We recently caught up with her and asked her a bunch of questions. Here's what she said.

Hometown: Innsbruck/AUSTRIA

Birthdate: 19th June 1980

Quickname: Mel?

Website: http://meltirol.wordpress.com

Best Results:

• 3rd place 3* FWQ El Dorado Andorra 2011, ANDORRA
• 1st place Nature Ride Brand 2008, AUT
• 1st place Quali Snowfever Fieberbrunn 2008, AUT
• 3rd place Nissan Freeride Montafon 2008, AUT (Freeride World Tour Qualifier)
• 4th place Freeride Challenge Schruns 2008, AUT (FWQ)
• 1st place Weißer Rausch St. Anton 2007, AUT
• 1st place Freeride Challenge St. Anton 2007, AUT
• 13th place Skandinavian Bigmountain Championships, Riksgränsen 2007, SWE

About Me:  I love life, nature & mountains and I’ve been skiing since I can remember. In summer I’m out downhill biking and rock climbing, in winter my great passion is freeriding.
In winter 2009/10, I went with five other European freeride girls on a road trip through the Alps. Our journey has been captured on camera and the first Girls ski movie of the Alps "As we are" came out... It has been a great success and my goal is to inspire especially the girls to take up the freeride sport, to motivate them going out and having fun!!"

Films or Publicity Coverage: AS WE ARE – a girls ski movie

Something you think everyone should try in their lifetime: Skiing ?

Age you learned to Shred: 2 ½ years

Craziest Dream: I believe I can fly …

What excites you: Powder, friends, happy people, sunshine ?

Other (anything else to say?): Enjoy life ?

Here are some more stats on Rob:

• My Sport: Freeskiing

• Hometown: Calgary, Alberta, Canada

• Birthdate: 09/04/1991

• Website: http://www.vimeo.com/user483419

• Best Results/ Media Coverage: 1^st Place- World Ski Invitational- Super Hit (Halfpipe), SBC Skier Magazine- Radar Section, Joystick- Hot Lunch (Ski Film)

• About Me (provide a bio): My name is Rob Heule, I’m 19 years old. I have fun in all aspects of skiing; mountains, to halfpipes, to skiing in the streets, I love it all.

• Films or Publicity Coverage: check out this years Voleurz film

• Something you think everyone should try in their lifetime: Shredding powder

• Age you learned to Shred: My mom and dad would take me to the hill in a backpack before I could walk and take me down on their backs. When I was 2 years old, I got sick of that and strapped on my own skis, and have been shreddin’ ever since!

• Craziest Dream: A city full of snow

• What excites you: People that express themselves through a sport. I am very influenced/excited watching people skateboard, snowboard, surf, ski. All these sports are very similar. You can share a lot of ideas from one another.

• Other (anything else to say?): Don’t take skiing too seriously, its meant to be fun! Go shred and be yourself.

Marcus Caston gives the Contour helmet-cam a go with this session at Snowbird at which he hit 82 mph on skis. Holy crap... can that be right?

For anyone not familiar with the format of the Banzai contests this year, just take a look at this video taken from Sugar Bowl just a few weekends ago. With so much carnage, you'd better be wearing protection!

The dual mogul event in Meribel was a spectacular event where after a qualification round, competitors raced side by side down the 199m mogul course.
Deneen known as 'the rocket' was certainly on rocket fuel today skiing lighting fast and pushing other competitors beyond their limits. Qualifying in 12th place Deneen knew that from the first dual against team mate Jeremy Coda he would have to ski tactically well and as fast as he could to progress on to the next round.

With a solid 'D-spin' on top and huge 'back flip X' on bottom, Deneen did exactly that and pushed his way through four duals ready for the ultimate final dual against Gilbaut Colas from France.

One competitor said ' Patrick is the fastest in the world and so when you draw to race against him, all you can do is hang on for your life as you try to keep up with him!'

With the crowd cheering, adrenaline pumping and the drop of the start gates Deneen and Colas dueled it out for First and Second place. Both pulling the same top air in unison the crowd erupted as Deneen put his foot on the accelerater and gained almost a full two bumps ahead of Colas in the middle section of the course. By the bottom air Colas was determined not to let Deneen get too far ahead and fought hard to catch him up. This dual was one of the most exciting and closest duals we have seen in awhile.
With only a few points difference between them Colas who had the home field advantage managed to take the gold while Deneen took silver, his second podium so far this year, keeping him ranked number one in the world and winning the World Cup leaders' yellow bib.

'I have been working hard over the last year with my coaches Timmy Meagher and Chris Seeman to find a run which will allow me to ski consistently as fast as a can with big air.' commented Deneen, ' my competition package is working for me this year and it feels great to hold onto the yellow bib and be ranked number one in the world! '

Patrick now heads to China for the next World Cup competition which will be on the 21st of December. This will be the first Freestyle Mogul World Cup event ever held in China and yet again another exciting event.

Check out the editing effort put in to this baby! Then change your focus to the fact that his riding is insanely good.

Light the Wick | Got to See It

When a world-class athlete, decorated across several disciplines shoots you an unsolicited email, asking you to please give him the opportunity to wear your protective gear, you stop, drop and roll: You're sitting on a product that has caught fire.

This is why I immediately stopped what I was doing when the email from Daron Rahlves came through to our help-desk email and got on the horn with the team.

Here's his introduction of his email to us:

"To who can protect my back-
I'm interested in getting involved and being part of Team Slytech. I wish I 
had your spine protector on last April skiing in AK with TGR. I took a 
nasty crash and suffered a heavy impact between the shoulder blades above my 
pack."

"What crash is he talking about?" you may be asking. Well, luckily (and macabre at the same time), for us voyeurs, Daron's nightmare scenario was captured by the Teton Gravity Research team shooting their new flick "Light the Wick."

With a serious, potentially fatal crash like the one you're about to see: Seeing is believing...

The most amazing thing about Daron contacting us is that this wasn't some marketing or promotions campaign initiative, shelling out big bucks to attract top talent, no. It's that top talent, understanding the value in protection seeking you out for one reason, and one reason alone: after the hugest, nastiest crash of his life, he now knows he needs the best back protection available in the industry (period).

This says it all:

"I'm a big supporter of protective gear. Helmets are a given that everyone sees, but back protectors/protective gear are just as important and they aren't visible.

In the motocross industry everyone runs some protective gear. I want to help bring that knowledge to the ski world and educate the benefits to skiers. This is where I'd like to help Slytech.

I believe it's a must for all skiers in racing, park and free skiing."

No doubt, crashes and spills were abundant on this shoot. From what we gather, there were no serious injuries, possibly due to the guys using solid back protection and of course helmets.

Ride on!

Makes you reconsider whining on a groomer wipe out! Booo-hoooo...