Red Bull Raid—a unique ski and snowboard competition where the winners are determined by who is the fastest on an uphill touring portion of the event, combined with their score for a judged big-mountain line down—returned to the storied slopes of Squaw Valley, California, on April 2. It’s the only uphill-downhill freeride event of its kind in the US.
Winners of this year’s contest included skiers Trevor Semmens and Camille Conrad—both coaches at Squaw Valley—and splitboarders Garrett Cygan and Jenna Shlachter. “It’s such a cool format, balancing the up and the down,” said Cygan, the men’s snowboard winner. “Having that local crowd with good friendly competition, it was fun to see friends going big.”
The athletes ran off the starting line in two separate heats in a Le Mans-style mass start, toting backpacks, skis, and snowboards. At the transition area, they hastily applied skins to their skis and boards, clicked in, and began hurrying up a timed, designated route that climbed around 800 vertical feet from the finish area toward the top of Squaw Valley’s CII Ridge, off Headwall chair. The fastest athletes completed the ascent in under 20 minutes.