Top Five Fridays: February 28, 2025
Boarders board the snowcat at Black Mountain, NH, where resort GM Erik Mogensen made the unconventional decision to shuttle guests up the mountain when high winds forced him to shut down lift operations. Image: Black Mountain on Facebook
#1:FIS Alpine World Cup Recap: Shiffrin Hits 100 Wins:
There’s more to the story than just another race, another gold for Shiffrin. Watch to hear the behind the scenes story of the friendship between Shiffrin and Breezy Johnson.
Hello, and welcome to Top Five Fridays, the February 28, 2025 edition! This time around, things are back to normal after a week in which we had multiple Chairlift Chat contributors out of the office due to either illness or ski coaching duties. Despite being short staffed though, Bob and Jeff still pulled together another interesting edition of TFF last week, for which I personally thank them. Still, it’s good to be back, especially with what ended up being a pretty exciting newsreel to cover. Keeping that in mind, let’s jump in!
First and foremost, the biggest topic of discussion this week, both in competitive and non-competitive ski news, had to be Mikaela Shiffrin. As we all know, what started out as an incredibly promising season came to a screeching halt back in November when she was just moments away from earning her 100th win in front of the home crowd at Killington. Instead of writing that story though, Shiffrin crashed out, giving herself a puncture wound and 2.5 months of rehab. In the blink of an eye, her entire season changed dramatically as one that could have been filled with accolades and success suddenly became one that told the story of yet another setback.
When we last checked in with Mikaela a couple of weeks ago, she’d just been convinced by childhood friend Breezy Johnson to compete alongside her in the new Women’s Combined event. It was a good decision for both of them, as that event would result in Shiffrin’s first gold since her injury and tie the record with her 8th World Championship gold. For Johnson, it was her second World Championship gold, with her first coming just days prior. More importantly though, it also gave Shiffrin the mental boost she needed, letting both herself and the world know that she was officially back from her injury and ready to compete at the highest level.
After the conclusion of the World Championships, both the men’s and women’s circuits had a week off to recover and relax. This week though, both divisions got back on track, with the women meeting in Sestriere, Italy for a pair of Giant Slaloms and a Slalom. It was there, in the Slalom race, that Shiffrin finally completed the task that narrowly eluded her in Killington. This past Sunday, Mikaela set a blistering pace in the Slalom race, ultimately beating her closest competition by .64 seconds and earning her 100th World Cup gold medal in the process.
In retrospect, the timing of Shiffrin's 100th win almost feels more appropriate now than if she had won in front of the Killington crowd. While that storyline would have been incredibly joyous, straightforward storybook endings haven’t exactly been the theme of Shiffrin’s career over the last several years. Between losing her Dad unexpectedly, followed immediately by the Covid crisis cancelling her plans to return, Shiffrin’s later career has been a series of setbacks and resurgences. With that in mind, it somehow feels more fitting that her 100th World Cup win comes on the backend of yet another display of mental and physical fortitude. While a perfectly timed victory in Killington would’ve been lovely, this version of the story is much more powerful.
Of course, Shiffrin wasn’t the only U.S. athlete seeing success this past week. In fact, in that same slalom race, fellow USST member Paula Moltzan also found herself on the podium, having secured 3rd place. Earlier in the week, Moltzan also performed well in the first of two Giant Slalom races, finishing in 6th. Behind her in that race were Nina O’Brien in 8th, AJ Hurt in 12th, Katie Hensien in 21st, and Mikaela Shiffrin in 25th. In the second Giant Slalom race of the week, AJ Hurt led the way for the team, finishing in 7th, followed by Paula Moltzan in 8th, and Elisabeth Bocock in 23rd. All in all, it was yet another strong showing from the Women’s team, who continue to prove that they’re loaded from top to bottom with contenders.
On the men’s side of the circuit, Crans Montana, Switzerland played host this week, offering a Downhill and a Super G race. Of the two, the Downhill featured the best results, with Ryan Cochran-Siegle earning a 13th place finish, followed by Bryce Bennett in 17th, Jared Goldberg in 25th, and Sam Morse in 30th. A day later in the Super G, Kyle Negomir led the way for Team USA with a 20th place finish, followed by Ryan Cochran-Siegle in 23rd and River Radamus in 28th.
Looking ahead, there’s still a few more weeks of racing before the Tour convenes in Sun Valley, Idaho for the finals. This week, the women will be in Kvitfjell, Norway for a pair of Downhills and a Super G, while the men will be in Kranjska Gora, Slovenia for a Giant Slalom and a Slalom race. You can preview those events right here.
#2: Freeride World Tour Preview: After a Week of Postponements, the Georgian Stop of the Freeride World Tour is Confirmed for Tomorrow:
In other competitive news this week, we have some updates from the Freeride World Tour as they get set to drop into their fourth event of the year. As you might have already known, the Tour is currently in Georgia, with a weather window running from February 23rd - March 1st. If you’ve been following the updates from this current stop, then you already know that it’s been a bit of a wild ride with event organizers doing everything in their power to get the event off within the window. Initially, the competition was set to take place last Saturday on the Kaseb face. Then, on the morning of the event, while riders were busy scoping their lines, event staff were setting up the finish corral, and safety crews were performing avalanche work on the venue, avalanche mitigation efforts resulted in a substantial slide that took most of the quality snow off the venue, rendering it unsuitable for competition. As a result, the competition was delayed at the very last minute, with the promise that a new venue would be found within the weather window. Fast forward to Tuesday, and event organizers shared that they were aiming for a competition on Thursday or Friday. Then, on Wednesday, they said a Thursday event wouldn’t be possible due to flat light making venue preparations unmanageable. At that time, a final announcement was said to be coming soon.
Finally, just yesterday, the competition date and location was confirmed a second time. This time, it was announced that the event will take place on the Kakhiani face tomorrow (or technically tonight, for those of us in North America). While we’ve already seen a series of postponements for this event, our hope is that this confirmation sticks and the event goes off as scheduled.
Those of you who watched the Tour last year might remember this as the venue where Marcus Goguen put up a ridiculous score of 98.00, after somehow eeking out one of the most catlike cork 7’s we’ve ever seen on the tour. You also might recall the immediate bomb-drop air out of the gate, which countless riders took advantage of to kick their runs off in a big way. In other words, it’s a rowdy venue, and with conditions looking prime, we’re likely in for another show.
This year, the Georgia event is the second to last stop before the qualifying cut off, which is set to take place after the Fieberbrunn stop in the second week of March. As such, there’s a lot on the line, both for athletes currently making the cut, as well as those on the outside looking in. If you’re awake at 11 PM tonight, you can watch the livestream here. Otherwise, use this link to catch the replay. As you can probably guess, we’ll be back next week with a recap of results.
#3: Worrying About Rain on Your Next Ski Vacation? Don’t. Get Weather Insurance:
A rendering showing the basics of how Sensible Weather’s insurance works. Image provided by Sensible Weather, discovered via Powder.com
Moving on from competitive ski news this week, our next highlight showcases a novel idea that we’re quite curious to see the progression of. The concept is simple: weather insurance for lift tickets.
This week, we learned of a new company entering the ski market called Sensible Weather, which will soon be partnering with several ski areas (some of which are a part of the Ikon Pass) to allow customers to purchase weather insurance along with their lift ticket. In general, it works like this: for an additional 8-9% of the ticket price, customers can add weather insurance that protects them against either too much rain or too much snow. Should either of these events occur, the ticket purchaser would be automatically reimbursed for the cost of their ticket, no claims necessary. The rain portion of the insurance makes sense, but the snow clause may raise an eyebrow or two. With a little extra thought though, it makes sense. As skiers, we love powder days. But also as skiers, it’s more than likely that we’ve all experienced the type of powder day where too much snow leads to impossible travel conditions, lift delays, power outages, or just sheer blizzards that make it impossible to see. For those days when there’s just too much snow to be enjoyable, Sensible Weather’s insurance would kick in.
One thing that’s interesting about this insurance offer though is that the refund is not attached to the usability of the ticket. In other words, if it should rain on the day of your ticket, or if you should find yourself skiing in a whiteout blizzard, your ticket will still work and you’ll get reimbursed automatically. So, if you’re ok with braving gnarly conditions, you could conceivably get a lift ticket for free. As for the thresholds themselves? Well, it varies by resort, due to local weather patterns. The bottom line though, is that you’ll only get reimbursed should the weather make for a truly challenging day on the slopes. It’ll be interesting to see whether this idea catches steam or not, as well as which resorts sign on with Sensible Weather. We’ll likely have our answers to those questions soon, but for now, know what we know by checking in with Powder.com.
#4: Black Mountain Responds to Persistent Wind Holds With Free Cat Skiing:
Guests clamber out of the Black Mountain snowcat after being given a free ride to the top. Image: Black Mountain on Instagram
Finally, we’re rounding things out this week with a succinct yet powerful story coming to us from Black Mountain, New Hampshire. If you read along with us last week, you already know that we’ve been facing some windy conditions here in New England recently which have been causing all sorts of problems. Most commonly that’s meant lift closures, but in a few cases, there has also been significant damage. One story that we hadn’t heard though, is the one in which Black Mountain’s owner didn’t let lift closures spoil a good day of skiing.
Back on February 17th, lift operations were suspended at Black Mountain due to high winds. When that happened, resort GM Erik Mogensen (and Indy Pass owner) found himself feeling bummed out on behalf of all his guests who traveled to the mountain to ski, only to find themselves relegated to the lodge. Then, inspiration struck. Mogensen had an idea: they could use their cabin cat to transport groups of people to the top of the hill for runs. The show would go on after all. Twelve at a time, Mogensen personally shuttled the guests to the top of the ski area, offering free cat rides in lieu of chairlift rides, and ensuring that nobody went home without taking a run. The result? The guests loved the experience. Despite taking significantly fewer runs than they would have had the lifts been running, guests raved about the unique experience and expressed praise all over social media for Mogensen’s actions. At the end of the day, the decision to use the cat to shuttle skiers twelve at a time wasn’t about skiing; it was about community and proving that ownership’s connection to the sport can make an immense difference.
For us, the story within the story is that of Mogensen’s growing status within the ski industry. As you might remember, Black Mountain found itself on the verge of closing at the start of last season. Then, Mogensen stepped up, using the Indy Pass as a means of committing the necessary resources to keep the ski area open for the 2023-2024 season. That bought the area a year, which although helpful, was not a long term solution. Fast forward to this past fall and Mogensen took his commitment to the resort a step further, announcing that the Indy Pass had purchased the resort with the intention of transitioning it to a co-op business plan ahead of the 2025-2026 season. And now, with this week’s story, Mogensen’s reputation continues to grow as his simple gesture shows that he’s not simply a business man who saw an opportunity, but is also a skier at heart who’s truly invested in keeping the fun in the sport.
For us, that’s what we love about this story. It’s yet another example of Mogensen stepping up and doing something, not because it made the most business sense, but because he simply loves skiing. To learn more about this story, check out the report from SkiMag.com, or visit Black Mountain on Instagram.