Ever since last year, I’ve been waiting for another chance to go back over the pond. Thankfully that chance came in the form of SFR Val Thorens. Just like last year we departed out of Gate A45 from Denver, which solidified my belief that this was going to be another good trip. Unlike last year where it was just me and my buddy Robby Franco traveling together. This year we had a solid group of buddies to travel with from Denver, then un-expectantly meeting up with a few Canadian buddies before our International flight from Montreal.

After a fun flight, we landed safely in Geneva, and after meeting up with some other buddies made our way up to Val Thorens. Easily one of the most beautiful mountain areas I’ve been to, with it being the highest elevation resort in Europe, along with one of the biggest resorts in the World. Once we got checked in for the contest, and finally settled into our hotel, our jet-lagged bodies were allowed to go to sleep.

The next day was our first practice, and unfortunately the bad weather rolled in that night. Socked in, and we were barely even able to hit the jumps. Since it looked like the qualifier day was going to be disrupted by the weather, it was decided to move up the event by a day. Since this was the case, we only had five runs of practice for the contest. I was in the final heat of the day, and had my run landed till shade at the end of the day gave me more speed than expected, and caused me to jump over the final rail. This error put me on the bubble spot in 4th place for my heat, till I was bumped out by the 2nd to last rider. Ended up placing 19th for the contest, and was pretty bummed I didn’t do better, but that’s just how it goes sometimes at contests.

For the remaining days I cheered on the who made it through, and skied around a bit with my buddy Kyle.

In the finals Oscar Wester ended up taking 1st, with Fabien Boesch in 2nd, and Jesper Tjader grabbing the bronze. Later that night a handful of us got invited to a restaurant called Panda for dinner with Matt Walker.  The food delicious, and following dinner we met up with the other athletes for a fun night.

Just as the SFR staff predicted, the day we were supposed to have Finals ended up being an extremely bad day on hill, that everyone took a much needed down day. We ended up staying in Val Thorens for another night, and hung out before taking the train over to Kreischberg for the FIS World Championships.

Big thanks to the SFR people for putting on another solid event! Can’t wait to come back for the La Clusaz stop in March. Blog about Kreischberg drops soon. 

-Noah