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A skier getting "air" at British Columbia's Big White Ski Resort

Freeskiing is most commonly used to describe skiing for fun, as opposed to training or racing.

In the mid 1990s, the term was adopted by "Big Mountain" skiers and extreme skiing professionals and refers to skiing down an ungroomed, often extremely steep mountain that is often only accessible by hiking or helicopter. Recently the term "Freeskiing" has been somewhat distorted to encompass not only the "Big Mountain" and backcountry aspect of skiing, but also skiing in specially constructed snow or terrain parks, which include a variety of jumps as well as boxes and rails for the skiers to slide on. The film the "Blizzard Of Aahs" helped jumpstart "freeskiing" in the US, by causing exteme terrain to become avalible to the public.

The free in freeskiing refers to skiing outside artificially-set limits such as race gates and ski area boundaries. It was originally derived from the snowboard term "Freeriding", coined when early snowboarders chose to break away from what they considered to be the restrictive confines of traditional ski culture and competition. The original concept of freeriding was that there was no set course, goals or rules to abide by.

Originally "Freeriding" specifically referred to all-mountain and backcountry snowboarding (essentially favouring natural terrain over man-made obstacles or courses), as opposed to snowboard racing or riding in terrain parks. Recently the extreme skiing fraternity have adopted this term to describe skiing in similar conditions.

For many years, terrain parks were seen as snowboard only facilities, however with the increasing number of "freeskiers", it is common to see skiers along with snowboarders in terrain parks. "Freeskiing" in terrain parks should not be confused with "Freeriding", as the latter specifically refers to the use of random natural terrain, therefore excluding specially constructed areas such as terrain parks.

Snowboarding disciplines involving terrain parks (such as Slopestyle, Halfpipe, Big Air and Rails) are traditionally known as "Freestyle" in the snowboard community - however as skiing already had traditional "Freestyle" disciplines, it was not a term widely adopted by skiers as they started to use these facilities. To avoid confusion, the term "Parkstyle" is gaining favour as the best choice when describing both skiing and snowboarding disciplines involving facilities such as terrain parks.

Freeskiers usually use "twin-tip" skis, allowing for flexibility and switch (backwards) skiing, which is useful for riders who takeoff and/or land backwards when performing spin tricks. "Fat skis", skis with a width of 90+mm, at the waist of the ski, are also used by freeskiers. Fat skis can be twin tipped, but are normally used in off-piste (not groomed), or backcountry terrain.

Freeskiing has grown in popularity in recent years due to it being part of the X Games, and because of the influence of riders such as Glen Plake, Seth Morrison, Shane McConkey,Tanner Hall, Matt Reardon, and Doug Coombs.

Also the increase in Freeski events and movies has increased awareness of what freeskiing has to offer.

People and companies

The a partial list of the major players in the sport of freeskiing include (chronologically):

  • The Late 80s Scot Schmidt, Kevin Andrews, Glen Plake, Kim Reichhelm
  • The early 90s Eric Pehota and Trevor Peterson, Doug Coombs
  • The Mid 90s Jon Treman, Rick Armstrong, David Swanwick, Kristen Ullmer
  • The Late 90s Shane McConkey, Seth Morrison , Jeremy Nobis, Wendy Fisher. In 1998 the movement split into two distinct disciplines big mountain and jibbers or park riders.
  • Pioneering jibbers in the late 90's were the New Canadian Air Force composed of Mike Douglas, J.P. Auclair, J.F. Cusson and Vincent Dorion.
  • The Early 2000s Chris Davenport, Sarah Burke, Candide Thovex, Hugo Harrison, Tanner Hall, Evan Raps, CR Johnson, Skogan Sprang, and Jon Olsson
  • The Mid 2000s Pep Fujas, Kregg McGlauflin, Sage Cattabriga-Alosa, Ian Macintosh, Ingrid Backstrom, Dave Crichton, Jeff Berman, Kent Hyden, Charles Gagnier, T.J. Schiller, Andreas Hatveit, Brett Crabtree and Simon Dumont
  • Matt Reardon – American free skier. One of the top 15 aerialists of Newschool Skiing. Bud Pro Mogul Tour. Has appeared on numerous magazine covers, advertisements and commercials. Professional musician, signed with Chrysalis Records and has written over 50 soundtracks to date for Warren Miller (director) films, video games, movie soundtracks. Released first solo album Free From Code in 2003. Recorded vocals on albums for K.K. Downing and Yngwie Malmsteen. Newest member of the Völkl International Team. Second album set to release late 2008.

New, so called "core" companies, which primarily focus on the construction of "twin-tip" skis have emerged thanks to the rapid progression of the increasingly popular sport such as K2, Salomon, Armada, 4FRNT, Line Skis 9part of K2), Palmer, Fatypus, and Liberty.

See also

External links

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