch,” he said about a jump that starts with him skiing backwards off the lip.
He does a double flip and a Switch 1080, where he's like a spinning top for the few second that he's in the air.
It's so fast that the spectators and judges have trouble counting the rotations.
For the jumpers though, once they hit the jump and are airborne time slows down. It changes dimensions as they soar to the apex of their trajectory and then begin to descend as gravity pulls them back down.
Landing well is a matter of finesse, “Every jump is different and each jump changes every single day. That's why we do a straight jump for the first time each day,” he said.
Landing is the key. A bad landing can be the end to a career or at least until the injury has been healed. Two years ago at the Thanksgiving competition, he landed on his head while doing a back flip.
“I got a serious concussion and broke my collarbone and wrist. I lost two and a half months on the snow. As soon as I got back on skis I did the same trick. I had to,” he said.
At last week's Big Air, Selby got another injury. It wasn't due to a bad landing, though. As he and a group of other competitors were hiking up for another chance to fly, a snowboarder lost control after coming across the road and crashed into three of them.
Four bodies on the ground in the chute. Four bodies that took their time in getting up again. But they're tough and they all recovered enough to take their next jump. For Selby, he'll sport a black eye for a while, but he finished the finals and won third place, glad to get on the podium for the first time this year.
He'll be competing at the rest of the Big Air competitions and at the KickAspen Big Air Invitational on March 19.
Terral and Selby do their tricks on skis. Mike Hogan of Snowmass Village is on a snowboard when he launches off the jump. At 25, he's one of the older riders and his life revolves around snow.
“My dad taught me to snowboard when I was four years old and I've been addicted ever since. I'm a snow junkie, I love snow,” he said.
He rides daily in the winter, while also working at D&E, and in the summer he's a snowboard coach at Windell's at Mount Hood.
“I want to keep snowboarding alive. Young snowboarders are the future of the ski industry,” he said.
Hogan started competing at age nine with AVSC and is still with the club. Now he is sponsored by the Colorado-based ski and snowboard manufacturer High Society and credits them with a lot of his success. He competed in the Aspen Open recently on the X-Games course at Buttermilk and made it to the finals.
His favorite trick is an inverted backside 540 and his favorite place to ride is Snowmass.
“It never gets old. You can do something new every day and you can constantly get better,” he said.
Last Friday, Hogan came in third at the Big Air competition behind Scott See and Mike Sherer.
For jumpers, the Bud Lite Big Air in Snowmass is the premier weekly venue to show off their stuff. The Friday competitions will continue through April 2 when series winners will be awarded.
Good luck and good health to them all.
