Aspen – Drenched in heavy snowfall and high-energy hi-fi, the rabid swarm of dedicated new schoolers feasted on a Thanksjibbing buffet Saturday night, hooting their enthusiasm as a cornucopia of young jib-lets showed off their “steeze” by slapping a cold, steel rail with skis and snowboards at the base of Ajax Mountain.
A night before, it was the Wheeler Opera House in downtown Aspen that pulled in the pack for the third annual NEPSA (that’s Aspen spelled backward) video and art awards, in which nine short films featured talent from across Colorado in a lifestyle showcase of the modern winter athlete.
In between, Aspen Mountain was the place to be, with 18 inches of fresh snow inspiring the ski patrol to drop ropes and open the slopes for a frenzied horde of powder lovers caught up in the sensation of soft snow under skis and snowboards.
Now, this is the way to start a ski season.
“It’s like instant winter,” Aspen local Seth Hollar said during another lap on the gondola. “It’s hard to believe it’s only Thanksgiving weekend.”
For years, the ski industry has done everything short of giving away free lift tickets (a tactic that Crested Butte recently abandoned, actually) in an effort to turn Thanksgiving into a skiing holiday. But despite the advent of TiVo, the final Thursday in November remains a celebration of couch surfing, a quasi-cannibalistic fete in which potatoes gorge on chips and dips. Given the current conditions, well, that’s just a crying shame.
What will it take to get folks thinking about giving thanks for Colorado’s most precious resource? (That would be snow, not oil shale.) It’s tough to say, but for now, Aspen seems to be on the right track.
The return of Thanksjibbing after a one-year hiatus probably isn’t enough to get grandma to pack up her snowboard and move the family feast up to the mountains. But such creative endeavors combined with NEPSA, the winter-long Hi-Fi Concert Series and what can now be considered the Mac Daddy of all Colorado action sports events – the Winter X Games – are quite arguably creating a paradigm shift that could change the way the next generation of skiers and snowboarders thinks about things like the Thanksgiving holiday.
Factor in new events such as “The Meeting” in September (a multiday film festival that brought big-name snowsport athletes and producers into town), February’s inaugural Aspen/Snowmass Ski and Snowboard Open (in which regular riders can compete in the same terrain park used at the X Games) and the season-ending Junkyard Jam at Snowmass (an urban-flavored freestyle contest using recycled refrigerators and tires in the park), and the Aspen Skico is suddenly on its way toward creating the sort of happening critical mass it will take to sway young public sentiment toward skiing and snowboarding over the long haul.
Sprinkled throughout the season like powder days, these events – along with the return of the AWOL Aspen Wall Ride Competition, Colorado Free- ride Series and KickAspen Big Air Invitational – blatantly target the youth demographic, reflecting the rapid growth of action sports as more traditional team sports continue to slip. It’s a calculated bonus that rail jams and jibbing contests in general don’t require a lot of snow, making them a perfect fit for the unpredictable early season. The transition from skateboard to snowboard may soon be as smooth as sweet potatoes to pumpkin pie.
My hat is off to the folks in Aspen for investing the time and energy to this long-term goal. Until the shift occurs, however, there’s still no good excuse for sitting out a four- day powder weekend such as the one we just saw. Put the fork down already. The holiday has just begun.
Staff writer Scott Willoughbycan be reached at 303-820-1993 or swilloughby@denverpost.com.
