Ian Hamilton Takes on the Coldsmoke Competition at Lost Trail Powder Mountain, Montana (and wins!)
"Lost Trail Coldsmoke Freeride is one of my favorite weekends of the winter. It’s a truly unique event, consisting of one sweet cliff zone that funnels into a ridge with man-made jumps onto a long steep landing. Basically my dream zone. The best part is that they close it for two weeks before the event, and being aptly named “Powder Mountain”, the venue usually has crazy amounts of snow on it by the time the contest happens. Last year was the most buried I’ve ever seen that zone, 60”-80” in the preceding two weeks made the features I normally hit almost unrecognizable. It did open up the possibility, however, of hitting lines that are normally too gargantuan to contemplate. I skied a completely new zone, which didn’t go great on my first run, as I fell into a gap in the cliff spine I was skiing, luckily without hurting myself. I still managed to stomp my favorite trick, dub misty 1080 on the jump, but I was hungry for a perfect run. 2nd run went perfectly, stomped a huge double stage cliff drop, focused on my breathing and stuck the dub misty 1080 even better. Skiing down to the crowd after landing a run has to be one of the best feelings in the world!" - Ian Hamilton
