Alaska Ski & Snowboard History

We are working on putting together as much information on skiing and riding in AK as possible. Feel feel to hit us up with info or to help with corrections.

1989

Nick Perata, Shawn Farmer and Chris Pappas hike and ride Alaska's Moose's Tooth for a story for Climbing Magazine, making them the first snowboarders to ride the big mountain terrain that Alaska offers.

Alaska West Air offers helicopter service in Valdez. Chet Simmons, Doug Brewer and Tom Tibideau were pilots. They flew a Bell 206 skiing helicopter. The following year, they purchased a beaver as a ski plane shuttle.

1990

1991

WESC (World Extreme Skiing Championships) founded. Shannon Loveland, Mike Cozad and Chet Simmons, owners of the Tsania lodge, succeeded in bringing the World Extreme Skiing Competition to the area. Doug Coombs takes the title.

1992

Launched as the World Extreme Snowboarding Championships in 1992, the event soon morphed into the hugely popular King Of the Hill under visionary Nick Peralta’s guidance. Here too, the start list for these event events reads like a list of snowboarding royalty: Matt Goodwill, Shaun Palmer, Steve Klassen, Julie Zell, Tina Basich, Anthonin Lieutaghi and Axel Pauporté.

1993

Doug Coombs wins the World Extreme Skiing Championship.

1994

1994 King of the Hill Overall Results

Kings court
1 Matt Goodwill
2 Shawn Palmer
3 Jay Liska
4 Steve Klassen
5 Rob Morrow

Queens court
1 Julie Zell
2 Tina Basich
3 Bonnie Zellers
4 Kari McGuire
5 Sara Ellwell
6 Morgan LaFonte

1995

1995 King of the Hill Overall Results

Kings court
1 Steve Klassen
2 Alex Warburten
3 Darren Mattingly
4 Andy Hetzel
5 Jason Rey

Queens court
1 Julie Zell
2 Jane Mauser
3 Margarett Cossettini
4 Tina Basich

1996

1996 King of the Hill Overall Results

Kings court
1 Steve Klassen
2 Antoin Lieutagali
3 Dan Coffey
3 Miles Burgette
4 Jonah Himes
5 Jason Borgstede

Queens Court
1 Julie Zell
2 Lizzy Walker
2 Lori Gibbs
4 Janet Antram
5 Tomomi

1997

1997 King of the Hill Overall Results

Kings Court
1 Matt Goodwill
2 Teal Copeland
3 Uelli Kestenholz
4 Antonin Lieutaghi
5 Dan Coffey

Queens Court
1 Karleen Jeffery
2 Julie Zell
3 Lori Gibbs
4 Lizzy Walker
5 Elke Barns

1997 World Extreme Skiing Championships
Final Overall Standings

Men:
1. Brant Moles: 82.2
2. Dave Swanwick: 79.8
3. Aaron McGovern: 72.0
4. Denis Rey: 71.2
5. Rollins, Robby: 71.0
6. Nobis, Jeremy: 69.6
6. Kennett, Scott: 69.6
8. Sasaki, Daisuke: 68.4
9. Dill, John: 67.4
9. Demsar, Janez: 67.4
9. Chris Murphy: 67.4
12. Jesse Tol
13. Jason Prigge
14. Matt Belleville
15. Chris Davenport

Women:
1. Wendy Fisher: 65.0
2. A.J. Cargill: 59.6
3. Jill Sickels Matlock: 59.0
4. Heidi Van Winkle: 57.0

1998

Final Results

Women

Name Bib# Sex Day1R1 Day1R2 Day2R1 Day3R1 Total
Moreillon, Franci 17 F 30.20 31.80 33.60 34.00 129.6
Monod, Raphaelle 6 F 30.60 30.80 35.40 30.80 127.6
Fisher, Wendy 13 F 30.60 30.60 31.00 32.80 125.0
Cargill, A. J. 7 F 31.80 26.00 31.60 21.00 110.4
Gannett, Alison 32 F 22.00 31.20 31.80 23.80 108.8
Hutcheson, Chris 4 F 29.00 22.60 32.00 22.20 105.8
Van Winkle, Heidi 3 F 22.80 27.80 34.80 19.00 104.4
Kremer, Kirsten 22 F 29.00 24.00 0.00 0.00 53.0

Men's Division

Name Bib# Sex Day1R1 Day2R1 Day3R1 Total
Arnaud, Adam 19 M 39.40 42.40 40.00 121.8
Raney, Miles 8 M 37.40 34.00 41.00 112.4
Morris, Greg 30 M 34.80 40.00 34.20 109.0
Ronnback, Jesper 35 M 32.00 37.40 39.40 108.8
Prigge, Jason 9 M 36.60 28.60 39.00 104.2
Rollins, Robbie 11 M 35.20 33.00 36.00 104.2
Small, Geoff 26 M 23.60 39.80 36.60 100.0
Tchiknavorian, St 14 M 30.00 41.40 28.40 99.8
Dill, John 25 M 31.20 37.80 30.60 99.6
Peifer, Gordy 20 M 31.20 38.00 29.00 98.2
Anthony, Chris 33 M 31.40 32.20 32.80 96.4
Tol, Jesse 24 M 26.60 36.20 33.20 96.0
Aitken, Scott 2 M 28.60 34.40 29.00 92.0
Stephane, Dan 16 M 33.20 24.60 31.60 89.4
Murphy, Chris 31 M 39.00 21.20 29.20 89.4
Johnston, Jon 12 M 31.40 30.00 27.40 88.8
Wehrman, Rex 36 M 32.80 36.40 18.00 87.2
Belleville, Matt 34 M 28.40 31.20 23.40 83.0
Swinson, Brian 27 M 27.00 24.80 25.20 77.0
Aiko, Jan 37 M 21.20 27.80 22.60 71.6
Clemetson, Curt 23 M 27.40 22.20 20.60 70.2
Michaud Seb 15 M 36.80 32.80 0.00 69.6
Norin, Anders 21 M 32.60 31.80 0.00 64.4
Sasaki, Daisuke 10 M 24.80 34.20 0.00 59.0
Sjoblom, Henrik 18 M 30.80 22.00 0.00 52.8
McGovern Aaron 28 M 38.20 12.80 0.00 51.0
Conway, Dean 29 M 26.20 23.40 0.00 49.6
Swanwick, Dave 5 M 34.60 0.00 0.00 34.6
Moles, Brant NA M 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.0

1999

WESC - Guerlin Chicherit and Francine Moreillon win the titles.

Dispatches, March 1999

Hello, Father? Do You Offer Last Rites by Cell Phone?
This year's World Extreme Skiing Championships will feature two types of descent: Hail Mary and Mother of God

By Rob Story

When nearly 40 skiers converge outside Valdez, Alaska, on the sixth of next month for the ninth annual World Extreme Skiing Championships, they stand to log a series of performances that could collectively constitute one of their sport's watershed moments. Armed with fat and shaped skis custom-built to handle the Chugach Mountains' temperamental maritime snowpack, 50-degree steeps, and coffin-width chutes, these racers will blitz lines that would have been deemed suicidal by the slow-motion, hop-turning Chamonix mountaineers who invented ski d'extreme back in the late 70s. "This is a turning-point year," says Shane McConkey, who finished sixth in 1996. "The creativity you see now is crazy, and the talent level has gone through the roof."

That may sound like overbilling, especially in light of McConkey's current job title: President of the International Free Skiing Association. But there are grounds for taking his assurances seriously. In the first place, there's the unprecedented influx of world-class freestylers and alpine racers, more than 1,000 of whom have scrambled to sign on with the IFSA since 1996. And then there's the stature of the WESC itself. Though still notorious for its low-rent digs and paltry prize packages (this year's contestants will risk their lives for $3,000), the WESC seems to be emerging as one of the most significant championships in skiing, having just inked TV deals with the Eurosport Channel and ESPN2 at a time when the U.S. Pro Skiing Tour was forced to cancel its entire 1999 schedule due to lack of viewer interest.

The primary reason the WESC is able to flourish in the face of such apathy is that it consistently produces the sorts of spectacles rarely witnessed on the traditional gates-and-stopwatches circuit. These can range from the appalling to the absurd. In 1993, Wilbur Madsen fell to his death while peering over his intended line of descent, and three years later Brigitte Mead rag-dolled for 1,000 feet before bashing to a stop at the base of a rock wall. (She survived, thanks only to her battered helmet.) Last year, however, Frenchman Sebastian Michaud pulled off a feat worthy of a plane-crash survivor when he lost a ski just after throwing a backflip off a 50-foot cliff, made the split-second decision to speed away on one leg, rammed through another crux, lost his second ski, and ended up jogging across the finish line.

If conditions this year enable them to stick their intended lines, the course could favor McConkey and 1995 winner Dean Cummings in the men's division and Jill Sickels Matlock and Switzerland's Francine Moreillon in the women's, all of whom ski with a style that embraces aggression and speed. But regardless of who gets to cash the winners' checks, the competition should be worth watching. "This is another league," says Cummings. "Rookies don't understand that when you unhook from these mountains, you're only going to touch down every 60 feet."

1999 King of the Hill Overall Results

Kings Court
1 Axel Pauporte
2 Matt Goodwill
3 Ashley Call
4 Shawn Farmer
5 Steve Klassen

Queens Court
1 Karleen Jeffery
2 Elizabeth Walker
3 Pepi Ahonen
4 Lori Gibbs
5 Elke Barnes

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

After selling SNOWBOARD Magazine, Mark Sullivan takes a trip to Valdez to go riding and decides to start an event on Thompson Pass.