First day BACK ON SKIS Throwing TRIPLES on the Airbag!!
Lucas Daines
Profile and significance
Lucas Daines is a Canadian freeride and all-mountain skier who has built early visibility through the Freeride World Tour junior pathway and a steady stream of long-form ski vlogs. Based around the Portes du Soleil region of the French–Swiss border, he documents the process of turning everyday laps, storm days, and first competitions into a developing freeride toolkit. Rather than arriving as a finished product with marquee podiums, Daines represents the emerging tier of athletes whose progress is public and instructive: route-finding in variable snow, measured risk on exposed features, and an ability to switch between resort laps, sidecountry bootpacks, and occasional park sessions. For viewers and progressing skiers, his relevance is twofold—he competes enough to benchmark against a field, and he publishes enough to show how that benchmark is built over a season.
The arc is authentic and current. Appearances on the junior/qualifier side of the Freeride World Tour ladder confirm a competitive track, while edits from the Alps show terrain reading that goes beyond soft-focus powder turns. You see line choice, sluff awareness, and speed management where mistakes have consequences. That mix places Daines among the new wave of rider-creators who are as comfortable planning a comp run as they are filming a bootpack to a wind-scoured ridge.
Competitive arc and key venues
Daines’ competitive steps run through FWT junior and regional qualifier events, the standard entry gates for freeride skiers coming out of Europe’s resort systems. His day-to-day terrain and many of his videos point to Portes du Soleil—an interconnected domain spanning a dozen resorts with long fall-line bowls, north-facing trees, and lift-served couloirs ideal for learning freeride line craft. When the snow stacks or the calendar allows, he ranges to Swiss Valais for bigger scales, including the freeride mecca of Verbier, where inspection habits and line commitment matter more than pure speed. Spring and summer clips occasionally show glacier mileage at Les 2 Alpes, which provides jump repetition, edge-hold practice on firm snow, and a place to reset technique between winters.
What stands out competitively is not a single headline but the cadence: local starts to build confidence, deliberate venue choices to expand terrain vocabulary, and repeated laps on features that force better decisions in variable conditions. That is the credible way emerging freeriders scale their ceiling.
How they ski: what to watch for
Daines skis with a practical freeride stance—hips stacked, quiet upper body, and feet active enough to change platform angles rapidly when the surface changes. Watch how he treats the first turns off a rollover: he tempers speed to test slab stability and then opens up if the snow confirms. On features, he favors clarity over chaos—clean takeoffs, directional airs, and landings that prioritize staying on feet to link into the next panel of the face. When he drops into park for cross-training, the same priorities apply: stable approaches, held grabs on straightforward rotations, and exits that preserve speed rather than burn it.
Line construction is conservative-progressive. He’ll sketch a line at medium pace first, mark hazards, and then return for a higher-commitment version when light, sluff, and legs align. For developing riders, this is exactly the right sequencing: information pass, then execution pass.
Resilience, filming, and influence
Publishing the learning curve is a form of resilience. Daines’ season vlogs—storm hunting, missed landings, recovered runs, and the occasional scare—invite viewers into the iterative reality of freeride. That openness has value: it shows how athletes manage nerves on start, reset after a bobble, and respect conditions when they are trending wrong. In the modern ecosystem, where a rider’s profile is part competition and part narrative, his consistency in filming and releasing edits keeps him relevant even between start lists. It also helps younger skiers see that growth rarely follows a straight podium line; it follows reps, reflection, and smart next attempts.
Geography that built the toolkit
Portes du Soleil is an ideal classroom for a skier like Daines. The domain’s breadth—across French and Swiss sectors—delivers everything from storm-day tree laps to chalky alpine bowls and traverses that demand route-finding. Linking days there with trips to Verbier accelerates learning: the scale jumps, exposure increases, and snow management (sluff, wind, sun) becomes the run’s core variable. Glacier mileage at Les 2 Alpes fills in the technique work—edge angles, hop turns on firm panels, and the kind of jump repetition that keeps air awareness sharp.
Equipment and partners: practical takeaways
Daines’ on-hill behavior implies a freeride-first setup: a directional or twin-ish freeride ski with enough waist width for soft snow but torsional bite for refrozen mornings; a binding set that tolerates cross-loaded landings; and a tune that favors dependable edge hold over race-room sharpness. For viewers translating this to their own kit, the lessons are straightforward. Match ski width to your average conditions, mount positions to your terrain mix (a touch back for charging faces, closer to center if you prioritize switch and spins), and keep a consistent tune so speed reads don’t change between training and comp days.
Why fans and progressing skiers care
Lucas Daines is worth watching because he represents the pathway most skiers actually follow into freeride: learn your home terrain deeply, test yourself in measured competitions, and document the process so you can study and improve. For fans, his edits make big mountains legible—where to regulate speed, how to set a takeoff, and when to say no. For progressing athletes, he offers a working template: pick venues that scale your skills, keep your grab and landing standards honest even when the snow is perfect, and build a season that balances comps with days that simply feed your instincts and awareness. He is not yet a household name—but the way he is building his skiing suggests a durable trajectory in modern freeride.
Le Bag Leysin
Overview and significance
Le Bag Leysin is a year-round big-air training hub in the Vaud Alps, built around two dry-slope ramps—approximately 22 m and 16 m—and a 55 m × 25 m landing airbag. It sits in the resort of Leysin, a place with deep freestyle roots and a long-running snowpark culture. For freeskiers, Le Bag solves a practical problem: safe, repeatable airtime for trick development when snow is scarce or when you need hundreds of controlled repetitions before taking a new axis or grab to snow. The facility’s scale, coaching-friendly layout, and proximity to the resort’s on-snow LeysinPark create a full progression ladder—from air awareness on the bag to dialed lines in the park—inside one compact destination.
The freestyle pedigree around Leysin adds weight. The resort hosted freeski and snowboard halfpipe and slopestyle at the Lausanne 2020 Winter Youth Olympic Games, with competition venues branded as Leysin Park & Pipe, underscoring the local expertise in shaping and event-grade operations. In short, Le Bag is not an isolated novelty; it sits inside a village that understands modern slopestyle and the training rhythm required to progress safely.
Terrain, snow, and seasons
Le Bag is purpose-built for consistency rather than natural terrain. The two ramp lines feed a vast airbag, allowing athletes to step from basic spins into complex inversions with controlled speed and measured takeoffs. Because the in-runs are synthetic, the surface stays rideable through warm spells and shoulder seasons, extending training beyond the winter calendar. That makes Leysin an all-season option: airbag sessions when the valley is green, then on-snow laps in the park as soon as winter arrives.
When you switch to snow, Leysin’s park scene picks up the baton. The official LeysinPark sits on the Chaux-de-Mont slope below Berneuse and is laid out for “fun & progression” with separate beginner, intermediate and expert zones. In strong winters the area also rolls out a halfpipe and a creative mix of rails, hips and step-downs, so you can port tricks from the bag into real lanes with predictable speed and sightlines. The combination—dry-slope airtime and a legitimate on-snow park—turns Leysin into a practical laboratory for building a segment or tightening a contest run.
Park infrastructure and events
On the airbag side, Le Bag’s headline features are the ramp pair and the oversize landing surface designed to absorb mistakes while preserving air awareness. The site is set up for supervised training blocks, making it useful for clubs, national teams and motivated independents who want coaching and filming angles without the risk profile of hard snow landings. Public access is typically by reservation and aimed at experienced freestyle skiers and riders who arrive in good physical condition, reflecting the facility’s performance focus.
On snow, the village’s event history matters. The Youth Olympic Games brought international fields to Leysin Park & Pipe for halfpipe, slopestyle and big air, raising expectations around grooming precision and approach speed across the resort. That legacy still informs shaping standards and gives visiting crews confidence that jump speed and park flow will be managed with intention in peak weeks.
Access, logistics, and on-mountain flow
Le Bag is located in the village zone of Leysin (Centre des Sports, Place des Feuilles area), with easy approaches from hotels and the main road. Travelers usually route by rail via Aigle and then up to Leysin, or by car from the Rhône Valley; once in town, the bag and the park are a short transfer apart, which keeps your day efficient. A productive rhythm is simple: start with a warm-up on the small ramp to calibrate speed and snap, then move to the big ramp for volume on a focused trick list. When winter operations are live, slot afternoon runs in LeysinPark to translate bag tricks onto snow while light improves.
Because the airbag is reservation-driven, plan sessions ahead and confirm operating windows. Leysin’s tourist and resort pages maintain up-to-date information for park status and general mountain ops, so you can decide when to switch from plastic to snow for filming and when to hold another block on the bag for confidence.
Local culture, safety, and etiquette
Le Bag’s rules are designed around progression and risk management. Helmets are standard, coaching is strongly recommended, and athletes are expected to have prior freestyle experience before stepping onto the ramps. Call your drop clearly so filmers and spotters can set, and keep the run-out clear after landings to avoid collisions on the next hit. For club days, run a quick edge and base check before your first jump—sharp edges can feel different on synthetic surfaces, and predictable board or ski behavior helps focus on body position rather than equipment surprises.
On snow, treat LeysinPark like any serious slopestyle venue. Respect rebuild closures, match your speed to the designated line, and move off landings quickly. If you step off-piste between park laps, bring appropriate backcountry awareness; Leysin’s freeride options are real mountains, not controlled bag landings. As always, progression beats pushing: if a trick feels sketchy on plastic, it has no place on hard snow until timing is nailed.
Best time to go and how to plan
The practical answer is “whenever you need reps.” Le Bag’s dry-slope surface enables spring, summer and autumn training blocks when most European resorts are closed. In winter, pair morning bag sessions with afternoon park laps for efficient translation to snow. Early season is ideal for rebuilding air awareness and refreshing axes; deep winter gives you the most consistent on-snow speed; spring offers forgiving landings in the park with longer light for filming. Book the bag in advance, build a short, specific trick list for each block, and schedule quick video review between hits to turn volume into progress.
Logistically, basing in Leysin lets you walk or make a short drive between the bag and the lifts. If you’re traveling by air, fly to Geneva, connect by train to Aigle, then up to Leysin for a car-free week of training. Keep an eye on the LeysinPark status and resort communications so you can time the shift from plastic to snow when jump tables and rail lines are at their best.
Why freeskiers care
Le Bag Leysin turns the hardest part of slopestyle progression—safe, repeatable airtime—into a solvable, year-round routine, and it does so within a village that already runs one of Switzerland’s most respected parks. You can workshop a new cork or grab on the 16 m line, scale to the 22 m takeoff when timing is automatic, and then port the trick to LeysinPark for real-snow execution. Add the Youth Olympic Games heritage, straightforward access, and a coaching-friendly layout, and you have a focused destination where a week of disciplined sessions can unlock real tricks without burning lift time.
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