DEER VALLEY — To the casual observer, the large bumps — called moguls — on the steep mountainside look as perfectly sculptured and symmetrical as eggs in an open carton.
To Konrad Rotermund, the layout of the bumps is anything but perfectly symmetrical. Had they been, he wouldn't have done his job, which in this case was to build, along with Timmy Meagher, chief of race, a not-so-balanced mogul run for the Freestyle World Championships, which will run this week at Deer Valley.
Some bumps were designed to be close together, while some were spread apart. There are areas on this course with flurries, calling for very quick turns, and some with extended bumps, requiring greater extension and angulation. Trying for a constant rhythm on this course would be a costly mistake.
"We wanted a course that was different from the Olympics," explained Rotermund, architect of the 2002 run last February. "We wanted something with a different feel. We put a lot of engineering and thought into this course.
"Those who win here will be the best skiers who are in the best shape. This course will benefit those who take moguls a little more seriously and train just a little harder."
Among world-class mogul skiers, this course draws mixed feeling, everything from love to hate. At 850 feet, it is the longest of the great mogul courses in the world, and with an average pitch of 29 degrees, it is also one of the steepest. One little slip can launch a skier into a very unpleasant and sometimes painful landing.
The course was built by hand. Or, more precisely, with a winch-cat (a snowcat with a winch to lower it down the steep slope) and a slew of volunteers and crew.
First the cat piled snow in rows across the hill. It then went back, cut a section out and pushed it down into the valley before the next row, intending it to look something like all the black spaces on a checkerboard. Crews then carved the snow into alternating, rounded bumps about the size of the top of a VW bug. It takes five rows of moguls to make four lanes down the course for skiers.
Non-conforming bumps were not the only changes. For the Olympics, the first of two jumps was about one-third of the way down the hills, the second about two-thirds.
For this course, the first jump was moved up to within 50 feet of the top, and the bottom one moved down to about 30 feet from the finish. This leaves about 180 feet of teeth-jarring, knee-pounding mogul skiing between the two jumps. Skiers will make between 70 and 80 turns and take two jumps, between start and finish.
"By the time skiers hit the second jump, they're going to be exhausted. The skiers who walk away with this world title on this course are those who ski hard the whole way down," he added in an advisory tone.
Because of the ideal snow conditions, the time between moving the snow into rows and the first test run was about 20 hours.
A couple of hundred feet to the west, as crews were cutting and manicuring the moguls, a separate group, with a completely different task, was building three large jumps for the freestyle aerialist.
Requiring the precise detail in placement needed by a contractor to erect a building, Rotermund and Chris Seemann, chief of aerials for this event, measured and calculated the precise location and design of the jumps — 70 feet of in-run, 80 feet of flat, then the jump, and a steep out-run to the finish area.
The smaller of the jumps is 6 feet from ground to take-off, the larger 15 feet. The angle of liftoff or exit off the large jump is precisely 72 degrees, which with a 50 mph in-run will catapult skiers about 60 feet in the air. Coaches from the entered countries will meet to cut the final angles on the lip for takeoff.
Once the location of the jumps was established, forms, similar to those used in the forming of a foundation for a home, were erected. A large blower then blew snow and water into the forms where crewmembers waited to stomp it down like brewers stomping grapes into wine.
Between liftoff, soaring up, a moment of stall at the apex and the fall, athletes are able to do more maneuvers in a shorter time than with any other acrobatic sport. All of which has helped to make the freestyle aerials one of the more popular spectator events in skiing.
The schedule calls for qualifying Wednesday and Thursday, mogul finals on Friday, side-by-side moguls on Saturday morning and freestyle aerials Saturday evening. Tickets for all the events are available at Deer Valley.
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