This Is What a $15,000 Ski Run Looks Like

Last winter, a cadre of top skiers dropped into the powder-laden Val Thorens Freeride World Tour venue, Justine Dufour-Lapointe among them. The deep snow was, presumably, welcome as it’s rare that conditions look this good for a freeride competition. But it also caught several skiers who got lost in the powder and tumbled over.

Not Dufour-Lapointe. Her freeride skiing clinic included a handful of cliff drops and a stomped backflip. The FWT judges saw the vision, awarding her the second-highest women’s score of the day. The former Olympic gold medalist and mogul skier went on to take the overall 2025 FWT title, expanding her repertoire beyond the bumps to the big mountains.

Craig Murray Line of the Winter Winning Run

Upcoming freeride skier and Kiwi Craig Murray knows a thing or two about fast, fluid skiing. At the inaugural Natural Selection Tour ski competition last winter, he took first after a series of blistering, high-consequence runs.

Those skills, as you might expect, translate to skiing outside the start gate. In his Alaskan Line of the Winter submission, Murray pushes the odometer, careening down a towering face. It isn’t hard to see why the judges named him the overall winner. A few well-placed powder slashes at the end of Murray’s run are the cherry on top.

How Did GoPro Judge the Line of the Winter Competition?

This winter, GoPro handpicked a group of ski industry insiders to rank the POV footage. They included storied filmmaker Scott Gaffney, Out of Collective founder Adam Jaber, and freeskiing royalty Ingrid Backstrom alongside professional snowboarders Sage Kotsenburg and Elena Hight. It would be tough to find a group with more collective winter sports acumen.

According to GoPro, the judges scored skiers based on “athletic performance, video-capture quality, and overall WOW factor.”