Hot Laps with Daron Rahlves
A talk with the American Downhiller about how Sugar Bowl & Hahnenkamm inform his approach to skiing (fast)
This is the first story in a series—Hot Laps—that focuses on a concept that has fascinated me for years. The idea is simple: where we ski shapes how we ski. It's about nature and nurture.
Picture Candide skiing in Candide Camera. La Clusaz’s energy and terrain ooze out of every turn Candide arcs and air he stomps. Conversely, Ajax and the surrounding Elk Mountain Range are inextricably tied to Chris Davenport’s style and approach. Sage skis like Mount Hood’s playful terrain. Tof Henry skis fast through steep couloirs and sprays snow above seracs because he’s from Chamonix.
The hypothesis behind Hot Laps is that we ski the way we ski because of where we ski.
To kick it off, I called my favorite American Downhiller of all time—Daron Rahlves. DR and I spoke for about an hour a few nights ago while he was putting the finishing touches on Drey’s race skis. His 13-year-old son is skiing gates, cliffs, powder and groomers in Tahoe, just like his dad.
Daron Rahlves talked about how Sugar Bowl and Hahnenkamm, his two “home mountains” in my opinion, informed his approach to skiing. We talked about how Daron takes The Streif and Silver Belt to different terrain all around the world.
First, let’s set the table about Daron’s relevance in skiing. Odds are you have some familiarity with Daron Rahlves’ storied ski career if you’re reading The Ski Phoenix. (By the way, THANK YOU for reading The Ski Phoenix!) But, it’s important to level set on DR’s impact on skiing before we talk about his approach to skiing…
I took the following stats straight from Daron’s profile on Fly Low Gear’s website. Fly Low is one of Daron’s sponsors, and I imagine Megan Michelson wrote this profile (apologies if that’s not accurate). But, it sounds like Megan’s writing—clear, compelling and economical.
I called Daron one evening a few nights ago after a full day of work. He answered from his garage while tuning Drey’s skis. We talked for a bit about family, Daron’s a proud dad. His twins are now 13. And, my memory of them is from 10 years ago in Portillo when they ran into the Bar in footsy pajamas as three-year-old twin siblings—one girl, one boy. I remember thinking how incredible it was for Daron and his wife to be able to introduce their kids to Chile and to the singular ski experience offered at Ski Portillo.
Things have changed since then, as they do. His children are teenagers, I have children. Some things don’t change, though. We’re still skiers. And, Daron loves talking shop about skiing!
Daron shared a few interesting tidbits from a recent documentary film shoot in which he got to be Franz Klammer’s stunt double, reenacting Klammer’s 1976 World Cup run (one of the Austrian’s five World Cup downhill titles—#legend).
“Having to make mistakes on purpose was a little crazy,” says Rahlves about the experience of skiing like Franz. “But, it was cool because we were on the old vintage skis and had to get a little buck-wild on the way down, make mistakes and go for Franz-like crazy recoveries. It was a different style from how I’m used to skiing. You know? Purposely being way back on the tails and hanging on. It was fun, but it was a little nerve wracking.”
You know it’s full on when Daron Rahlves says it “was a little nerve wracking.”
“I’m pretty interested in the angle you’re taking on this [story],” says Rahlves while having to excuse himself to take a second to tell the neighborhood groms they couldn’t hit the jump in front of his house until his son got home. “I totally feel like where you ski shapes the way you ski or the way you live.”
So, to the conversation about skiing with Daron…
Greg Fitz (GF): How did Sugar Bowl and The Streif inspire the way you approach skiing and how you see ski terrain?
Daron Rahlves (DR): My style is more about big, wide-open turns. I love laying rails on the groomers and off. I’m always looking for terrain when I ski; like, if I see a roller that I can do a turn over way to the right I’m going to go for that. I think I’ve always searched out terrain on the mountain that I can link up with big, swoopy turns while taking speed. That’s how I grew up skiing—trying to go fast on the mountain. I’ve always loved hitting big knolls. I remember [as a kid] bombing down a groomer to hit this one knoll with speed and take it as a big air, downhill-style. That’s why I love ski racing so much, it’s all about going fast and taking big, wide-open turns.
GF: What about skiing in Europe, how did your exposure to European skiing inspire your approach to skiing?
DR: Skiing in Europe is amazing. When you’re skiing World Cup over there you go down a mountain… It’s not a run, it’s actually a mountain that you’re skiing down. There’s so much unique terrain. That’s how I ski today, and that’s why I ski. It’s what I love—trying to keep my eyes open and look for as much terrain as possible.
GF: And what about Sugar Bowl’s terrain?
DR: Silver Belt Gully is all off-piste at Sugar Bowl, but I can go through there and inspect it like a race hill a little bit. I look at it to see where I can have the best flow. I’m always looking for transfers, hip jumps and stuff like that. I love looking at Silver Belt Gully like a race inspection, skiing a few sections and then linking it all together.
GF: How has Sugar Bowl influenced your skiing?
DR: I’d much rather ski top to bottom, that’s the kind of skier I am. Like a downhill course, I like to start at the top and stop at the bottom where the finish line is. Sugar Bowl is a small resort, people say it’s short and doesn’t have much vertical, but those same people stop a lot while skiing Sugar Bowl. You can ski a more technical zone off Mount Lincoln, the Silver Belt or The Sisters and you link a good run together without stopping until the bottom—for sure you’d be starving for leg strength and more air in the lungs. I am, at least…
GF: What lights you up about skiing still?
DR: It’s all about terrain for me. I don’t really get excited about arcing turns down a consistent pitch with no terrain. That’s fun and I can do a few laps like that. But, I’m trying to eat up as much terrain as I can possibly get.
GF: Talk about Rahlves Run at Sugar Bowl.
DR: There’s one run at Sugar Bowl, a namesake run. That’s where I won World Champs in ’01 and they call the top of the it Rahlves Run now. I just love to ski it a lot. They were like, “If we give you a run, what would you like?” And, I said, “That one because I ski it the most.”
GF: Why?
DR: You come off the top and there’s a cat-road air with a little pitch. Then, there’s some rolling into a compression and it drops off again to a big left turn before a quick transition where you can take speed. After that you hit the flats before a section that’s kind of like a big bank and you can get two left-footers off that… I could run that a couple of times a day and not get bored of it. It’s got flow. There’s a natural flow to the mountain up there.
GF: What are you looking for when “inspecting” terrain in Silver Belt Gully?
DR: I love searching out things that are different. You talk about Candide’s skiing, it’s just ridiculous. Think about how big of a scale he goes! I love that kind of style and what he’s doing. I’m not doing big tricks and I’m going a lot smaller than Candide is, but I’m always trying to keep that fun and playfulness in my skiing. I still get charged up on having those feelings like, “Okay, this isn’t a gimme. You gotta be on your game to land in the right spot and pull it off.” It feels rewarding. I love having that in my day. I can’t cruise on groomers all day long. That, to me, isn’t exciting enough. I want to have a little more pump.
GF: Is that what ski racing was all about for you?
DR: Downhill skiing was the ultimate. Knowing that you’re at a level when you can take all of the risk and if something happens you’ll blow it with speed. I wasn’t really worried about crashing then.
GF: I remember hearing you talk about being smaller when you were younger. I heard you say that you had to look at skiing differently when you were a teenager because you had to milk speed out of every possible nook and cranny on a hill. True story?
DR: That was one of the biggest strengths I had on my side. I was smaller. I was younger. I was always trying to figure out ways to compete with the big guys by making speed in certain places and really picking the hill apart to find where I could use gravity to my advantage. I was always trying to trim off line and be a little more creative with lines. Also, I tried to push it—obviously—with aerodynamics. It gets a little sketchy when guys put their arms out, and I was always trying to be a little more solid. I would look at spots and say, “Alright, this is where I can push it with aerodynamics, keep driving your hands forward and not open up as much because if you’re doing that you’re putting the brakes on.”
GF: Is there a specific memory you have of a time when you were trying to “drive your hands forward?”
DR: It’s pretty uncomfortable coming out of a tough turn on The Streif going into the sidehill traverse. It’s so wavy and bumpy. Guys would be arms out and trying to be solid. But, I’d be trying pin it, hands forward to cut down on as much wind drag as possible. There’s a photo that I have from a time when I was coming out of Hausberg, around the corner on the right foot and you come off the air and my arms are driving forward, my chest is down. I’ve seen other guys in that same spot opened up and arms off to the side. Those were the little places that I could make time up. Put your arm out of the window while you’re driving 70 miles per hour down the road and you feel how much drag there is. It’s a huge wakeup call. You don’t really feel it that much when you’re skiing but that’s what is happening out there. I always played around with that a ton. The little things, like how you twist your hand, position your wrist and forearm. A lot of those little details were what I thought about and I got to a point where it was natural to ski like that. There are those places where you have to want it more, you have to push it, even though you could get knocked off balance a bit more you had to go for it. You know? That’s the stuff that made it interesting to me back then.
GF: Are you still thinking about those minute details when skiing?
DR: I want to find terrain. That’s what drives me today. There’s so much of it out here in Tahoe and at Sugar Bowl. There’s really tight skiing, open bowls, chutes… You come ripping out of a line and instead of having to hit the brakes really hard you can look for a place to bleed speed while using the natural terrain.
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Huge thanks to Daron for generously giving me 40 minutes during the afternoon rush recently. We talked about a lot more than this during our conversation. Topics ranged from a Rahlves Bonzai Your backstory to a must-hear first-person description of The Streif from the start gate into Kitzbuhel to behind-the-scenes stories from memorable film parts with TGR in AK. All warrant an audience and time. So, I’ll devote some storytelling bandwidth and real estate to each nugget later on.
–GF