The Bryce Astle Story

“If you could take all the great qualities a person can possess and put those qualities into one person you would have Bryce”. Bryce was selfless, humble, focused, compassionate, and larger than life. He was the top junior technical skier in North America, but if you talked with him you would never know it. He sure wouldn’t tell you. When he won the US National Junior GS title I said to him “Bryce you’re the best Junior GS skier in the nation” he said “no dad, I just happened to be the fastest kid on that track today”. That was typical Bryce, in his mind he was only racing against himself, and the only thing that mattered was if he was happy with his run or not.

Bryce was in love with skiing, that’s what he did, he, his brothers and their buddies did it every second they could. Bryce wanted to be the best skier in the world and for him the goal was clear. He felt it just took focus and was actually pretty simple. If you want to do better, ski better.

Look at it this way, who is going to be a better skier? The kid that goes to an expensive program, trains till noon then goes in and works on their skis or snowboard. Maybe works out a little and plays some video games? Or the kid that grows up skiing or boarding every day up Little Cottonwood Canyon, then goes to Snowbird Sports Education Foundation trains till noon and then goes out and skis 38 degree slopes in variable conditions until closing?

Bryce skied around 700 days prior to going through his first race gate at the age of 12. Bryce skied anything and everything, (big mountain, slope style, park, racing, etc.) racing to him was just a part of skiing. Mileage, time on skis is what made him great and standing around waiting for your turn to run a training course was not his favorite. He wanted to train, get in his laps and then go rip the mountain. The US Ski Team needs great skiers like Bryce, not just kids that are good going through gates

By: Jamie Astle