Flips and tricks: Student skiers take on Bristol snow

Bristol was hit with its first snow of 2023 on Wednesday (8th March), and of course, at the sight of a mere inch of snow, Bristol’s skiers came crawling out of the woodwork to show off what daddy’s money taught them.

Only Bristol students would casually have a full set of ski equipment just lying around in their student housing. 

Bristol Uni ski trip is the biggest single university ski trip in the world, but who needs that? Bristol’s finest athletes put on their very own Winter Olympic Games in true Churchill and Hiatt Baker fashion. Most people were skiving off class to build snowmen or take a romantic snowy stroll on The Downs, but not these athletes. 

Skiers flocked to Brandon Hill, where they were seen using the landscape to their advantage, even going as far to construct their own jump ramps, and attempting tricks and flips off it – shockingly, somewhat successfully! Though, you have to feel bad for the poor sod who was lumped with constructing the ski track. 

Even more impressively, a gaggle of skiers was also spotted on Clifton Down with a dream and a vision of water skiing meeting traditional skiing. They had appeared to attach ropes to a car and, with a death grip, managed to use the car to speed across The Downs to perform daring stunts and tricks. Clifton Down’s very own freestyle skiing display, and someone even managed to successfully land a flip.

Second year student Henry Hurst can be seen in the video above performing the front flip on The Downs. The business student, who is currently running to be the University of Bristol Snowsports (USBC) freestyle captain told The Bristol Tab: “To be honest, I just messaged the UBSC chat saying that I have a plan and it included a car and a rope and some skis and everyone was on it.”

“I’ll use [any] excuse to get on a pair of skis and rip the shit out of it for practice for the UBSC main trip,” he added.

Any practice is good practice, I suppose.

The Bristol Tab reached out to a former junior international ski racer  for some expert analysis. She told us: “Best conditions Bristol has to offer although the choice of terrain has me fearing for the condition of their equipment.” 

This just goes to show that the only time people won’t complain about anything less than 6 inches is when it comes to snow apparently.

Related stories recommended by this writer:

• The Bristol Tab’s Clubber of the Week

• Bristol University students are fourth most targeted by top employers

•Iconic Love Island villa spots but make it places around Bristol