PEP FUJAS RECORDS “BEST SEGMENT EVER”
When the movie Session 1242 hit skier households in 2003, people went ape shit. “Did you see this!?” “Did you see that?!” “DID YOU WATCH PEP’S PART?!” In a movie filled with the best skiing by the best in the game, there was one person who stood out above the rest: Pep Fujas. It was a segment that, even today, Tanner Hall says is “probably still the best segment ever made in skiing.” There were big switch landings off jumps in the backcountry, rail slaughterage, competition slaughterage, and one trick that will never be forgotten: the 180 off a cliff into waist deep powder. “I think that was a turning point in the ski industry,” says Phil Belanger. Johnny DeCesare, who filmed the feat, had this to add: “That was the shining moment in my career up to that point. I didn’t even think it was possible to do something that big, that clean, and with that much style. I remember saying to myself: ‘That just changed everything.’”
But it wasn’t just that one trick that caught people’s attention. Tanner — whose part in the film also ranks as one of skiing’s best, with a cork 3 that Johnny D calls “the best style at that time in skiing’s history” — adds: “That’s the first time I saw really big switch landings in the backcountry and spinning both ways. It kind of put skiing on the map. Thanks, Pep, for making skiing cool.” After Pep and everyone else’s segment in the movie, the “cool” factor of skiing was brought up a notch, and everyone knew they had to step up their game.
OTHER EVENTS
• Poor Boyz Productions uses cable cam at Mt. Hood to shoot footage for Ready, Fire, Aim.
• Tom Dolezel hits US Open night big air in a thong.
