Skiers try out Brandon’s handrails

Professional skiers, including U.S. Olympic gold-medal skier Alex Hall, visited Brandon on Wednesday and spent the afternoon grinding a 30-foot handrail in Rideau Park in Brandon.

The American ski group named MAGMA drove up from Salt Lake City, Utah, and parked their tour van in east Brandon this week. They travelled to ski the long staircase behind the Rideau Park Personal Care Home, which will be part of their annual movie coming out in November.

Hall rides a combination of jumps and rails, along with fellow skier and X Games bronze-medal winner Hunter Hess, who makes a living doing flips on half pipes.

When asked why they were in Brandon, Hess told the Sun it was to be in the right place at the right time.

“We just kind of travel year-round to find snow,” said Hess from the bottom of the staircase. “This was one of the only places where there were spots we wanted to hit and snow (at the same time).”

He added that his team uses Google Earth and topographical maps to find areas with hills and interesting features. They then wait for snow to hit the region.

“We’ll go around and look for gaps, wall rides, anything that’s interesting,” said the group’s cameraman, Owen Dahlberg. “We’ve been travelling around to a bunch of different cities.”

The team spent the last week in North Dakota, and plan to now stay a few days in Brandon at an Airbnb before travelling to Winnipeg, or making their way down to Omaha, Neb., should it receive enough snowfall.

“Christmas is a big open time for us in between competitions,” said Hess. “This is a really good time for us because we have two or three weeks off competitions.”

The handrail in Brandon is set to make an appearance on their YouTube channel through small video promos. The final movie will be used to promote themselves for sponsors.

“It helps us with our careers professionally,” Hess explained. He added that the skiers in their mid-20s cannot do extreme skiing forever, and that building a brand for themselves will help them when their professional career is over.

“It’s not an extremely profitable thing,” he said. “It’s more for the love and joy.”

At the end of January, the team is heading out to the X Games 2025 in Aspen, Colo. Hess is hoping to better his last year’s bronze finish, and Hall said he hopes to beat out last year’s silver medallists.

This story was originally published in the Brandon Sun. It is republished under a Creative Commons license as part of the Local Journalism Initiative.