Jacob Wester

Sooo, just got off the hill after our first day of practice here at the FIS World Cup in Corvatsch, Silvaplana, Switzerland. Had a beatiful day with sunlight and good snow, unfortunately the wind is really inconsistent as there were some serious gusts giving us a little too much headwind at times.

The slopestyle course is…well. Hmm, trying to come up with a description without sounding like a “whiner”. Not sure if that’s possible. Whatever, here’s some photos for you to see for yourselves:

Feature 1 is a choice between a down-box and a down-flat-down rail. Not much to complain about here, fun feature!

Feature 2 (no photo), was an 80 foot stepdown with a flat take-off, but all the riders decided it was just, well, too dumb to even consider hitting, so the organizers are changing it up for tomorrow. Hopefully they figure something out.

Feature 3 is a 30 foot true table/stepover. Not sure about this one, never got to hit it as it was closed for much of the day, but everyone who hit it said it was a skimmer. Not much air time here, that’s for sure.

Feature 4 I actually like, sort of. It has a relatively flat landing but good pop and decent air time for such a small jump. I’d call it 30 feet.

Feature 5 is a choice between a flat rail, a dance-table kicker (actually more of a jump with a plastic take-off), and a huge gap to a flat-down-down (you’ll see what I mean in the next shot). I’m mostly feeling the middle feature at this point.

Back view of feature 5. Not sure if they’ll keep the down-down part on the gap box.

The sixth, and also by far the strangest feature. I get what they’re trying to do here, but if you have the speed to clear the first roller you’ll send it into space off the end…

…aaaand you’ll probably land very flat. Haven’t figured out what to do here either because they had it closed off all day.

So in conclusion, a course that will definitely make it hard to put together a good run. I have a few ideas but since the jumps are so small it will be really hard to stand out. Hopefully the wind dies down a bit tomorrow so we can actually start doing tricks.

very very windy.

Since we only got to practice for 2 hours, Frej Jönsson, Per Fernvik and I spent most of our day lapping the sick terrain Corvatsch has to offer. Not the most optimal snow for center-mounted park skis but it definitely worked for small cliffs and the countless natural jumps all over the mountain:

By far the funnest jump I hit today! Backflips!

taking the jib kids for a hike

Such a sick playground!

Alright, going to spend the rest of the afternoon relaxing and tending to some sore joints. Tomorrow we have another day of practice before it’s on. Stay tuned!

Jacob

~ by jacobwester on February 5, 2013.