“No way dude, that’s totally rad. I’d be stoked to check out the gnar that’s going down over there.”
“Sweet dude, let’s totally rock on over to Aspen and scope out the scene.”
Doing our best to imitate the hordes of 15 year olds we would see in Aspen, Nate and I decided to go check out the X-games, which I have always seen on TV but never in person. Quick summary of the games: they’re better on TV. But more on that later.
I was a bit worried that, being the dirtbags we are, we wouldn’t fit in over in Aspen. It turns out we didn’t, but that was more due to being 10 years older than 50% of the people than to being poor. Our grand plans for our time in Aspen were to backcountry ski in the morning and watch the X-games in the afternoon. As with all grand plans, it didn’t quite work out that way, but actually worked out better. The first day were headed out for some backcountry skiing up a mountain that looked promising. On the way up we met another group of skiers going the same way. They had three people in their group, one of whom had a rough night and was lagging behind a bit. Didn’t seem to be of any concern at the time. We continued on with our ski up, and got some okay skiing in on some open faces and down a gully. I only ate it 10 or 12 times, so it was a good day for me. When we finally arrived back at the car, we saw two people from the group of three we had met. The were waiting for their buddy, who was a bit late. (As a quick side note, during the avalanche course the instructors drilled into our head that whatever you do, YOU NEVER SEPARATE FROM THE REST OF YOUR GROUP! EVER!!) We helped out as best we could, making a few calls and trying to be useful. Someone eventually called Search and Rescue, and they found the missing skier stuck in a creek, but otherwise okay. The reason I’m explaining all this is because the missing skier turned out to be Captain Powder, the founder of Powder Magazine, one of my favorite magazines. The result of all of this is that we were invited to the Powder Magazine Reader Poll and Video Awards that night, which I have read about many times (in Powder of course) and never thought I’d get to attend. That night, after putting on my nice shirt (yes, I only brought one on this trip), Nate and I were let in to an exclusive party that included most of the athletes that I’ve seen in the magazines and ski movies for years. And on top of that, there were free appetizers, which as a ski bum means “dinner.” We then got to watch the awards, which to many people may not have been interesting but to me were awesome. Oh, and we didn’t see one single X-games event that day.
The next day we resolved to skip the skiing and go watch the games. All pumped up to see the events, we soon found out that the X-games are very much set up for optimal TV viewing. Most of the events didn’t have good spectator areas, and the Skier and Boardercross weren’t even visible. It was also cold, and standing in one place for hours wasn’t the best way to stay warm. Still, the athletes were pulling off some amazing things and we were thoroughly entertained. That night, the Men’s Halfpipe was the main event and we managed to get spots right on the edge of the pipe. That was awesome. I never really understood how much air they can get and how many spins a 1080 is (three, actually). After that was the Moto-X Best Trick, which involved the five best guys backflipping over a 70’ double. That was way more interesting to see live than on TV, as they flew 40’ above our heads.
After the games ended that evening, we had a decision to make: more X-games the next day or go to Ouray and learn to ice climb. Both of us are more doers than watchers, so it was buh-bye to Aspen and on the road to Ouray