It was another great year on tour. Getting back together with the freeskiing family and meeting new people. Experiencing the highs and lows on and off the hill. The rush of crossing the finish line after you stomped your line. Dealing with the mental and physical pressures of contests, injuries, travel and being ready to lay down three solid runs. It’s a big challenge. That’s what continues to drive me, pushing me to perform to be the best I can be. Its an honor to be part of this, and I look forward of what’s to come.Winning the tour has been a goal I set many years back, and worked hard at on and off the hill. There were times when I just wanted to step down and do what was easy, give it up. Trying to find funding, sponsors and training is a lot of work and dedication. I learned something from this whole experience. Nothing will ever be given to you. If you want something, you have to go get it and keep focused. There is nothing that can’t be done. Winning the tour is just the beginning of what I want to do. Skiing is my passion and will continue to pursue it while I can. These experiences will last a lifetime and are worth every cent and effort.

— Brett Crabtree

I just returned home from a month of skiing in Alaska—an adventure filled with amazing skiing, tragic loss and the coming together of a family of athletes and friends. This is a family that shares a lifestyle on the edge, a lifestyle that at moments can make you feel more alive than ever before and at times—as experienced so closely this spring—can take this life away just as quickly.

Alaska is always perceived throughout the skiing community as the highest goal in big mountain riding. It is the dream of many serious skiers to rip a steep Alaskan face and live to recount every moment of the experience. I was lucky enough to live this dream last season (2007) while filming with Powderwhore productions in the Valdez, Thompson Pass area of Alaska. It was an extremely humbling experience, especially after sitting out the middle of the season due to a confrontation with a tree that resulted in a shattered kidney. As a competitive big-mountain telemark skier, I am always pushing myself and reaching outside of my comfort zone, but on a calculated level. Alaska gave me a whole new understanding regarding my comfort zone as well as my reasons for skiing the way I do. It tested my physical and mental strength and gave me a reason to return as I did this year.

After competing in the majority of the IFSA events on tele skis and placing consistently in the top 25 in every event, along with an epic winter filled with more powder and travel than ever before, I felt well prepared for another mission to Alaska. My original plan was to be in AK from the end of March through the end of May. This included the Telemark Extreme Freeskiing Championships at Alyeska, three weeks of touring, heli skiing, and shooting around Thompson Pass, and finally the “Summit to Sea” ski and rafting expedition. Definitely a lot of big plans, but as it would all turn out, this was not the best time to test the limits. Instead, myself and the group opted to go with our instincts, left ego and pride behind, and followed the most important principle of our lifestyle: Knowing when to turn back.

I arrived in Alaska on March 26th, where I met up with Chris Erickson, Nick Devore, My sister Kate, and 18-year-old CRMS tele ripper Jake Saakson. We all crammed into the RV and headed out of Anchorage to Girdwood for the Telemark Freeskiing Championships at Alyeska resort. This competition was definitely one of the most intense comps of my career. There was no on-slope inspection for the qualifier, and the venue was extreme—to say the least. It was held on never-before-opened terrain and was steep, gnarly and long, with conditions ranging from blower pow to solid ice. AK at her best! The qualifying day went smoothly up until the end when Girdwood local Ben Johnson sent a huge air onto a hard landing, he then tomahawked a few hundred feet, broke his neck, and slid limp for a hundred more feet. Miraculously his spinal chord was not damaged and he is now on the road to recovery. It was definitely one of the scariest things I have ever witnessed, and, looking back, was a sign of things to come.

The finals day was overcast and snowing but they were still able to run all competitors for a finals and super-finals run. My first run went very well as well as my last run—up until my last few turns. I was coming out of my last air doing big Super G turns when I caught my uphill hand on a bump. This threw my arm back violently while twisting my body around. All of a sudden I was going switch at about 40 miles per hour. The next thing I knew, my ski tail dug into the snow and I was tomahawking backwards. It all happened so quickly that I had no time to recover. The bad thing was that when my tail dug into the snow it wrenched my knee pretty bad. This would keep me from skiing for the next week and a half.

Despite my epic crash I ended up finishing 5th overall. Our RV had a great showing with Nick Devore in 1st, Jake Saakson in 3rd, Kate in 3rd for the women. Not bad for a little place called Aspen. We spent the next few days in Girdwood, everyone skiing while I nursed the wounded knee. On the third of April we drove the RV back down to Anchorage to pick up Danny Brown at the airport, restock our food and beer supplies, and continue on to Thompson Pass and Valdez for some more skiing. It was on this day that we learned of the death of our friend and Aspen-Snowmass native Wallace Westfeldt who died during a shoot in the Aspen backcountry. Wallace was a very friendly guy and a talented snowboarder. This news had a deep effect on us all especially due to the fact that Mark Welgos and Jacqui Edgerly, both planning to meet us in AK, had been on the scene. This was yet another wake-up call, reality check that further validated that this is a dangerous game and the harshest of consequences are part of the game.           

The drive to Thompson Pass was a somber one but it was a beautiful day and it was good to get there and meet up with the film crew to get our minds off of the tragedy. The next few days were spent waiting out storm after storm as they kept rolling through. This was good for me because it gave my knee time to rest but as each cloudy day rolled into the next everyone became restless. Finally the storm broke and the fresh-blanketed peaks showed their faces for the first time. Line after line, stretching as far as the eye can see, greeted the crew and brought about a new sense of purpose, pumping everyone with motivation. I was finally able to get out on some mellow tours and skied some amazing pow, but the knee was still iffy. The good weather stuck around for a few more days and by the time the clouds rolled back in everyone had tired themselves out enough to endure a few more days of down time.

The next time the weather broke we were ready to get after it again and decided to take advantage of a snowcat ride up into a zone with many options. We had Nick Wagoneer of Sweetgrass Productions along with his camera and it couldn’t have been a more beautiful day—not a cloud in the sky. My knee was feeling much better and I was able to get in a few good lines in blower pow conditions—snow that you would usually find in Utah in January. Everyone was extremely pumped. As always it was an awesome feeling when everyone makes it back safely from such an epic day. Sadly, the euphoria was short lived.

We awoke the next day to a grey sky and more tragic news. Our good friend John Nicoletta, an amazing skier and one of the nicest guys I have ever known, had died the day before after loosing control and tumbling through rocks at the Freeskiing finals in Alyeska. John was one of the top skiers on the tour this season and had traveled to the IFSA events along with Jacqui, Mark, myself, and other athletes from Aspen. It was hard to believe that he was gone and as it sunk in, many questions arose. It seemed like a curse to have two of Aspen’s top riders taken so quickly. We all sat down and decided that in respect for our parents, our community and our friends, as well as ourselves and John and Wallace, that it would be best to return home and let everything settle out after such a crazy season.

We had the RV for another 10 days and decided that when that was up we would all return home. When skiing in places like Alaska it is extremely important to be 110% in the moment at all times—with these recent tragedies on all of our minds this was very hard. It makes it hard to give the necessary amount of focus and makes more room for error, which can ultimately lead to the worst. We decided to leave the Summit to Sea expedition for another time, go home, rest and let this season soak in.

This is the first time that people so close to me have died doing what we love. When everyone is out skiing together and enjoying life to the fullest it’s hard to imagine the other side of things. That this is a lifestyle that has consequences, and although the consequence are usually minor, in other cases they are life threatening. When looking at tragedies like these it’s easy to go directly to the negative—like placing blame—but there is also a positive side that arises. This season I have never seen the skiing community, especially within Aspen, come together so strongly. My extended group of friends with whom I share my lifestyle and love for skiing has become a close-knit family through these experiences. It is through this that we all come together and keep a closer eye on one another as well as check in with ourselves personally in hopes of avoiding such situations in the future.

The main question that comes to mind after these recent events is “is it worth it?” As an athlete at the leading edge of the skiing movement this question is always at the back of my mind. No matter how much I run through it, the answer is always the same: Yes, it is worth it. Because without skiing and without the lifestyle and group of friends or the family that skiing has blessed me with my life would not be the same. My life, along with the lives of all my closest friends, including John Nicoletta and Wallace Westfeldt, has a deeper meaning that goes way deeper than what many see when they think of a sponsored professional skier or snowboarder. Yes, there is the visible side of this including sponsorship, photographs and film, which some may see as boosting of ego and/or showing off, but they fail to look deeper. There is a reason why us athletes have reached this level and that is because we truly love what we do. Although ego and pride are superficially present in many cases, the family which I am proud to call myself a part of works together to keep at heart the reasons why we all began skiing and riding in the first place. This puts ego aside and truly validates our lifestyle. We all feel a deep connection with the mountains in which we live and play, and we all care deeply for one another. So when we lose a family member it strikes a deep chord and makes us all check in and remember why we love this life so much. And that is something that all of us will always hold close.

So here’s to a truly epic season and I hope everyone is stoked for an amazing spring and summer. I want to thank you for reading this. It means a lot to myself, and many others.
—Will Cardamone
     Billy Poole, Wallace Westfeldt, John Nicoletta and Lathrop Strang… RIP

Well, what a roller coaster ride this season has been. I've had some extreme highs and some very low lows. After Wallace's death in the Aspen backcountry, I was devastated but continued on with my planned trip to AK. His death was a harsh wake-up call of the risks we take in the mountains. It has made me realize when we take these risks it not only affects you, but so many others that are close to you.

Once in AK, I started to find some stoke for the mountains. Familiar faces and huge peaks got me excited for the upcoming comp in Alyeska. I spent a couple days on resort before the comp skiing with the Aspen crew. The qualifier got underway, and I watched all my friends hot dog down the north bowl trying to qualify. The only Aspen skier to qualify, that wasn't already pre-qualified, was John Nicoletta. The next day the World Tour finals kicked off. I was running late in the order, so I watched many of the top skiers. Everyone was skiing well and I was getting pumped for my run. When it was time, I began the hike to the top of the headwall with John for our runs. John was so excited and he smiled the whole way up the hike. Once at the top, we waited for our runs. John ran before me and was eventually called to the start. "3, 2, 1, John Nicoletta out of Aspen… go." I watched him take off and screamed "Yeah, sickoletta, get some!" About two minutes later I heard over the radio that John fell and it didn't look good at all. My stomach dropped. News started to come in that John was on life support and they were trying to get a heli for him. I didn't want to believe it. I became blank with emotions. They called the comp for the day and I skied down to the finish to reunite with the Aspen crew. Everyone was scared. No one said anything. We got ready to leave for the Anchorage hospital. After 30 minutes, we got news that Johnny was dead.

That night we all went down to the fjord to share memories of John and to be there for each other. It was very emotional. Jacqui Edgerly and I spent time together at the gathering to help each other. We both had been through so much together that week and it didn't seem real.

The next day MSI decided to have a memorial service for John and continue on with the comp. It was a great service, with many words spoken and a celebration of Johnny's life. The "Aspen Ripper Factory" foreran for the day, except Jacqui and I because we were competing that day. I have never felt so strange in the starting gate. I knew I had to stay strong and finish the comp for Johnny and Wallace. I kept it mellow for my run and stayed on my feet. After I finished, they announced that the comp was going to be a one run comp due to the circumstances. I ended up in 25th with my run. I also got 3rd in the overall standings for the 2008 US Tour.

After the comp, Jacqui and I hooked up with Nick Devore, Will Cardamone, Chris Erickson and Danny Brown on Thompson Pass near Valdez. The crew we hooked up with had been there for two weeks and had skied very little due to the weather. There was clearing in the forecast with very light snow falling. Once it cleared, the winds moved in and destroyed everything. Skiing was shit. Deterred, Will and Danny headed back to Aspen while Jacqui, Nick, Chris and I stuck around. After a few days, we planned a camping trip at the base of the Books in the Chugach. We spent three nights there with snow that kept getting better and blue skies everyday. We got after it: climbing many lines and skiing them flawlessly. Nick, Chris and I skied the biggest skiable line there, which was very steep and big. The last night, there was an amazing show of Northern Lights that blew our minds. This was a perfect ending to the season.

I’m excited to get back home to relax and think about everything that has happened. These events have not turned me away from the sport. I've always known this sport is dangerous. I know the decisions I make in the mountains are up to me and to always remind myself there are people that love me. I hope everyone has a great summer. Thank you for the support!

— Mark Welgos