Anchorage Daily News

At one point in her young life, Elyse Saugstad had to choose between figure skating and downhill ski racing.

The Dimond High graduate was great at both -- with a competitive spirit and the drive to improve. She practiced long hours and traveled out of state for events. She liked to win.

But to really excel at one, she had to give up the other.

That's why today, you'll find 29-year-old Saugstad launching off rock faces, rocketing down vertical slopes and generally wowing the world's free-skiing community, some of whom are gathered this week at Alyeska Resort for the Subaru World Freeskiing Championships.

The Girdwood-raised ripper is ranked No. 1 in the Freeride World Tour, a European-based free-skiing and snowboarding series that hosted competitions this season in such locales as California, Russia, France and Switzerland.

While Saugstad started as a wild card -- one of two in her division to earn a spot on the exclusive invitation-only tour -- she quickly earned the respect of her peers, winning three events to launch herself to the No. 1 spot in the world.

"I just started competing last year (in free skiing), and I did pretty well," said Saugstad from Haines, where she is working on a skiing film with Rage Films, a well-known extreme sports video-production company.

"I ended up second overall in the (International Free Skiers Association, or IFSA), and that led up to this year (when) a new world tour started called the Freeride World Tour."

Saugstad, who during her formative years was an alpine racer, had little experience with free skiing, which takes downhill skiing one step further, challenging skiers on cliffs, narrow chutes and insanely steep terrain.

Her results from 2007 included a win at the Taos Freeride World Championships, which gave her credibility.

Still, the Freeride World Tour is an invitation-only series, drawing free skiers who've accumulated the most points.

"The invitations were based on a bunch of results and I definitely didn't have those," she said, "so I had to qualify my way in."

That's exactly what she did at the beginning of the season in the Mammoth (Calif.) Quest of the Freeride World tour.

Going into the competition, she had a strong lead after her impressive first run.

But on the second run she crashed, costing her the lead.

But the judges were impressed enough to give Saugstad a wild card into the remainder of the series, which would take her to Russia, France and Switzerland.

She didn't disappoint, winning all three events.

"I knew it was going to take some work on my part this year -- I had to prove myself right off the get-go," Saugstad said. "I was able to accomplish it. It went really well."

FINDING FREE SKIING

Just a few years ago, professional skiing didn't look as if it would play a big role in Saugstad's life.

After going to college at the University of Nevada-Reno and studying international affairs, with the intent of going to law school, her future looked like more studying and, one day perhaps, the bar exam.

She lived briefly in Italy and then Australia before drifting back to the United States, drawn to areas like Squaw Valley, Calif., where she now lives and skis.

"I grew up ski racing and I ... was a junior Olympic downhill champion, but when I went to college, I quit ski racing. I was just totally over it," she said.

About that time, Saugstad discovered free skiing, which eliminated the absolutes of downhill racing but offered its own challenges.

"There's a bit more freedom to it; you get to decide what you're skiing and how you're skiing," she said of the discipline.

And while your placement in a competition is subjective -- it's not about who gets to the bottom of the mountain fastest, but who is judged to be the most skilled at it -- Saugstad thrives on it.

Monica Severson, one of Saugstad's longtime friends and a fellow competitive skier in their childhood, said that's why she thinks Elyse is doing so well today.

"Elyse has a very competitive nature but in a good way," said Severson, whose maiden name is Randall. "She knows how to play the head game to make it work. She can talk herself up and get on top of those cliffs.

"Even when I'm skiing with Elyse, I don't have that natural mind-set that she does, of, 'Oh, I can do that.' "

Mark Saugstad, who still lives in Girdwood, said his daughter showed that inclination early in her childhood.

"Elyse always loved skiing, and it was a way of life for her," he said. "And she was always a straight-A student. She's a pretty focused person overall."

And that's what she brings to free skiing, he said.

"It's really having the guts to turn your skis downhill and just go," he said. "We can all kind of kick turn our way down. When I was her age, we thought we were pretty hot. But these kids have taken it to a new level."

OFF TO SCANDINAVIA

Saugstad chose to focus on this year's Freeride World Tour, which offers cash prizes and has allowed her to ski for a living -- "I now have made enough money that I don't need another job," she said.

But the main place free skiers can earn points is the ISFA's sanctioned events, which took place simultaneously and created scheduling conflicts for Saugstad.

She won the Subaru Squaw Valley Freeskiing Championship, an IFSA event with a cash prize, but missed the others.

In fact, the series final is due to end today in Girdwood, but she is missing that too, opting to star in the extreme ski film being made in Haines.

"The event at Alyeska is going to be fabulous, and I wish I was a part of it," she said. "And I really think I have some advantages, having grown up and skied there."

However, she said, she can't be on more than one mountain at a time, and the chance to create a film -- another longtime interest -- was too good to pass up.

"That's huge, getting invited on this because it's the other side of the industry that I want to be part of, and that's fortunate," she said. "It's a way for skiing to be a part of my life forever."

Mark Saugstad said the fun doesn't end for his daughter after the Haines filming is complete.

Next up is a trip to Scandinavia, compliments of a Canadian film company and Elyse's sponsor, Salomon.

There, she and boyfriend Cody Townsend (another Freeride-ranked skier) will star in a production featuring free skiing in Sweden.

"They'll be up there for a month or so," he said. "That's all about skiing above the Arctic Circle."

As a parent, Saugstad said he has the basic concerns for his daughter's safety, but overall he is not worried. Alyeska, he said, has prepared her well.

"The kids at Alyeska definitely have an advantage; they ski steep stuff and they ski it early," he said. "We'd ski down the canyon and when these kids got big enough to ski with us, we'd take them, and it's just a series of jumps all the way down the creek.

"It's nothing new to them. They're used to it."

VIDEO: Watch Saugstad ski in the 2008 Subaru USA Free Skiing finals. Her run is about two minutes into the 7:24 clip.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=bB5EIMeO0hg

SEE A BIOGRAPHY of free skier Elyse Saugstad by clicking on "skiers" at

www.usfreeskiing.com

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