Freestyle skiing athlete Heidi Kloser (USA) falls during a training session at the Rosa Kuhtor Extreme Park.

Even at the Winter Olympics, where athletes and photographers alike gather with their “a-game” ready to shine, practice still makes perfect. And so, with today being a day for athletes to take the courses and try things on for size, us photographers took a similar approach. My day was spent scouting the Rosa Kuhtor Extreme Park, figuring out which angles and positions would work best for the events I’ll be shooting there, as well as shooting a practice session of ladies and mens freestyle moguls.

The moguls course at the Sochi Winter Olympics features some inclines in excess of 35 degrees! Climbing along the sides is like walking up an icy slanted roof of a house.

For those not familiar with the moguls event, athletes wearing skis slide down a very steep (a 35-40 degree angle in some spots) embankment formed of many small hills. There are also three larger jumps in the mix as well, giving athletes moments to earn style points with the judges.

Despite the tiring climb, shooting from the side of the moguls course allows athletes to be photographed mid-air with clean backgrounds.

I chose to hike up the moguls embankment and shoot parallel with the last jump, giving me a chance to photograph the athletes in the air against a clean background free from light poles or wires. Clean backgrounds, especially for events like these, are key. In fact, the background is typically the first thing I look at when deciding whether a spot is worth exploring.

Hiking up the moguls course is like walking up an icy sloped roof of a house, and photographing on this incline taxes all the strength in your feet and calves. To aid in my traction, I wear large metal spikes on the bottoms of my boots called “crampons”. Without the crampons, it would be almost impossible to walk up the course, which is solid ice in some spots. Even with the crampons, I almost lost my footing a couple of times.

Steel spikes strapped to the bottom of my boots called “crampons” allow me to keep my footing on the icy, steep moguls course. The photo doesn’t really do the steepness justice.

One photographer, who was wearing crampons but probably a bit undersized for this incline, wasn’t so lucky to make it back down the course without falling and sailing immediately past where I was seated. The woosh of air startled me, and I looked up just in time to see him spinning around on his back with quite a bit of speed! Thankfully, he was ok!

This poor shooter didn’t see this coming, and neither did I! The whoosh of air startled me as he sailed by my right side on his back, reaching out in desperation for anything to stop his rapid downward slide!

Lastly, I’m going to start a new feature here for my time in Sochi called Guy’s Russian Word of the Day. I’m going to teach you how to pronounce an actual Russian word that I’ve had to use around the games. Despite the Olympics being an international event, the language barrier here in Sochi is HUGE. Most of the volunteers are from here and speak very little English, yet hold some of the most important information (such as where your shuttle bus is going to stop, or where the nearest bathroom is!).

Today’s word is: ???????, pronounced, “Spuh-see-buh,” which means, “Thank you.”