Freeride World Tour comes to Haines, but weather puts the action on hold

Some of the world's best freestyle skiers and snowboarders are gathered in Haines this week for the Freeride World Tour's only stop this season in North America.

And while there's plenty of snow in the Chilkat Mountains, there's also plenty of apprehension about the conditions there.

Competition has been on hold all week, first because of avalanche concerns and then because of inclement weather. In the last week there's been more than a foot of new snow in the area, including five inches on Monday, and early this week the Alaska Avalanche Information Center rated conditions as "dangerous."

"The competition did not run on Tuesday due to risk management and snow safety staff feeling that the conditions were not safe enough for the athletes and due to avalanche risk," Freeride World Tour spokesman Tom Winter said by email Wednesday afternoon. "Currently the weather seems to now be the issue."

After postponing competition Tuesday and Wednesday, organizers on Wednesday afternoon also scrapped plans to compete on Thursday. If and when action commences, skiers and snowboarders will compete on "The Venue," a mountain face with a 600-meter vertical drop. It's accessible only by helicopter.

Among the 29 skiers and riders vying for $68,000 in prize money scheduled are three Alaskans — Ryland Bell of Juneau, Davey Baird of Homer and Hazel Josie Birnbaum, who grew up in Moose Pass and lives in Kirkwood, California.

Bell, 31, is the defending champion of the Haines event — this is the third time the Freeride World Tour has come to Southeast Alaska —and though he hasn't competed on the pro tour this year, he received a wild-card invitation to the Haines competition.

Birnbaum, 30, is ranked sixth among female skiers on the pro tour and is coming off a third-place finish at the last competition, in Fieberbrunn, Austria. Baird, 23, is ranked sixth among male snowboarders. Both just made the cut for the tour's final two events — the Haines competition and the April 1 finals in Verbier, Switzerland.

"I'm really stoked, and definitely feeling some pressure to do well in the homeland," Baird told the Homer Tribune. "But you do what you can do, and that's all you can do — you know?"

Baird, who is in his first season on the pro tour, said he barely qualified to compete in Haines but punched his ticket by placing 10th in Fieberbrunn.

"The most recent competition in Fieberbrunn, Austria, was a tornado of events all in one," he told the Tribune. "I ended up changing my line down at the last second, and got lost in the top section of the mountain. That didn't exactly set me up for success, but since they take the best two of my three scores toward the cut for the final two comps, I just managed to make it in."

The stop in Haines is one of five competitions this season for pro skiers and riders. It's being called "The Dream Stop" by the Freeride World Tour, "the opportunity to experience the Alaskan terrain and tick one of the boxes that is on every freeriders' bucket list."

Weather permitting, of course. In 2015, the first year the tour came to Haines, competition was postponed three times before it was a go.

Organizers have until Saturday to stage a competition. Lifestream coverage will be available at freerideworldtour.com, where you can check for updates on the competition schedule.

An early version of this article incorrectly described the vertical drop of "The Venue."