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Tina Basich drops in over an icy blue cornice and grabs her board for two seconds, pull ing
a mute grab before letting go, stretching out her legs and dropping another twelve feet down the mountain for a perfect landing. It's her final day of competition on a run called School Bus, named for its "educating terrain." Snowboarders from all over the u.S. are here in Valdez, Alaska, competing in the final run of the King and Queen of t·he Hill competition, a three-day event that's purposely gnarly and incred ibly intimidating on mountains that rocket 5,000 feet out of the sea and are accessible only by helicopter. To be in the top ten of this com petition is a feat of courage and athleticism, but that's not a problem for Basich . She's been riding in the limelight of the snowboarding scene since she dropped into her first halfpipe competition in 1987 in Breckenridge, Colorado. Then she was one of three girls compet ing. Now she's o"ne of the eighteen extreme women in the finals. Red braids flying out her sky-blue helmet like Pippi Longstocking, she straight-lines the mid
dle of the "Bus," cuts back right and drops a cl iff she must have scouted from the helicopter on the ride up. From down below where the judges and the rest of us are looking up through binoculars, all you can see is a plume of snow in the air from her takeoff. Her landing isn't clear until a minute later when the snow settles, big "S"s appear in her wake and she pops into view.
