Apologies for the lack of posts. Big thanks to “Roope Dog”!! John Roope at WebIt Designs has been pimpin’ my site out and it took a second for me to be able to post new stories.

Soo…..
Welcome to the new ClaireSmallwood.com!

Life has been good. Veryyyyy busy….My good friends Meggan Klassen and Hannah Whitney and myself have been up to our armpits in gear from the SheJumps Gear Grant Program and are in the process of organizing a storage unit for that. I am also moving out of my house and packing for 3 trips simultaneously (if this doesn’t make me a good packer then I don’t know what will): Grand Canyon 20-day river trip, Hood River for catering, and then South America! (more on that later…)

Some eye candy of where I will be for the next 20 days!

Apologies for the lack of posts. John Roope at WebIt Designs has been pimpin’ my site out and it took a second for me to be able to post new stories.

Soo…..
Welcome to the new ClaireSmallwood.com!

Life has been good. Veryyyyy busy….My good friends Meggan Klassen and Hannah Whitney and myself have been up to our armpits in gear from the SheJumps Gear Grant Program and are in the process of organizing a storage unit for that. I am also moving out of my house and packing for 3 trips simultaneously (if this doesn’t make me a good packer then I don’t know what will): Grand Canyon 20-day river trip, Hood River for catering, and then South America! (more on that later…)

Some eye candy of where I will be for the next 20 days!

In t-minus 1 week I will be hangin’ on a raft with nothing better to do but drink beer and float my toes in the Colorado river. Dreams really do come true!

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/22/us/22dna.html?src=me&ref=general

Hanging with Kenny Jones

We laughed our asses off in Taos, got drunk off Tequila, hung out with my parents, and schralped the gnar! The competition was great and I was stoked be able to get to know one of my brother’s best friends.

Ambling into the Alley Cantina in Taos after a 14 hour drive from Salt Lake, Kenny and I were in desperate need of a place to crash. We were almost to the point of getting drunk enough to sleep in a fully loaded Subaru when we met this awesome local ski instructor named Max. Max offered us his place to stay at, which just so happened to be made out of beer cans. What a beautiful life!

I know photo is sideways, just use your imagination!

It was an amazing way to start an epic trip. Thanks again Max!

One of the best parts of about the road trip to Taos (whole story coming soon), was the production of burritos that happened at 10:30 p.m. the night before we left.

These particular burritos had the following: beets, kale, potatoes, green chile, sriracha (hot cock sauce), salt & pepper and some extra sharp cheddar cheese which I always melt into the tortilla before adding any other ingredient. Next time I will do some production photos….I love making burritos!

Wow, what can I say? Taos, New Mexico is one of the coolest places ever. I always knew that growing up a short 75 miles south of there, but being able to go home to a place like that is very special.

The Finals of the Salomon Extreme Freeride Championships were held on Kachina Peak, with a start gate at the elevation of 12,400 feet it is the highest elevation start gate of any other freeride competition in the world. I aired off my first cornice in a completely different section than I had inspected, got a good amount of air and then skied sweet, sweet powder turns down to the K3 section of the venue. Slabby snow and a lot of ruts made the steep section of the line a bit challenging for me, but I saw my second air and just decided to send it. I came out of it with so much heat, I couldn’t make it back around to my last feature. I feel like those sort of things definitely happen in comps, and that is why it is great to have as much experience as possible.

The Tobias Lee Spirit Award has a special significance to me. I met Tobias in 2005 at the Taos competition. He was the first competitor I ran into…I believe I am responsible for actually introducing my brother to Tobias! (Funny because they ended up being huge partners in crime if you know what I mean). That year (2005) I placed 6th and my brother placed 5th…but we were both so stoked out on the whole competition that Jim Jack (head judge, IFSA) decided that he needed to give us our very own award and thus spawned the Spirit Award. After Tobias died in an avalanche in 2006, his own positive attitude and contagious good vibes were officially continued on by naming the Spirit award after him. I can’t remember who won the award in 2007, but Joey actually won it again in 2008! Last year was our good buddy Darrell Haggard from Arapahoe Basin. I was bummed at first to realize that they didn’t call my name up for 4th place for the ladies, but after all the awards were said and done, I heard Tom Winter talking about the spirit award and I saw they even had a trophy for it! All of a sudden, I heard my name called out and I got to stand on the podium and guzzle a martini from this badass trophy! (photo coming soon!). Getting the spirit award is so special, because it shows that your attitude has a huge positive effect on the people around you, and it is always nice to be recognized for it. Here’s to Taos and Tobias!

Tomorrow is the qualifier for the Freeskiing World Championships at Snowbird. I am stoked, although the conditions are not very stokeable….Dust on crust to say the least….but hey, She Jumps, right?!

I was just stoked to stay on my feet and get through to Day One. This place is so special and I feel so lucky to be a skier who is a part of it!

This event is a qualifier for the Freeride World Tour event, so wish me luck!

Super stoked on an amazing weekend….Cooked lunch for 45 people at Wasatch Powderbird Guides by myself on Saturday….then cooked for the amazing Guzmond family from Chile on Saturday night at the Wildcat Chalet. It ended with us sledding down the snowbridge into huge piles of powder….

Click here for a clip of the story that aired on Fox 13 News tonight!

Sunday brought the 2nd Annual (S)heJumps into the Canyon to Alta Ski Area. SheJumps volunteers teamed up with local Boys & Girls club for a day of skiing at Alta. The conditions couldn’t have been better–just a tad of fresh snow and even some nice sunshine throughout the day. The kids really took to skiing, many of them bypassing the traditional pizza-wedge learning mechanism to go straight to parallel skiing on the chairlifts before lunch. It is so great to feel like you are making a difference in someone’s life: most of these kids would never normally have an opportunity to learn about skiing and also to see that it is an option as a long-term lifestyle that is both healthy and fun!