Clark and men's pace-setter Gregory Betz, also of the United States, posted the highest scores in clear conditions at the world cup event at Cardrona Alpine Resort yesterday.
Clark and Betz were each heat winners and will be joined by four other Americans in the 16 automatic qualifiers for tomorrow's finals. Those who missed out get a chance in the semifinals.
Liu Jiayu (China) won the other women's heat with a score of 91.0 - just one point behind Clark - and goes straight into the final with Gretchen Bleiler (USA), Arielle Gold (USA), Holly Crawford (Australia), Nadja Purtschert (Switzerland), Yuki Furihata (Japan) and Queralt Castellet (Spain).
Japan's Ayumu Hirano won the other men's heat and will be happy to sit out the semifinal alongside compatriots Taku Hiraoka and Ayumu Nedefuji, Arthur Longo (USA), Nathan Johnstone (Australia), Christian Haller (Switzerland) and Tayler Gold (USA).
Clark, a gold and bronze medal-winning Winter Olympian, said she had only been able to have four training runs before yesterday due to poor visibility on Cardrona's Olympic halfpipe.
''The pipe is so good and this is a great field,'' Clark said.
''I'm really happy the weather cleared, which made it possible to come out and land some good runs.
''For the final, I'll be doing a totally different run but playing to my strengths to keep it clean and big. Making it through was the name of the game today and I'm really excited about the final.''
Those facing an intense semifinal include Switzerland's Iouri ''I-Pod'' Podladtchikov in the men's competition, and New Zealand women's No 1 Bex Sinclair, for whom this was a first competition since knee surgery.
Sinclair said she was ''super happy'' with two consistent runs as she aims for Winter Olympic qualification.
''I came in just hoping to land a first run back in competition, and I landed both my safety and step-up runs.
''I've worked so hard in rehab, doing everything I had to do to get back to form.
''For the semi, I'll pretty much use my step-up run but go bigger and cleaner. No matter what happens, I've already got a chunk of Olympic qualifying points in the first comp of the season.''
New Zealander Hamish Bagley finished 22nd in the second men's heat.
Head judge Ola Sundekvist was very pleased with the day's events.
''We've had sunshine and perfect conditions. The only thing missing was a couple of days' extra training and then we could have seen some insane runs.
''Hopefully, with some training tomorrow, we'll have some great semifinals and some super-great finals on Saturday.''
