Top of Highlands Bowl with Maroon Bells in the background

Aspen Highlands officially opened its lifts today to blue skies and warmer temps. Not warm enough to start melting snow, but one could sure feel it on the hike up the Bowl. Yup, that’s right, we formed a #contentcrew posse and hiked up to the top of the Bowl for some afternoon laughs and photos. Pat Sewell, Casey Vandenbroek, Lars Zimmerman, Meredith Mckee, A.J. Hobbs and myself joined Jeremy Swanson for a quick lap in the G-Zones. This north-facing, tree-lined set of steep runs on the skier’s-right flank of the Bowl were the only zones open, and they were a little hairy. Some turns were deep, some had rocks, but I was worried about jamming my ski tip into a stump or under a log. Surprisingly, after a few quick turns down the slope, we had no injuries or even any close calls, and we called it a day with some high fives thrown in for good measure. We even topped off the afternoon with some free beer courtesy of Strafe Clothing at their base of Highlands storefront grand opening party.

Workin it for the cameras...say 'Cheese'!

The Merry-Go-Round restaurant hosted their grand-reopening after a swanky renovation over the summer.  Hundreds of Aspen ski bums and socialites made their way up Highlands’ Exhibition lift for a free lift up to the shindig.  Even then, some cardio-oriented folks were still out hiking and skinning their way up the festivities.  Once inside the historic on-mountain building, the smell of gourmet food and the sound of happy revelers greeted us and people were ecstatic about the new decor.  Pictures of Highlands skiers over the decades filled the only walls that didn’t have huge glass window panes, with Pat Sewell’s likeness just about everywhere one could look.  Yours truly had a few choice shots (thanks Markewitz!), but really, today was about the food.  With the menu prices once again outside of this ski bum’s budget, this was a great opportunity for me and many of my fellow ski bums to taste the gourmet offerings.  Everyone’s hands were full of mini plates chock full of eggplant parmesan, pork loin with sweet potatoes, meatballs, tuna burgers, margarita pizza and more.  Free beer tickets were being passed around like poker chips, and the dessert table was swarmed time and time again as cookies and pastries disappeared like Tickle-Me-Elmo on Black Friday.

After the grubfest, the members of AspenSnowmass’ very own #contentcrew rendezvoused for the one and only lap of the day.  Newcomers Casey VandenBroek and Joe Risi joined veteran members G.R. Fielding, Meredith Mckee and myself for some slap-happy photos and video by the likes of Jeremy Swanson and Matt Hobbs.  As it was late in the day and the sun was quickly disappearing, we sniffed out the last remaining rays of light on the slope and made some early season magic happen.  Nothing like low-incline rollers and some slash turns to kick off a new season of shredding.

Thanks for the iPhone photos Meredith!

Yours truly, bottom right.

The most talked about new feature at the Merry-Go-Round

Kris & Friends in Chamonix

It’s been a big year for Tecnica/Blizzard with the introduction of alpine touring ski boots and ‘Flipcore’ skis in the Freemountain line.  In the video, Kris shows off the advantages of having Vibram-sole Tecnica AT boots as he and his buddies rope up and scramble down a rock face to find some pristine powder.  Once in the couloir, you can see Kris (in the green outerwear) put his Blizzard Bonafides to work where you can see him schmearing turns down Cunningham Couloir’s finest white gold.  Watch, enjoy, repeat as necessary.

Cunningham Couloir from kris thomas on Vimeo.

Blizzard Bonafide

Tecnica Cochise

There’s a huge sale going on right now at Backcountry.com and if you want to check out the items and sweet deals on prices, click on the link below.  It’s finally summer here in Aspen and folks have been playing outside on all the different toys we all love: road bikes, mountain bikes, kayaks, rafts, rock-climbing, hiking, trail running…and my personal favorite, Stand-up Paddleboarding.  Find the gear that gets you going at Backcountry.com and spend your time outside while the sun stays in the sky the longest.  Cheers!

With a first run down the infamous Headwall/Angle Gully complete, the junior competition in Crested Butte is nearly indistinguishable from the adult competition, which is itself held only a few days later. Over seventy athletes representing the who’s who of freeskiing mecca’s in the North American continent – juniors aged 12 to 17 – converged on the rocky, punchy, skied-out venue to navigate through to a moguled run-out. As we have seen in recent years, the younger talents donning the freeskiing culture’s neon bibs are surely carrying the torch, exhibiting the fluidity and style we have come to appreciate as their natural understanding of the mountain’s undulations.

The fall-line, billygoat-to-straightline run-out technique of yesteryear is a fading standard, as kids are seeking takeoffs and landings where edge-to-edge control is pertinent to respecting the exposure below. Tricks are almost as much a completion of a well-executed turn, that soft pop accelerating the shift in direction into a smooth 360, as they are a maneuver calculated and trained for. Most of this terrain is read by eye only, and hasn’t undergone any inspection by any terrain park manager or liability advisor, which means that these juniors are using the skills they hone back at their respective home resorts to negotiate the varied snowy terrain. It is impressive to see the confidence they skied with into each feature, and how strong their landing legs were as the moguled finish tested them through to the very end.

Parker Olsen, the 16 year-old from Aspen, worked with me to find a good line through Angle Gully, and with a technical entrance and high-speed exit, it made for quite a ride. Parker skied clean, but had a little bobble (more like a hip-check) halfway through his run, and the judges definitely docked some points on that one. With a score of 28.37, Parker narrowly missed the cut for the next day’s final run, but he kept his head high and is counting this as a learning experience. Good thing too, because he’s entered into the Aspen/Snowmass Colorado Freeride Championships this weekend; his dad signed the parent release form so Parker can compete with the adults.

After a couple of days freeskiing the Butte and watching some of the junior and adult competition runs, we packed up and left for Aspen. Unfortunately, I missed out on some of the powder skiing from the recent storm due to a tooth/gum infection. After a delirious and stormy ride over McClure Pass back into the Roaring Fork Valley, we parted ways and I found myself hunkering down on my girlfriend’s couch with a raging pain in the side of my face. Five tooth extractions later, I am surviving on smoothies and vicodin, and preparing to judge the CO Freeride Champs tomorrow. Yeeeesh.