Words DREW ZIEFF were high for Sam Kuch atop a steep, misty venue at the 2017 Kicking Horse Freeride World Qualifier. Lace this run, make the Freeride World Tour. Stumble, and the 19-year-old would return home to Nelson, BC, empty-handed, just in time to pick up the hammer for a sweltering summer of backbreaking roofing work. The FWQ rookie and 2016 junior champ had a Taos four-star win in his pocket, and he’d qualified first for finals. A dream he’d had since joining the Whitewater Freeride Team at 13 years old was within reach, but when he crashed, Kuch watched it evaporate. “I felt deflated. That was a turning point. I didn’t know if I wanted to compete anymore,” Kuch says, looking back. All that work, just to fall short? The Freeride World Tour was supposed to help him get into ski movies—was that path erased too? Toward the end of that 2017 season, with Kuch con-teplating what life after competition might look like, a serendipitous break came in the form of an invitation to show established pros Alex Beaulieu-Marchand, Anna Segal, Mike Riddle and Stan Rey around his home moun-tain on closing weekend. But Kuch didn’t just show them around Whitewater—he showed out for their film, clocking STAKES a handful of high-octane, freestyle-meets-freeride clips that made it into Forecast’s Beyond the Powder Highway . “Sometimes, there’s an obvious line that’s yelling at you,” he says, describing his approach to beyond-the-ropes skiing, one that made an im-mediate impression that spring. “But for me, I like to look for good-sized transfers and landings—I love being in the air—transferring back and forth through the mountain. I like to jump things people wouldn’t normally see.” Come fall 2018, when the movie was released and the ski world got a taste of Kuch’s air-oriented big mountain vision, his performance earned him the Discovery of the Year award from iF3, igniting what can only be described as a meteoric rise. Within a year, Kuch had a Match-stick Productions ender under his belt and a Powder Award for Best Male Performance on his shelf. In a flash, he had solidified his place among the stars of big mountain skiing. Nearly half a decade later, Kuch remains one of the best in the business. Even after a catastrophic injury a few years back threatened to take it all away, Kuch has battled to maintain his standing as one of the ski universe’s brightest stars. Today, his brand of backcountry brilliance is more unmistakable and electric than ever—an envelope-pushing blend of creative freestyle and hardcore, pedal-to-the-metal charging. Perhaps more importantly, K2’s newest poster boy has done it by remaining true to his roots, establishing himself as a genuine, kindhearted, humble and hungry man behind the mirrored lenses. Sam Kuch 043
The Ski Journal Volume 17, Issue 2: Page 43
