Growing up in the suburbs of New Orleans, La., I had a leg up on my fellow Southerners, at least. Both of my parents skied in Washington State where I was born, with my dad proposing to my mom by surprising her with an engagement ring in her ski goggles on Christmas 1994.

I took snowboarding lessons as a teenager on family trips to Alpental ski resort near Seattle and Park City, Utah. That was sufficient enough to proclaim my love of the sport because, even as my gear gathered dust in the attic, many of my peers hadn’t even stepped foot in fresh snow before.

Then, at the age of 26, I found a sublet in the Mile High City after accepting a reporting job at The Denver Post, with ski season already on the brain. Before I said goodbye to Washington, D.C., friends on the East Coast raved about the ski resorts dotted throughout the Centennial State, and my mom shipped decade-old equipment up to my new home.

But as I befriended Denverites who had largely relocated from the Midwest, a horrifying realization dawned on me: Compared to them, I didn’t know the first thing about snowboarding. For instance, my Minnesotan boyfriend started skiing in his middle school’s ski club, and can land tricks like aerial 360s. My friends would weigh the advantages and disadvantages of the Ikon and Epic Passes – both costing extraordinary amounts in the eyes of an amateur snowboarder.

With the help of peer pressure, I committed to my first ski pass last winter, an Ikon, vowing to make the $1,000 price tag worth every penny. In my inaugural season, I woke up at 5 a.m. to beat the inevitable Interstate 70 traffic, and spent a total of 14 days on the slopes, graduating from green runs to a double-black diamond.

And I only managed to give myself one minor concussion.

Last winter, I frequented five ski resorts, and can humbly offer my opinion on the best and worst destinations in Colorado for snowboarders who are still learning.

5. Winter Park Resort

In a controversial pick, Winter Park Resort takes the bottom spot on the list as my least favorite ski resort. My reasoning is simple: Winter Park isn’t built for snowboarders.

First opened in 1940 before the advent of snowboarding, skiers have enjoyed Winter Park for decades. But I had the opposite experience during my two visits because of the sheer amount of cat tracks, also known as catwalks. They’re flat trails “that traverse across the fall line (downward slope) of a mountain,” according to snowboarding brand Burton.

In order for a snowboarder to successfully conquer a cat track, she needs to build up speed in advance, which can be tough for a hesitant first-timer. If not, then she’s eventually left sliding to a stop.

And this isn’t solely an inconvenience suffered by snowboarders, but also by their skiing friends, who will inevitably have to extend their poles and execute minor rescues.

I recognize the cult following behind Winter Park, particularly because it’s only a 60-mile drive from Denver. But its proximity to the city means the resort is often crowded, making parking difficult.

Still, on New Year’s Eve, I’ll happily give it another chance as the resort is where I ring in 2024.

4. Arapahoe Basin Ski Area

Arapahoe Basin, or A-Basin, is held dearly beloved by Denverites because it’s another one of the closest options.

It’s also home to the only “beach” at a ski resort, the reserved front-row parking area where skiers and snowboarders can party all day with easy access to nearby lifts. A-Basin’s warm welcome to revelatory patrons – accompanied by designated drivers – and their leashed dogs is part of its mass appeal.

It boasts one of the state’s longest ski seasons, typically opening in October and closing in June, and offers more affordable season passes and day lift tickets than other giants in the ski industry.

I snowboarded A-Basin twice last season, including one solo day. Its Montezuma Bowl is a great spot to practice snowboarding in the trees, albeit a little steep at the top. Practicing on blue and black runs, I unlocked my fastest speed: 40 miles per hour.

But in my eyes, the ski area earns the No. 4 spot because its amenities are lackluster compared to competitors like Vail Resorts. And for a first-timer, the drive along the U.S. Highway 6 over Loveland Pass to reach the high-elevation ski area left me clammy and slightly terrified, especially as a snowstorm rolled in.

3. Vail Ski Resort

Vail Ski Resort, about 100 miles from Denver, sits in the middle of the pack. Its world-renowned reputation precedes it as an extravagant locale that Coloradans either hate to love or love to hate, but I give credit where it’s due: It’s an impressive resort, with well-groomed blue runs that I flew down (and, then, trekked back up because my lift ticket blew off of my ski jacket).

Although I got stuck a few times on flatter trails, the fresh powder on its back bowls made Vail an easy place to practice carving and making small jumps, with jaw-dropping mountain views. Since it’s the largest ski resort in the state, I only explored a portion of its 5,000 acres.

The lift tickets were a surprise gift from a friend, so, without them, I wouldn’t have gone since Vail isn’t included on the Ikon Pass, and a one-day ticket can jump as high as $300 at peak window price. Parking is also scant, with drivers sometimes leaving their cars across the interstate and walking great lengths to reach the slopes.

2. Steamboat Ski Resort

Steamboat Ski Resort takes silver in my rankings because, even though I visited during closing weekend, April 15-16, the widely-lauded quality of its snow still managed to impress.

Of course, slush and ice pooled at the bottom by the lifts, but, as I climbed higher and higher into the sky, the remaining snow made for excellent end-of-season snowboarding.

Steamboat is also where I attempted my first double-black diamond slope, bumbling through the trees before making it back onto the run. Although I mangled it, I carved through to the end, and that’s what matters, right?

The town of Steamboat, which offers easy access to the resort by bus or even on foot, serves as the picture of a classic ski destination nestled in the mountains, with popular hot springs like Strawberry Park Natural Hot Springs ready to relax those aching muscles.

Although it’s a bucket-list snowboarding spot, it still falls short of No. 1 because of its distance from Denver at over 150 miles, which means three to four hours of driving one way.

1. Copper Mountain Resort

Easily navigable and luxurious, Copper Mountain Resort ranks as my top-tier Colorado ski resort. Just check my kitchen cabinet – at least three aluminum cups from various watering holes at Copper have been kept as souvenirs.

This is where it all began for me last December. In the season’s earliest days, I slid down the green runs, then transitioned to blue runs. I took advantage of the often-uncrowded slopes to make plenty of mistakes, falling hard when I tried to carve or even gracefully exit the ski lift (every snowboarder’s nightmare).

Still, I felt comfortable riding solo at Copper, and racked up seven days there, finally moving onto black diamond runs and moguls, or fields of bumpy terrain.

The main lifts – American Flyer and American Eagle – stay very busy at peak times, so arriving early is worth the sacrificed sleep.

Depending on the traffic, the 90-mile drive to Copper from Denver only takes an hour and a half on a good day, so it’s more accessible for city slickers. It counts as my go-to spot to bring friends and family members from out of town.

The free shuttle buses from the parking lots circulate reliably, with an easy system to ferry visitors to their preferred runs, with green, blue, black and purple express routes. And after hours of shredding, I can easily find a snack – and, more importantly, a strong cocktail – at one of several bars and restaurants eager for exhausted snowboarders to stay a while.

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And she has done so in style.

The American two-time Olympic champion dominated a slalom Sunday, pleasing the home crowd by posting the fastest time in both runs on the Superstar course and beating her Slovakian rival Petra Vlhova by 0.33 seconds.

“It’s amazing to do this, especially here, with the home crowd,” said Shiffrin, who is from Colorado but can almost consider Killington a hometown race because she honed her skills nearby at the Burke Mountain Academy as a teenager.

“It’s just such a good vibe and there’s a little extra intensity because we want this to be good for you guys to watch. I hope it was a good show,” she addressed the spectators in a course-side interview.

Shiffrin was put to the test by a frenetic second run from Vlhova, the Olympic champion who led the race by more than a second with only the American left in the start gate.

Shiffrin lost half of her first-run lead of 0.28 seconds at the first split, but she gradually gained time on Vlhova again.

After crossing the finish, Shiffrin briefly bent forward before getting up and showing the crowd a few fist pumps.

“It feels really good. It’s amazing to race in front of this crowd no matter what. Being in a position to win is something different, that’s really spectacular,” she said.

Shiffrin collected her 90 wins from 254 starts on the World Cup since her 2011 debut on the circuit two days before her 16th birthday.

She won her first race at a slalom in Sweden in December 2012 and set the record for most World Cup wins across genders when passing Swedish great Ingemar Stenmark’s mark of 86 in a race at the same resort in Sweden last March.

Sunday’s result marked her 55th win in slalom; no other skier, male or female, has ever won more than 46 races in a single discipline.

Vlhova had won the first slalom of the season in Finland two weeks ago and held a clear lead over Shiffrin in the second race the next day, but then she straddled a gate and handed victory to the American.

On Sunday, however, Vlhova made Shiffrin work hard for the win.

“I’m satisfied with my second run,” Vlhova said. “But first run, I didn’t go well. I lost in the first run, but the second run was a good show. Mikaela, she was stronger than me.”

Shiffrin has won six of the seven slaloms at the annual World Cup weekend on the East Coast, with her streak interrupted last year, when she led after the first run but finished fifth as Wendy Holdener and Anna Swenn Larsson shared the victory.

Before her second run Sunday, Shiffrin recalled what happened last year.

“This kind of moments, you can call it a disappointment … those are the things that stick with me more than winning actually does. So, I always feel more doubt in myself than confidence, because of races like here last year. That’s something that really fuels me,” she said.

Holdener finished third this time, trailing Shiffrin by 1.37 seconds. Lena Duerr of Germany dropped from second to fourth.

Earlier, Shiffrin positioned herself for victory with an aggressive first run to lead Duerr by 0.19 seconds.

“I feel like I’m not playing with it as much as I want to, but it’s really good, solid technique, it’s really solid power,” she said after the first run.

“There’s somehow another percentage that I’m trying to push and trying to get back, but I think that was a really, really good first run.”

Shiffrin’s teammate Paula Moltzan finished eighth, over two seconds off the lead, and slalom world champion Laurence St-Germain of Canada placed 14th.

Lara Gut-Behrami, who won the GS on the same course Saturday, does not compete in the slalom discipline. Shiffrin ended that race in third.

The American extended her lead in the overall World Cup standings as she is aiming for a women’s record-equaling sixth overall title this season.

The next women’s World Cup races are two giant slaloms in Tremblant, Quebec, which is a new venue on the circuit.

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SOELDEN, Austria — Lara Gut-Behrami sat in the snow and leaned back against an inflatable banner in the finish area after completing her final run.

The Swiss skier only stood up and pumped her right fist after seeing that first-run leader Federica Brignone narrowly failed to beat her time.

Coming from fourth place, Gut-Behrami edged the Italian by two-hundredths of a second Saturday to win the season-opening women’s World Cup giant slalom, with Mikaela Shiffrin finishing in sixth.

Gut-Behrami trailed Brignone by 0.73 after the opening leg but made up three-quarters of a second with a gutsy second run.

“I needed time to recover, I was just tired,” Gut-Behrami said. “I was happy with my race.”

The 2016 overall champion previously won the traditional season opener on an Austrian glacier in 2013 and 2016.

“I’m happy as it’s my third win after 10 years,” Gut-Behrami said. “It’s nice, it’s an amazing slope, I really like to ski in Soelden. It was a tough one today.”

Gut-Behrami became the third skier to claim at least one women’s World Cup win in 13 different seasons, after Austria’s Renate Goetschl (14) and American standout Lindsey Vonn (13) accomplished that feat.

Petra Vlhova of Slovakia trailed by 0.14 in third, while the rest of the field finished more than a second off the pace.

Brignone admitted that the two-hundredths “obviously hurt.”

“What makes me most angry is my performance. I didn’t ski as well as I could. But this is sport and you have to accept it. I’m very happy with how I started the season, whereas last year I was struggling a lot,” said the Italian, who had her first of 21 career wins in Soelden eight years ago.

Brignone won the GS season title in 2019-20, when she also lifted the big crystal globe for the best skier overall. In the first run, she was a half-second faster than Olympic champion Sara Hector, who ultimately finished fourth.

Shiffrin had 0.75 to make up in the second leg, after the American had the second-fastest time at the first split before losing several tenths of a second in the second sector.

However, the American lost time with each split in her second run and trailed by 1.40 seconds.

“Some positives from the day and some things to improve, for sure,” Shiffrin said. “Of course, we are going to town going to look at the video and see what I can improve for the next GS race.”

While setting the record of 88 career World Cup wins, Shiffrin won seven giant slaloms last season including the last five.

She missed the chance to become the third skier — and the first in 25 years — to win six straight World Cup giant slaloms. Only Deborah Compagnoni with eight in 1997-98 and Ingemar Stenmark with 14 between 1978 and 1980 had more consecutive GS wins.

Giant slalom is the most competitive discipline on the women’s circuit, with no skier winning the season title in consecutive years since Anna Veith accomplished the feat in 2014-15.

After the first run, Ragnhild Mowinckel became the first skier to be disqualified under a new rule that forbids the use of the potentially harmful fluorinated wax in the pre-race preparation of skis.

Brignone’s Italian teammate Sofia Goggia abruptly quit her first run to avoid a collision with a crew member, who slipped between the gates after each racer but was still moving in the course when Goggia approached.

Goggia got a rerun and the 2018 Olympic downhill champion easily qualified for the second run, and ultimately finished in 16th.

American racer Paula Moltzan was 28th after the opening run but improved 17 spots after posting the second-fastest time in the final run.

The race took place in sunny conditions under a blue sky and was visited by 15,400 spectators, a record for the women’s event here. The men’s GS is scheduled for Sunday.

Due to mild autumn temperatures in recent weeks, organizers had to build the race track on the glacier with snow preserved from last spring and artificial snow from 22 cannons along the slope. Light overnight snowfall also covered the rocky hill beside the race course.

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Keeping up with Mikaela Shiffrin’s offseason endeavors may be just as challenging as catching up to her in a ski race.

She’s constantly full speed ahead.

The all-time winningest World Cup ski racer attended a Taylor Swift concert, visited a camp where a lodge was named after her, picked up an award at the ESPYs, stopped by to see her boyfriend/fellow ski racer Aleksander Aamodt Kilde in Norway and wrote an article for Time on singer Noah Kahan.

On the training front, Shiffrin immersed herself in trail running, adapted to a coaching change and adopted a new attitude — “relaxed and flowy,” she called it — into her racing. The five-time World Cup overall winner has come to realize it’s OK to build throughout a season and that she doesn’t need to be at her elite best when the season kicks off Saturday with a giant slalom race in Soelden, Austria.

“I’m trying to take a little bit more of an approach of giving myself time to build into my best form,” the 28-year-old Shiffrin said Thursday in a Zoom call. “If I feel amazing on Saturday, I’ll take it. I’m not going to complain about that.”

One of the questions hovering around Shiffrin was motivation. More specifically, how does she find another source of inspiration after breaking Ingemar Stenmark’s longtime World Cup wins record last season. Shiffrin’s current total stands at 88 and counting (Stenmark had 86).

Not even close to an issue, Shiffrin maintained. Her motivation will be as strong as ever in pursuing more World Cup overall titles. The women’s record is six by Annemarie Moser-Proell of Austria.

“So that motivation doesn’t change because it just kind of resets every year,” said Shiffrin, who’s from Colorado. “That’s where my head’s at.”

To take her training to another level, Shiffrin incorporated more trail running. It helped her report for training camp in arguably the best shape of her life. But then food poisoning hit her while training in Chile. And then when she got back home she caught a bug she couldn’t shake. It zapped her strength.

“I feel like I’m in a good place now,” Shiffrin said.

She’s working with a new coach, too, in Karin Harjo, who replaces her longtime coach Mike Day. Shiffrin’s mom, Eileen, still works with her as well.

“Karin’s transitioning really quite seamlessly into the team,” Shiffrin said. “I’m really excited to move forward with Karin leading the charge.”

Shiffrin made sure to praise Day, too: “I owe so much of the career that I’ve had to him and the work that he’s done.”

The plan is for Shiffrin to try to add more speed races — super-Gs in particular — this season. But that’s all schedule and health willing, of course.

“There’s not really a lot more racing that I can physically do,” Shiffrin said. “But there’s a little bit more.”

There’s also not a lot more she could’ve crammed into her offseason. She did a little bit of everything.

Shiffrin and her U.S. ski team friends caught a Swift show together. Their bonding time included, “jumping up and down for 3 1/2 hours, shouting ‘Love Story’ and all of that,” Shiffrin said with a laugh.

Shiffrin also spent quite a bit of time with Kilde, too, even scripting a dance together to ABBA’s “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!” while standing on the slopes in ski racing attire. Shiffrin also picked up the best female athlete award at the ESPY awards. That’s not all — she had a lodge named after her at Camp Arrow Wood in Massachusetts. She said her lodge is right next to the one named for basketball Hall of Famer Michael Jordan.

“The offseason was really good,” Shiffrin said. “Mostly a lot of travel and some really, really fun events.”

Now, it’s back to work. Her focus in Saturday’s GS is more about squeezing in some valuable time on a race course than where she might finish.

“This first race, it’s basically just going to be an opportunity to get the best training that we have access to because it’s the only hill that’s actually properly prepared for ski racing right now,” Shiffrin said.

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What’s next?

“What do you think will come next? How many victories?,” Johan Eliasch, president of the International Ski and Snowboard Federation, wanted to know after handing Shiffrin her fifth big crystal globe, the prize for winning the World Cup overall title.

“I don’t have a guess at how many,” Shiffrin replied. “Sometimes a part of me feels like that’s always my last victory. I hope not, I keep heading for more.”

A week after breaking the record of Swedish great Ingemar Stenmark, the American extended the all-time best mark for most career wins to 88 by winning the last race of the season, a giant slalom at the World Cup Finals on Sunday.

Her 21st career win in the discipline marked yet another milestone as it moved Shiffrin past Swiss skier Vreni Schneider, who had 20 World Cup GS victories between the mid-80s and mid-90s. The American has won seven of the last eight events and took the GS world title last month.

The overall record, between men and women, is held by Stenmark, who won 46 giant slaloms in the 1970s and 80s.

The “what’s next?” question also came from her boyfriend and World Cup downhill champion, Aleksander Aamodt Kilde, who conducted a course-side interview after the race.

“I don’t know, you guys tell me. Just keep moving right along,” said Shiffrin, who also secured the slalom and GS titles this season.

After Kilde asked her about plans to improve for next season, Shiffrin quipped: “We can discuss that later, in private.”

Shiffrin also set a personal best of 2,206 World Cup points from 31 starts this season, two points more than her tally from 2018-19, when she competed in 26 races.

Only one skier secured more points in a single season: Slovenian great Tina Maze ended her 2012-13 campaign on 2,414.

Later, Shiffrin posed for photos with men’s overall champion Marco Odermatt, who set the men’s record of 2,042 points. It’s the first World Cup season in which both the women’s and men’s overall champion finished on more than 2,000 points.

Sunday’s result also marked Shiffrin’s record 138th career World Cup podium, moving her one ahead of former teammate Lindsey Vonn’s mark of 137.

But for Shiffrin, her personal favorite record came nine years ago.

“Honestly, I think probably being the youngest Olympic slalom champion. That was really the only record that I actually ever wanted, like really shot for,” said Shiffrin, who was 18 when she won her first Olympic gold at the 2014 Sochi Games.

“It happened quite some time ago, and I’m still motivated today, I still had that nervous feeling up there. I was so nervous at the start … because you want to do well. And it doesn’t matter about records, it’s just you want to do well.”

With the sun beaming down on the Avet course, Shiffrin held on to her a first-run lead to edge Thea Louise Stjernesund by 0.06 seconds. The Norwegian earned her first career podium.

Canadian skier Valerie Grenier was third, trailing Shiffrin by 0.20.

Three of the top seven ranked racers did not finish their first runs, as Petra Vlhova, who won Saturday’s slalom, Federica Brignone and Olympic champion Sara Hector all missed a gate.

Two-time former world champion Tessa Worley placed 11th in what she said would be the last race of her career. The French GS specialist has won 16 races and three season titles, most recently last year.

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The dominant American had already locked up the discipline title at a mid-season slalom in the Czech Republic in January, but trophies in ski racing are traditionally handed over only in the final week of the season.

Her Slovakian rival Petra Vlhova used a frenetic finish on her decisive run Saturday to win the slalom at the World Cup Finals ahead of Croatian prodigy Leona Popovic, while Shiffrin placed third.

“It’s the sum of a lot of hard work and many amazing races and the work of the whole team,” Shiffrin said. “I’m very thankful and very proud.”

Shiffrin, who also secured her fifth overall and second giant slalom globe, won six of the 11 slaloms this season, making her the first woman to win seven season titles in slalom, surpassing Swiss standout Vreni Schneider, who won it six times in the 1980s and ’90s.

Shiffrin will be after her 14th win of the season and 88th in total in Sunday’s giant slalom, the last race of the season, a week after setting the record for most career victories with 87 at a slalom in Sweden.

“Since Are I felt a little bit more free,” Shiffrin said. “And even then, I still feel the nerves and the pressure, like I want to win just as much as before. I still have the same motivation, which is the most exciting thing.”

In a tight finish to Saturday’s race, Vlhova trailed then-leader Popovic by eight-hundredths of a second at the last split but gained time through the gates on the flat final sector and finished 0.43 seconds ahead of the Croatian, who earned her first career podium.

Shiffrin trailed Vlhova by 0.83 for her 17th podium result from 30 starts this season.

Vlhova won the season title in slalom last year and won her second race in the current campaign after triumphing in a night event in Austria in January.

“It’s (emotional) because my season was so up and down,” Vlhova said. “I wanted to come here and show my skiing in the last races and have a good feeling for the next season.”

After the first run, Vlhova led Popovic by 0.32 seconds. Third-place Anna Swenn Larsson of Sweden straddled a gate in her final run.

Shiffrin was 0.59 behind in fourth. The American led the opening run until the final split but lost three-quarters of a second after making a mistake entering the flat finish sector.

Canadian skier Laurence St-Germain, who beat Shiffrin to the world slalom title last month, was 10th after the opening run but became one of six skiers who didn’t finish the second run, which was affected by rain and wet snow as dark clouds moved over the course.

“It was tricky with the snow coming. There’s just like so many weather conditions today,” Shiffrin said. “It was really fun to race, it’s a challenging slope and it’s kind of interesting to finish the season with that. Because for me it gives a lot insight into the things we can work on through the summertime and into the preparation for next season. So, it kind of leaves some motivation.”

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Shiffrin broke a tie with Ingemar Stenmark on the all-time overall winners list between men and women. The Swede competed in the 1970s and 80s.

Shiffrin had matched Stenmark’s mark of 86 wins with victory in a giant slalom Friday.

“Pretty hard to comprehend,” Shiffrin said about the record.

After finishing the final run, the Coloradan crouched and rested her head on her knees. Her brother, Taylor Shiffrin, then came out and hugged her during the winners ceremony.

“My brother and sister-in-law are here and I didn’t know they were coming, that makes this so special,” Shiffrin said.

Saturday’s result marked the American’s sixth slalom win of the season and the record-extending 53rd career win in the discipline.

Shiffrin dominated the first run and posted the fifth-fastest time in the second to beat Swiss skier Wendy Holdener by 0.92 seconds.

Thrird-place home favorite Anna Swenn Larsson was the last racer to finish within a second of Shiffrin’s time.

“The best feeling is to ski on the second run when of course you want to win, you have a lead so you have to sort of be smart but also, I just wanted to be fast, too, and ski the second run like its own race,” Shiffrin said.

“I did exactly that and that is amazing.”

Shiffrin has already locked up her fifth overall championship and the discipline titles in slalom and GS.

“It’s nice to race today. After such an incredible day yesterday, I feel like no pressure,” Shiffrin said after the opening run.

The victory gave Shiffrin the outright record 12 years to the day after her first race on the World Cup, as a 15-year-old at a GS in Spindleruv Mlyn, Czech Republic.

Shiffrin is set to compete in three more races this season at next week’s World Cup Finals.

The race took place at a venue where many key moments in Shiffrin’s career happened. At the Swedish lakeside resort, she earned her first World Cup win in 2012 and took slalom gold at the 2019 world championships to become the first skier to win the world title in one discipline four times in a row.

However, Are was also the place where she sustained a knee injury that kept her away from the slopes for two months in the 2015-16 season, and where she was due to race again in March 2020 after the death of her father the previous month, but those races were called off because of the coronavirus pandemic.

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Shiffrin’s next race is a giant slalom in Are on Friday, as the American skier seeks one victory to match Stenmark ‘s total on the all-time overall winners list – between men and women. The Swede competed in the 1970s and 80s.

Are was also the venue of Shiffrin’s first career win, in December 2012.

Shiffrin rounded off a three-race weekend in Norway Sunday by finishing in seventh position at a super-G affected by changing weather conditions. The American was fourth in a super-G Friday and fifth in a downhill the following day to lock up her fifth World Cup overall title.

On Sunday, Shiffrin was among the early starters when low clouds caused flat light and snowfall slowed most racers before later starters benefited from improved conditions when skies cleared.

Wearing bib 31, Nina Ortlieb led an Austrian sweep of the podium ahead of Stephanie Venier, who started 29th, and Franziska Gritsch, who started 26th.

“It’s slow with the snow on the flat part,” Shiffrin said. “But I also felt very strong down there pushing the limits, so I’m super happy with my run.”

Shiffrin broke a tie on the all-time women’s list with former American teammate Lindsey Vonn in January. Vonn had 82 wins when she retired in 2019.

Shiffrin has been stuck on 85 World Cup wins for four events now, and the American didn’t got a real chance Sunday to end the wait.

“The conditions are changing so much, it’s not one of those days where I can really compare myself to what’s going on with the results,” Shiffrin said.

“But my skiing was good, I was aggressive, so I’m actually really happy with that. In this group of women going around me, to be kind of this fast, that was a really, really good sign.”

Sofia Goggia was the first racer from the top 20-ranked skiers in fourth position, trailing Ortlieb by 0.69 seconds.

The Italian, who locked up the downhill season title Saturday, looked set for victory when sitting in the leader seat after all other pre-race favorites were down.

“I’m happy with my ski performance but the race has changed too much,” Goggia said. “We came down with criminal conditions and now there’s the sun and everything’s really fast.”

Ortlieb acknowledged the conditions gave her an advantage.

“Unbelievable. I knew at the start the conditions were getting better and better,” the Austrian said. “I was lucky. I’m sure that it was not fair for everyone, but I got the opportunity and I think I skied well.”

Right after finishing, Ortlieb looked around in apparent disbelief, then shook her head a few times.

“A little crazy to see the green light in the finish. I was a little bit confused, but it’s amazing,” said Ortlieb, who was only 29th in Friday’s super-G on the same course.

“I got a big improvement from two days ago, when I was skiing without confidence,” the Austrian said after her second career win.

Ortlieb’s win marked only the second victory for the Austrian women’s team this season after Cornelia Huetter triumphed in Friday’s super-G.

It was the first Austrian sweep in a women’s super-G since Alexandra Meissnitzer, Andrea Fischbacher and Michaela Dorfmeister finished on the podium in Lake Louise, Alberta in December 2005.

Ortlieb became the seventh different winner in seven World Cup super-G races this season.

Elena Curtoni tops the discipline standings before the season-ending race in Andorra on March 16, but four skiers are within 44 points of the Italian’s lead. Shiffrin won one super-G this campaign but is out of contention for the season title, trailing Curtoni by 110 points in sixth.

The race was interrupted after Alice Robinson crashed and slid into the safety nets on a tricky passage near the end of her run but the New Zealand racer appeared unhurt.

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Shiffrin is aiming for her 86th career World Cup victory to match the all-time mark set by Swedish great Ingemar Stenmark in the 1970s and 80s.

Shiffrin is expected to have three chances this weekend, starting with a super-G on Friday, followed by a downhill the next day and another super-G on Sunday.

The races in Kvitfjell, the resort that hosted the Alpine skiing events at the 1994 Lillehammer Olympics, mark Shiffrin’s return to World Cup racing after nearly five weeks. She sat out speed races in Switzerland last weekend, which were the first World Cup events after the world championships in France.

Shiffrin won gold in giant slalom and silver in both super-G and slalom at the worlds in February, but those results don’t count towards the World Cup.

While the downhill is her weakest event — with three career wins from 19 starts — Shiffrin did post the fastest time by far in Wednesday’s first training on the Olympiabakken course. She led Norwegian skier Kajsa Vickhoff Lie by more than half a second, while only two more racers finished within a second of the American’s time.

Olympic champion Corinne Suter was 1.20 seconds behind, World Cup downhill leader Sofia Goggia finished 1.50 back, and world champion Jasmine Flury of Switzerland trailed Shiffrin by 2.78.

A second downhill training is scheduled for Thursday.

Apart from the 86-win record, Shiffrin has another target within reach this weekend. She can lock up the season-long World Cup overall title, generally regarded as Alpine skiing’s biggest prize.

Shiffrin holds a lead of 722 points over second-place Petra Vlhova. However, the 2021 overall champion from Slovakia will skip the races in Norway, which puts her out of contention with only six events left after this weekend. A race win is worth 100 points.

That leaves Lara Gut-Behrami as Shiffrin’s only competitor for the crystal globe trophy. The third-ranked Swiss skier, the overall champion in 2016, trails the American by 771 points.

If Shiffrin would increase the gap to 800 points or more on Friday, she would already be confirmed as the overall champion.

It would be Shiffrin’s fifth overall title, after winning it three years in a row from 2017-19, and again last year, and move her into outright second position on the all-time women’s winners list, one short of the mark of six titles set by Austrian great Annemarie Moser-Proell in the 1970s and 80s.

Also, it would move Shiffrin past former teammate Lindsey Vonn for a second time this season. In January, Shiffrin broke Vonn’s women’s record of 82 career World Cup wins.

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Located in the spectacular San Juan Range, the Bridal Veil Backcountry Ski Camp began operations last weekend. The guided trip takes skiers from a backcountry access gate at the Telluride ski area to a camp with heated tents at 12,500 feet in the Upper Bridal Veil Basin. Sleeping bags, down jackets, insulated boots and hot meals await skiers who only need to carry lightweight packs with their incidentals.

A national travel and leisure website described it as “luxe winter camping,” and some might see it as glamping, but co-owner Bill Allen views it as falling in the middle of a spectrum with glamping at one extreme and hard-core mountaineering at the other.

“Some magazines want to target a different audience, so they play up one side of it or the other,” Allen said. “We’re not trying to make it a glamping experience where it’s this super-luxury thing. It’s not like hard-core mountaineering, but we’re trying to steer away from ‘glamping trip.’ I think the target audience is the hut skiers, people who ski the 10th Mountain Huts and that sort of thing.”

Getting there involves about four miles of skiing with 1,200 feet of climbing, Allen said. From the backcountry gate on Telluride’s Gold Hill near the upper terminal of Chair 14 at 12,000 feet, skiers descend into the Bear Creek Basin, climb over a 13,000-foot pass and descend into Upper Bridal Veil Basin.

“The touring to get there from the ski area is not extreme,” Allen said. “It’s pretty reasonable in terms of the distance, the elevation gain and the terrain we go through. On a nice day, it’s super mellow, a nice easy tour. You ski down very low-angle moderate terrain to get to the camp.”

The tours are run by Mountain Trip, a company based in Telluride that guides trips on Denali in Alaska, Mount Everest and the other “Seven Summits” (the highest peak on every continent), as well as backcountry ski trips in Alaska. Mountain Trip partners with Telluride Helitrax, a helicopter ski service which keeps the Bridal Veil Basin camp stocked with food and fuel.

Telluride Helitrax also runs its own trips to the camp.

“They can do fly-in trips, support the camp, set up camp,” Allen said. “It’s their permit to have camp in that location.”

For hard-core mountaineers, there are opportunities to use the camp as a base for skiing steeper terrain. It also can be used to link with backcountry huts in the area, including one near Red Mountain Pass and another on Ophir Pass. The standard exit from the camp takes skiers down the Bridal Veil Basin, past the spectacular Bridal Veil Falls located at the end of the box canyon overlooking Telluride. The falls are currently frozen.

Allen says the experience isn’t intended for folks who have never skied on alpine touring gear, and he warns that sleeping at 12,000 feet can cause problems for people who are not acclimated to the altitude.

“It’s really good for Coloradans, or people who have spent a few days (in Colorado),” Allen said. “But if you’re flying in from Florida, you shouldn’t be spending the next night at 12,000 feet. It’s no joke, sleeping at 12,000 feet.”

The first trip happened last weekend, and plans are to conduct trips through the end of April. Prices depend on the size of the group. Three-day, two-night trips range from $2,748 for one person to $1,050 per person for four people. Avalanche safety equipment is included in the price, and gear rentals are available. A Telluride lift ticket is required and is not included in the price, but Telluride does honor the Epic Pass.

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