"Fuck I'm Good, Just Ask Me"
A Few FIGJAM Zones to Show Everyone that You're the Best Skier on the Mountain
It was an idea born in a ski shop in Aspen. Hamilton Sports is unequivocally Aspen’s best ski shop. “The shop”—as we call it—is a subterranean clubhouse on Durant Avenue, five steps from the Ajax Gondola Plaza. At Hamilton, if you look closely behind the ptex, wax and Pozidrivs, you’ll see a jar of fig jam sitting on the tuning deck next to the binding jigs or stealthily resting above the cash register next to ski straps and tchotchkes. At first glance it seems to be out of place in a ski shop, but the jam was placed there in 2007 by an alumnus of the shop and it is part of everyday life. Even though the seal on the jar has never been broken, “jam” is constantly being spread in Aspen—and throughout the ski world.
Customers strut through the door fresh off the plane to rent a setup for their winter holiday. The requisite question for a ski rental shop is asked: “What type of skier are you?” Type I, Type II or Type III; skis cautious, skis moderate or skis aggressive, respectively. “Is there a Type IV?” the standard vacation skier—from Houston, LA, Chicago, or Vail—will ask. Or, “Yeah, I like to get air and I need my DIN set for an expert skier. Will you crank my demo binding to 7 for me?” Or, “I like a really stiff ski, that's why I loved the S7." Or, “I’m a super aggressive skier, I ski black diamonds.” While these skiers aren’t fixing PB & J sandwiches, they are spreading the jam.
F.I.G.J.A.M. is an acronym that was hatched in this Aspen-based ski shop years ago; hence, the jar of jam sitting next to the Wintersteiger machine. FIGJAM stands for “Fuck I’m Good, Just Ask Me!” but more often than not people will start spreading the jam without any prompt.
Before Hamilton Sports, the Squaw Valley, now Palisade, crew was doing a similar thing much louder than the team in Aspen. Shane McConkey got it. So did Dr. Robb Gaffney. Tim Konrad, the founder of Unofficial Networks, tapped this vein after Shane passed when he produced “GNAR, the movie.” Before the must-watch ski flick, however, Shane, Dr. Robb and their crew wrote the guidebook to FIGJAM in Squallywood: A Guide to Squaw Valley’s Most Exposed Lines.
[Last summer, Dr. Robb passed away. It rocked all of us. My love and thoughts go to his family and dear friends. I have a signed copy of Squallywood from Dr. Robb Gaffney on my nightstand from a trip to Lost Trail Lodge in 2013. But, I digress…]
At the root of GNAR and FIGJAM is fun. It’s just skiing in the end, and if we’re not having fun sliding on snow, then we’re blowing it. On top of that, though, is a candid fact that most ripping skiers enjoy when people watch them blasting. It’s true. I’ve heard from friends that garnering hoots and hollers from the chairlift has value to the skier doing the detonating. I wouldn’t know.
To honor GNAR and FIGJAM, I put together a list of a few fantastic places to show everyone in the lift line, on the chairlift, or standing on a cat track that you are—in fact—the best skier on the mountain.
Here are three “Fuck I’m Good, Just Ask Me” zones that’ll remind all those watching how good you are at skiing—or not:
KT 22 at Palisade
For those committed to taking part in the pow morning ritual, The Fingers Race begins at ungodly hours, but no one will ever tell you what time they actually lined up to make sure they keep their spot in the front. Tahoe’s locals start visualizing which line in the fabled Fingers zone they’re going to tee-up as soon as the KT 22 chair starts spinning. Spectators roll out at a more comfortable time, around 8:30 in the morning, to watch the skiing and carnage over a cup of coffee. For both sides of the sending coin, The Fingers Race never disappoints.Here’s how The Fingers Race plays out according to Dr. Robb Gaffney: “On a sunny powder day, show up at the base of KT 22 really, really early armed with your fattest skis, a mental Polaroid of your run, a mindset that you are going to straightline the upper 2/3 of the mountain, and confidence of being on stage in front of everyone on the chair and in the liftline below…”
KT 22 at Palisade is a spectator sport. (Photo: Powder Magazine) The Fingers is a rock-reef outcropping that sits underneath the KT chair on the lower portion of Squaw’s mountain, in direct view of hundreds of onlookers waiting in liftlines, riding on the KT 22 or Expedition chairlifts, or sipping drinks at the sundeck. The Fingers boasts nine prominent lines and a handful of variations and all count as a Fingers’ line except for “Reverse Traverse.” There are big airs, technical billy-goating lines, and puckering straightlines to be farmed out in the zone. According to Gaffney’s Squallywood, “the closer you are to the center, the harder your line.” Transitions get bombed out, snow sluffs away exposing the sharky rock, and take-offs get hammered. Hence, the mad dash to the zone on powder mornings because of the prime sending conditions.
For more about The Fingers Races at KT 22, check out this old article for POWDER.Air Jordan at Whistler
Remember when Julian Carr sent Air Jordan from the top? Here’s a reminder:Shot while filming “Into the Mind” with Sherpas Cinema in BC, Carr’s iconic air is not how normal people ski Air Jordan. To be honest, normal people don’t go anywhere near this zone. But, this all-time clip illustrates how Whistler’s Peak Chair is the perfect place to spread FIGJAM.
“It all started off with an invite to film an inbounds Whistler Blackcomb segment with Sherpas,” Carr wrote for Freeskier in 2013. “I arrived to town fresh off of a less than spectacular snow base in Utah. In Whistler, they had an awesome early season and were still sitting on a great base. It hadn’t snowed in a few weeks in Whis’, and most of the locals were awaiting a new influx of nukage. I, however, was licking my chops, enjoying the great base.”
The lines at Peak Chair on a powder day are heavy. But on the right day, this might be the best place to wait for a chairlift in the entire world because if you gaze up looker’s right/skier’s left from the chair you’ll be treated to a FIGJAM spectacle.
“So many people!” says Julian Carr. “Wow, I was treated to a show on my way up the lift. Matt Elliot nailed a super impressive air and stomped it. Same with Hoji and a handful of rippers. Whistler was going off. Peak Chair represent!”
Does this picture of peak people watching on Whistler Blackcomb’s Peak Chair during a powder day pique your interest? (Photo: Fitzsimmons) Dipsy Headwall on Aspen Mountain
Definitely not up to the big-mountain meat-hucking watermark left by the two preceding places, Dipsy Headwall is JV (or Freshmen Team) to The Fingers Race at Palisade and Air Jordan at Whistler. With that said, most of us aren’t looking to have everyone on a packed chair watch as we thread Main Pocket’s needle or have the welter of Whistler chargers watch as we hack through AJ’s mandatory airs. Dipsy is the prime spot to FIGJAM because it’s a 17-minute gondi ride away from the place where FIGJAM originated, and it’s accessible to all skiers—from seven year olds with AVSC jackets, like my boys, to FWT Champions, like George Rodney.
Directly beneath “Chair 3” in Aspenite, Ajax Express for visitors from Houston, LA, Chicago and Vail, Dipsy Headwall is—at most—300 vertical feet of Aspen Mountain bliss. Slide off the cat track, bump your way down to a tiny rock in the middle of Dipsy, tuck into the trees on skier’s left, find the mellow kicker out of the trees, land on a perfect transition before sliding onto the groomer of Dipsy proper.
Check out perfect FIGJAM Dipsy from Chair 3 (video: Fitzsimmons):The chairlift ascends right above this zone; so, ski school students, friends, and holiday skiers can cheer, boo, or gawk as you make Dipsy look fun. Then, if you want more, you can link a few Hollywood rolls after the Headwall to a classic Aspen hit that lies underneath Chair 3. You can ski fall line from the top of Dipsy Headwall all the way to the bottom of the chairlift for a full-on FIGJAM run.
Or, you can head straight to the Dumps and ski Ajax’s best terrain without anyone watching. But, if you skied Zaugg well and no one saw, did you really even ski Zaugg?
FIGJAM! I’ll be adding that to my on-mountain vocabulary. I also have a book signed by Robb, a guidebook to The Ridge at Bridger Bowl, Montana where he has a line named after him. GNAR was and still is a huge influence for me, glad to see the same spirit is still alive in Aspen!