Following a fun few days of riding around Val D’Isere for the Frostgun Invitational, it was time for us to make our way down to Vars for the SFR Tour. Luckily for Robby and I we were able to catch a ride down with one of the judges named Charlie. Unlike in the states when everyone leaves the mountain on Sunday, on this day in France everyone left on a Saturday. Traffic was backed up for so long, that we had to take a back way through the mountains to get away from all the congestion. Finally after long day of travel, and picking up my friend Katie on the way, we arrived in Mont-Dauphin at our hotel. Then it was to bed quick because our slopestyle qualifiers got pushed up a day due to the bad weather heading our way.

I am so glad they pushed up the qualifiers cause the next day was absolutely gorgeous. Sunny with little to no wind, and everyone was throwing down. Since this was also the first time anyone had hit the course, the competitors in each heat got around 5 training runs before their heat. Thankfully the course was very smooth and speed was easy to figure out.

Thankfully when it came to my turn, I was able to put both runs to my feet and finish up the day 3rd in my heat, and 6th place overall for the qualifier. Robby was able to put down a clean run and place 3rd overall for the day. The rest of the day I sat around watching the rest of the qualifier and chilling with a couple friends.

The next day, like they predicted was not good at all.  My friend Katie was supposed to compete in the womens side and wasn’t even able to cause the weather was so bad. Eventually we did have our contest a couple days later when the weather cleared up.

This time the guys would start the day first. So happy they pushed the contest back a bit to accommodate for the weather and our safety. When it was go time so many guys were throwing down on the course. Some of the highlights were Oscar Wester with his switch double backflip, Oystein and McRae keeping the course stylish, Robby Franco with his flip up on the rainbow box, and Alex Hackel with the ever so awesome double cork 7. In the end Mcrae Williams, Oystein Braaten, and Oscar Wester took the podium. I ended up finishing the contest in 7th place, and happy I landed both of my runs. Bummed a little that I wasn’t able to put the cleanest run down, but Top 10 finishes are always good.

Since we had the hotel room for one more night, Robby and I decided to go ski one more day. Easily one of the most active and best days I’ve had in skiing. For about 4-5 hours we just explored the mountain. We skied all over the place, and I don’t even think I’m exaggerating when I say we probably skied close to 15-20 miles of terrain. Everything is so massive and just goes on forever.

Then you get a quick ride up and the fun continues. Even made a quick hike and skied down some pretty sweet terrain. Really wish I had my pow skis here.  At the end of the day we took a couple more park laps and tried a couple of new trick to finish off a fun trip in Vars. 

Since we had a couple days before our next contest in La Clusaz we decided to go be tourists for a day or so in Marsielle. Till the next post, au revior!

-Noah