Issue link: https://bluemagazine.uberflip.com/i/25059
/\/\ /\/\/\/\/\/\/\1\ /\/\/\/\/\/\ /\/\/\/\/\1\1\/\ PHOTO: TONY DEMIN PHOTO: SCOTT MARKEWITZ b ���V�������s��b:r�16�el� O�. teel Older bumpers claim that skiing the rut line IS not rea ing or turning. They understand that the judges like it more because if you have to stay in the rut line, then they have a better criteria with which to work. They under stand it but they don't like it, and one reason they don't like it is because it's damn hard-imagine a bucking bronco charging down an incredibly steep slope with its back whip-cracking, snaking with the rhythm of a tommy gun. Now imagine standing on the bronco's back with nothing to hold on to and nowhere to turn and then leaping on and off that bronco's back with six foot boards strapped to each foot. If you can imagine all of � that, then maybe you have a small idea of what it's like to be a great bumper. Or let's forget about great mogul skiers for a moment and talk about a good one: Lauren Rainen, 17, who looks like a younger, prettier Joan Osborne but without the nose ring or the God complex. I met her at Nelson Carmichael's Freestyle International at Mt Hood where they have been coaching the hopeful since 1983. In the world of skiing that is a millennium. Oregon desert and is one among a chain of volcanoes that dominates the land scape from Washington down through California. The summit is a dragon's mouth of crooked rock spire and delicate Nor Mt Hood, on the other hand, has been a mountain for as long as th America has been a continent. It rises 11,235 feet above the flat of the ski snow veins dropping down onto an enormous white field known as the Palmer Glacier -one of the only places in the continental United States where year-round skiing occurs. If you're a skier in July, this is the holy land. Something like 1,500 people gather here each day for everything from giant slalom racing camps to snowboard halfpipe classes to freestyle training. Because of this, the glacier is split into roughly 10 lanes marked by red AAAAAAAA \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ \AAAAAAA