Dive into the Most Exciting Ski Adventure Event Ever Held

Enemy Lines was a sick and steep mass start adventure race held once in British Columbia

Monster Energy: Enemy Lines 2014 / Monster Energy

One of the craziest ski events ever, happened at Fernie Alpine Resort, located on the famed Powder Highway of British Columbia. The event was called “Enemy Lines” and was the brain-child of ski and snowmobile legend, Dan Treadway and Monster Energy marketing executive, Nelson Philips, who together were responsible for cooking up many of the wildest snow events Monster ever produced in North America.

Enemy Lines, was absolutely off the charts, as think of it this way, the upper portion is crazy steep, rugged terrain, mix of chutes and rocky spines at ridge top. Then plop down a group of pro skiers on the narrow mountain ridge line known as the Headwall, and have them all start at the same time, with the first to reach the valley bottom as the winner.

Big terrain but this is scary big: Fernie Alpine Resort is really big, spanning 5 alpine bowls and 145 named runs. But this event was being run on terrain that is closed to public and is only accessed by Fernie Ski Patrol as a snow control route, that runs on a narrow ridgeline that is the top of a massive headwall of steep rock that has scoured snow filled chutes dotting the face.

Snow-wonder this event even happened here: Fernie Alpine Resort gets up to 37 feet of snow a year. That made this event even more challenging to host as the start was on a high ridge line that potentially would most often be shrouded in clouds or visibility on this tree-less terrain would be not possible during a snowstorm cycle.

Takes a crazy visionary group to do this kind of stuff: This gnarly event, that Dan Treadway and Nelson Phillips, cooked up, really challenged the athletes against super crazy steep terrain. Mixing in the speed of alpine ski racing with big mountain lines of a freeride competition.

Why the event has not been held again: Throw in a variety of visibility, deep snow conditions and the distance from mountain top to base and you have everything that the mountain environment can throw at you along the way. The speed the athletes hit on the steep headwall made little room for error and any fall could have been catastrophic.