Extreme Screaming in South America

EXTREME SCREAMING IN SOUTH AMERICA

                                              By Steve Church

 

Pain is temporary, glory is forever.

                               Dave Swanwick- Extreme skier

 

"Chew are not here." The lovely latina receptionist stared at her computer somewhere in Argentina.

Indeed, I thought, why after 3 days of inebreated planes & sucisidal buses, four time zones, & being transported from fall to spring & back to winter, I had no idea where I was.  Argentina came to mind, that land of pompus Gouchos, decked in Patagonias, barbecuuing bolo tied Emus. The birthplace of Gaucho Marks perhaps, where toilets flush backward, & night skies glitter with strange constelations such as the Southern Cross & Orians feet.

"Ahhh," again the receptionest, "Chew are with de 'Extreme People'.

"Yes!! The 'Extreme People!"

Now it was coming back, the South American Extreme Skiing Championship, held in Las Lenas Argentina, September 25 through October 2, or Argentine springtime. A colorful collection of 25 of the worlds best freestyle skiers gathered in the frozen heart of the Andes.

Now, let it be known, these Andes make the Rockies look flat as Olive Oils chest, craggy ozone scraping peaks that roar with avalavches & tremble with earthquakes. Mountains barren of life, but for snow white eagels & Cessna sized Condors. Verticle snowfeilds, clinging to 60 percent grades, laundry chute coulairs, ending in rocky cliffs. The stuff of extreme sking.

Extreme Sking, or 'steep skiing', was probably started by a maniacal group of Frenchmen some 10 years ago. These ranks of thrill seeking Frogs have been drasticly thinned over the years but the idea stuck. An idea, weird as it seems, who's time had come. If a freestyle skier reaches a certain evolution in his sport & want's to push the envelope just a bit farther, but say this skier hates competition, hates pitting his talents against a clock & fellow skier, then this skiing extreme stuff might just be the next step.

"It's not really that dangerous." said petite Alison Garrett of Crested Butte, "You know your capabilities, you dont cross them."

"Arent you just a little nervous before a run Alison?" I asked.

 "I usually wanna throw up." She smiled demurely.

Dangerous or not, there has been only one fatality, & before this actual event had even started, two skiers were out with injurys.  Dave Swanwick the U.S. Champion, with a twisted ankle & one E.B. Bronson of Brekenridge Colorado. Against his wife's better judgement E.B. had pulled their savings & jetted to Argentina. One day later, his knee shattered, young E.B. faced a 20 hour bus ride through a strange land, not speaking the language, dragging skis & luggage behind crutches, then another 20 hours of cramped planes home to his surgen. And the whole time not a piffel of a whimper from E.B. Brownson.

 "I'm not afraid of dying, I'm afraid of not living!" Scott Kennett of Teluride, told me one cristal morning atop a panoramic cornice, then with a seemingly contradictory manuver lept into space, landing quite some time later in a pillow sized patch of snow 50 feet below, to the roaring encouragement of his fellow competitors.

But wait, surely 'competetors' is not the word, for there cannot be another sport whose participants rally behind each others success. After all, it's the skier against the mountain, against himself, not so much against each other.

Its the extreme mental & physical acomplishments that brings the skiers togeather. Theirs is a tribe with even its own lingo.

"Dudes, I popped a fat heli, & hip-checked a curse hole!" howled Justin Patnode.

"No doubt, " agreed Joe Lammers, "It's shelled out up there, dust to crust."

"SHRED MO!" Screamed Shannon Walsh, "I rapped in, throttled up, jetted out, then had to tranny."

Just then, 2000 above us, Paul O'Conner, a lad whom had appeared perfectly sane the previous evening, exploded from a cliff, dropping into a narrow couliar that made an elevator shaft look level.

"DEAD END DUDE!" Yelled the crowd & in fact there appeared no way out as the steep chute closed into rock walls a mink could'nt squeeze through.

To narrow to turn, O'Conner blasted straight down & exploded onto the run- out, his ski suit shreded from the tight walls.

"HE CORKED OUT!!"THE MAN IS HUGE!! JURASSIC PORK!! Howled the crowd. "PULL OUT THE MONKEY & BEAT HIM TO BOLIVIA!! Wailed perky blonde Linda Peterson from A- Basin Colorado.

"The dude is snorten Kryptonite!" A goateed Mark Bender offered, "Nail the nose man, he's mockin!"

"Mocking? I asked.

"Speeding man, mock five is warping, mock 9 is smokeing."

"Oh yeah, I knew that."

 Far above,  Jill Sickels Matlock who was skiing before she could walk, dropped from a cloud cover onto a face like the Washington monument.

"Oh the babe is Epic!!" mumbled Garan Jurkovic a Croation skier, "A Babeasouraus, a real bisquit, a trisquit", the rest agreed "One studly little moisty."  The entire group then roared, "THROW DOWN MAS STONY BABY!!"

Whatever that meant....

A long haired maniac simply known as 'Menace' swept across the finish.

"Oh man, I Bullwinkled & splayed a Starfish, Jerkied Out, Ripped a Style, locked some turns & biffed." said Menace."

"Bummer!" said I, throwing in the hippest word I knew, not quite sure wether a Bullwinkled Starfish even warrented a 'bummer.'

 The tribe has its own diet consisting basiclly of Power Bars & Advil.

"I ate 20 Advils before one event!" a skier told me.

"What happened?"

"I have'nt had a headache since."

An Argentine skier, Diego Lozano, rubs his legs with horse lintament before his run.

"Does it help?" I asked.

 "I'm not sure, keeps the flies away though."

  Judgeing the event is straightforward enough, you must finish with all equipment & body parts intact. You are free to pick your own line down with originality scoreing high. Jumps are not encouraged but nevertheless score high if, & only if, you ski away from the landing. If you fall, the run is judged until the fall. Suicide is not encouraged, the skier in control will score higher than a crazed kamakasi. You must not stop.

 

Clouds hung like dirty laundry the last day of competition. Silent peaks disappered in swirling mists of alien porportion. Rising eeirly on a chairlift to the twilite zone, we suddenly burst into sunlight, the world below blanketed in Stay-Puff, the world around us jagged snowblown peaks to infinity.

"The sport certainly offers a breathtalking surrounding, something say professinal bowling will never have," I gasped to a MTV guy in the rarified virgin air.

In agreement, the safety committe, & skiers had picked a looming 2000 foot

pinnacle for their final run. At 55 % steepness it could be likened to roller skating down the world trade center.

Kent Kreitler, a skier from Squaw Valley, left the snow at forty miles an hour to cross a hundred yards of solid rock. Leaping from a stony outcropping he dropped 50 feet onto a wall of ice. Kent sat back on his skis for a milisecond...it would cost him.

Kim Reichhelm, the current womens world champ, skied the leg burning 2000 feet without slowing. Kim at 34 years old, later said she could have gone another 2000.

Another Squaw Valley skier, Shane McConkey, then flew off a cornice that would have made a condor squemish, landed perfectly going mock 9 on an impossible steep slope & with wide powerfull turns swept to victory. His had been an exciting & beautiful run, the stuff of extreme skiing.

 Kent Kreitler would take second, & Kim Reichhelm first in womens.

 

I later asked Mr. Kreitler if he had been nervous before the run.

"Yeah, I was a bit tweaked," He told me, "then I looked around myself, & there littering the top of that 14,000 foot peak were millions of Fossils! Sea shell & fish fossils atop the Andes! Well, I say to myself, I guess in the whole scheme of things, this run wont make a whole hell of a lot of difference. I calmed right down & skied preety good....but Shane just skied better."

 

As we have evolved from those fossils, so extreme skiing has evolved from freestyle. Its in our genes, to be just a little bit better, to go just a little bit farther, wether be it in buisness , sport or just life itself, cause, 'if you ain't busy livin, then your busy dying.'

 

If you care to test your metel call Kim Reichhelm's Extreme Adventures, Crested Butte Colorado, 1-800-992-7700.