Skiing
The first edition of this innovative event gathered up all the families of touring skiers.
How do you gather the ski mountaineering community and the freetouring community? Fat skis and thin skis? Kilian Jornet and Enak Gavaggio? The Big Up & Down held in Combloux (France) last weekend managed this tour de force and showed the new face of the touring world, with two contests mixing both worlds. On Saturday, a contest led by speed ascent star Jornet and on Sunday a contest imagined by big mountain skier Gavaggio. You could also test the gear of 11 brands and make your mind up on your next bit of equipment.
The snow forecast was dreadful for the weekend but a miracle happened and Saturday morning was a glorious start for the first edition of this innovative event. Jornet lived up to his reputation and easily swallowed the 700m of positive denivelation of the Kilianometre in around 40 minutes, faster than the average skier taking the lift (yes, really, I tried)!
In the evening, big mountain skier Cedric Pugin led a party of 50 skiers across the woods for a full moon tour up the mountain. "Touring is, for me, mostly about sharing good times with friends," said one of the participants.
On Sunday, it’s Enak’s turn. Gavaggio is a prominent figure in France, he’s now famous for his webshow Rancho after a long career on the skicross circuit. He came to touring because:
Touring has changed, as a big mountain skier I now have the gear to enjoy the way up as much as the way down.
So he designed a new type of contest, called the Big Nak, a reference to the eating habits of ski runners (seeds and nuts) as opposed to the freetour skiers (burgers).
The Big Nak is based on the enduro formula: one uphill section and two downhill sections. Caroline Freslon, a strong trail runner, won the contest and a wonderful wild boar’s head as a trophy! "The idea is to federate people of the touring community. Let’s work together and share the mountain! Whether you ride with 80mm underfoot or 105mm, you are still a skier and you all love the mountain. We wanted to show that touring is fun and easy," explains the organiser Gino Decisier.
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