BILLINGS — This eagle has landed, for now anyway.
Less than a year after competing in the Winter Olympics at Sochi, Russia, high-flying Bozeman freestyle mogul skier Heather McPhie has quietly taken a year off from the sport.
“It’s been an interesting transition for me,” she said in a telephone interview from Salt Lake City, where she’s now living with her ailing 84-year-old grandmother. “I took the fall off knowing that I wasn’t going to ski, and that I would be making this move.”
The U.S. Ski Team website still lists McPhie as a member of the women’s moguls A team, along with Butte Olympian Bradley Wilson — men’s moguls A team — and his older brother Bryon Wilson — men’s moguls B team.
“They’re giving me a soft retirement to make sure that’s what I want,” McPhie said. “I have a year to decide.”
U.S. Ski Team head mogul coach Garth Hager isn’t sure McPhie is ready to step aside just yet.
“I feel it is quite realistic she will return,” he wrote in an email from Finland where the team was competing this week. “The key aspect is in her passion for competition. She finished last season a little frustrated; the results did not come as she had planned or had experienced in the previous season.”
He said McPhie still has “the skills to be at the top of the World Cup,” although admitting it exacts a mental toll on competitors to continually race at that level.
“I feel if she misses competing and renews her desire to strive for the top, we will see her return,” he added.
A Bozeman native who trained at Bridger Bowl Ski Area, McPhie first qualified for the U.S. Ski Team in 2005. Only a year later her momentum seemed stalled when she severely injured her back during practice. Her competitive career could have ended then, but McPhie was passionate about making a comeback and racing again. By 2007, she was named the Fédération Internationale de Ski rookie of the year.
“She was always really, really good from a young age in terms of taking care of her conditioning and nutrition,” Kristie McPhie said. “I think it helped a lot in terms of not having as many injuries as her competitors did.”
A hard-training athlete, McPhie not only came back from her injury but also won a World Cup event and made the 2010 Olympic team. A stickler for doing the same complicated aerial maneuvers that her male competitors were executing, she earned the nickname McPhly.
A fall at the Vancouver games wiped her out of contention in Canada, but she rebounded in 2013 to again finish strong in the World Cup circuit. Last year at Sochi, McPhie finished 13th following three rounds.
After completing last year’s World Cup events, McPhie made a trip to Thailand with friends and took time to reflect on her future. Among other activities, in July she was the special guest athlete at the 29th Annual Big Sky State Games in Billings and lit the games’ torch. Yet always in the back of her mind was the upcoming ski season.
“Any time I would try to get back into training, I wasn’t very hungry for it, which I used to be,” she said. “I only wanted to compete if I was in a place where I’m really driven.”
By mid-September she had a decision to make. When she talked to her coaches, they were supportive of her suggestion to step aside, McPhie said.
“I think taking a year off to think about it is a good decision,” said Kristie McPhie, Heather’s mother, a good balance between leaving too soon and having regrets and staying too long and being injured or no longer competitive.
Since making her decision, McPhie’s lifestyle has taken a 180-degree turn.
“I’m really excited to get back to pursuing my degree in psychology,” she said.
McPhie has four semesters to complete at Westminster College, a private liberal arts college in Salt Lake City, to earn her bachelor’s degree. She’s even looked into returning to Montana State University, which she left to join the U.S. Ski Team, to pursue a master’s degree. She will restart school in January.
Until then, she’s spending time with her grandmother, shuttling her to appointments and on errands, taking an avalanche safety course for backcountry skiing and looking forward to freeskiing, visiting family in Montana and watching from the sidelines as her fellow teammates compete. As to coaching, McPhie said she would like to get back to the sport eventually, but not anytime soon.
“I think she has so many interesting ideas right now and interesting contacts,” said Kristie McPhie. “And when you move into something new, there’s a lot of energy in that.”
Looking back at her ski team career, McPhie said she will miss traveling around the world the most, “seeing all of the beautiful new places.”
And after having a “job” that required her to constantly exercise to remain in excellent shape, she said she now has to work to fit exercise into her daily routine.
“I realize I had an amazing lifestyle on those days when I wake up and wonder: ‘Oh my god, what am I going to do with my life now?'” she said and laughed. “In some ways, I’m asking questions a lot of 18 year olds are asking.”
Yet she noted she has had 12 years of experience, growth and maturity to help her navigate the new road that lies ahead.
“All of my competitive experience has culminated in this now,” she said. “And I’m finding myself drawn to new things.”