Oakley White-Allen is on fire this year. He took second at the Freeride/Freeskiing World Tour Event at Revelstoke in January with the above run. He then got invited to Europe to compete in Chamonix where he took 3rd. (See video below.) He is currently sitting in 2nd place on the Freeride World Tour behind only New Zealands Sam Smoothy. Check out his recent interview with ESPN. However, Oakley is not even allowed to ski at his home mountain of Snowbird….
Oakley was relieved of his season pass in late December for skiing too fast on Chips Run at a time when the mountain had only a few groomers open. I understand this move by the folks on the Snowbird ski patrol. If they felt that he needed to pay a price for skiing to fast in a crowded area then taking his pass for a while is a reasonable thing to do. However, it seems strange to me to keep the pass for a really long period of time. To my knowledge Oakley is still without a season pass 6+ weeks after the incident. Again, I will defer to the patrol’s judgement and say that I am sure they are doing what they think is best.
The thing that has me up in arms is the fact that Snowbird is promoting Oakley as a local hero on their Facebook Page today, while he is currently banned from riding lifts at the resort. Â Â He is a professional athlete having the best season of his life and Snowbird wants to get some press from his accomplishments. That again is understandable, but at least let the guy have his pass back. Has he not waited long enough? What do you think?
Update: I did see OW-A on the hill today and apparently his pass was returned to him 2 days ago. I guess my post is about 48 hours late. I am glad that Oak is back on the hill and he is getting the respect he deserves.