Today’s qualifying session from the Jeep King of the Mountain was quite an experience. I’ve been skiing for probably around 20 years, and the Skier-X course they set up was one of the sickest things I’ve ever experienced. Part of it was super easy, part was ultra technical, and the last part was ultra-intimidating with 2 over-60ft jumps. The good news is I walked away unscathed. The bad news is I missed the top-32 qualifying by 2 spots (about 1.5 seconds). I’m not going to say I’m not disappointed, but.. I’ve never raced a SX in my life, I don’t train for this, and my alpine racing experience consists of a few years of club racing before high school. Given the competition (I counted 20+ world cup racers before I gave up counting, not to mention the 10+ X-Games and Jeep SX veterans) I’m pretty happy with being able to hang with them. I improved my time by 2 seconds from the 1st qual run to the 2nd run, so I know that with some more practice I could have taken a lot more time off and probably qualified for the finals. Anyway, it was a hell of a lot of fun competing with the best in the world and now I can enjoy the rest of the weekend free-skiing and drinking. I can’t wait for the finals on Saturday, even if I won’t be competing.

Here’s the 60-ft step-up table (iPhone pic, I’ll get some better ones when I find a card reader):