UBC Ski and Board may be known for their parties but that does not stop them from being killer skiers and boarders. UBC Freeride, the Ski and Board Club’s competitive team are the first ever International Freeskiers and Snowboarders Association (IFSA) Collegiate Freeride Series champions. They beat out competitive and varsity teams from universities across the U.S. and Canada to be crowned the inaugural champions.
UBC placed first in women’s skiing, second in men’s skiing and third in men’s snowboarding.
“UBC Freeride is, like, a more core group of individuals from the Ski and Board club that go out, do contests, film and, just in general, is like kinda the shred side of the Ski and Board Club,” said Essex Prescott, a fift- year student and UBC Freeride frontman.
Freeride skiing and snowboarding is a pretty simple sport to understand. Each competition takes place on a specific part of a mountain. Competitors then choose a line and have to ride the line as well as possible. Points are earned for the difficulty of the line and how well it is skied or boarded, as well as for style and fluidity. No manmade features, no giant jumps or rails, just a rider, a mountain and snow. Best line wins.
Though the ISFA Collegiate Series is new, UBC Freeride has been around and shredding for a while. UBC Freeride was born out of the Ski and Board Club in 2011 as core members started skiing together, filming more and competing. But without university specific competitions, Ski and Board struggled to find their place. That is, until the IFSA came around.
“It was crazy. We’ve been dreaming of something like that to happen,” said Prescott. “We had so much fun at the competitions in the past but it wasn’t a collegiate thing…. As soon as we heard it official and actually happening it was, like, wow, this is great."
It was the team’s opportunity to show other universities “how hard UBC shreds” and have a great time with other university students.
This year the competition took UBC Freeride from Grand Targhee in Wyoming to Crested Butte Mountain Resort in Colorado and finally to Snowbird Ski and Summer Resort in Utah. However, due to the lack of snow, the competition only visited two of the mountains.
At each location, riders from each team run their line and receive a score. The team with the highest combined score wins.
The team trained all year for the competition. In the fall, before the snow (or lack thereof) arrived, they were dry-land training. The team also used the time to bond and have fun.
Come competition time, the training paid off. UBC beat out dozens of other universities, many who had varsity funding, coaches and team busses (non of which UBC had), to win the overall Collegiate title.
“It was pretty funny because we showed up and were just quite the ragtag group of individuals. Just a bunch of Whistler freeskiers. Most people had never even been to a contest before,” said Prescott. “They didn’t know what to think of us at first."
UBC weren’t only the best skiers at the competition, they were also the life of the party.
“Everyone on our team supported each other so much and everyone just had such a good time,” said Prescott. “Before you know it, all these other teams that were so uptight and varsity sports and whatever, were hanging out and having an awesome with us."
“It was wild after all that to end up winning."