All I can say is that this thread is pretty fun to read. Wasn't it like 5 years ago that a lot of pros were kind of boycotting big air comps for this same reason. I remember Tanner Hall in particular was speaking out against them. It just seemed like they just kept building the same style of step down bigger and bigger for every new comp. It may have been a few years before that, but that's when slopestyle as an event became more popular with the pros.
Personally I'd like to see it big, tweeked and slow. I'm kind of old so most of the time I have to run it again on slowmo to figure out what the trick was anyways. I like double corks though cause you can really see that second cork. I like that better than anything over a 1080 because I lose count.
A buddy of mine was at the Salt Lake Oympics and caught the Aerials at Deer Valley. To get to the top of the aerial hill the competitors had to ski a blue run. He said that competitors were eating shit left and right. Since the beginning of freestyle aerials that has pretty much been the case. Frankie Bear landed the first triple twisting quad back in "A bit of madness". When he was competing in freestyle aerials, he was one of the best and he had about a 50/50 shot of making it to the jump. There are some aerial guys that are good skiers, but the majority are converted gymnasts or divers. Freestyle aerials, for me, has about as much to do with skiing as knitting.
Just like now there are some guys that can only ski park. Take them out into the pow and they look like gapers. If it ever gets to the point where you have guys that couldn't buy a turn doing triple or quad corks, then we can just call the sport off-axis aerials. I am kind of surprised actually that aerials haven't gone off axis.
I'm not really worried about the first triple cork, and this will never be anything like freestyle aerials. I'm more concerned that guys still learn how to ski outside the parks. If you've got a buddy who never leaves the park, drag his butt out to the back country for a day and show him what he's missing. East Coasters, make him hike Tuckermans or go off trail at Mad River. Build a back country booter; if you can't ski, you can't land.
Done.
