Brooks “Hoot” Brown died March 24 at age 16 from injuries sustained when he slipped onto the moving track of a Sno-Cat machine as he hitched a ride to the top of a ski terrain park near Telluride.
Brown ranked among the top freeriders in the U.S. An accomplished skier and snowboarder, he was 13 when he began competing on the Telluride Ski and Snowboard Club’s new freeride team.
Athletic and dauntless, he embraced freeride skiing, a new discipline whose focus on gymnastic and stunt skiing in ski terrain parks is luring scores of young thrill-seekers away from their snowboards.
With its combination of aggressive skiing and extreme stunts performed using pipes, rails, jumps and boxes, freeride skiing came naturally to Brown, a sophomore at Telluride High School.
He placed sixth in a February ski riding event in Telluride, placed 34th at the Junior Olympics earlier this month, and was nationally ranked 57th in slope style by the U.S. Skiing Association.
“The fact he was so new to that sport and doing that well just speaks volumes about where he could have gone,” said Justin Chandler, executive director of the Telluride Ski and Snowboard Club.
“Actually, it’s pretty extraordinary how fast he got that good, going against other kids who were more experienced in what’s become the fastest growing portion of skiing right now.”
Coaches and friends admired Brown’s infectious enthusiasm and his almost preternatural ability to rally teammates into focusing their skills as they tested their limits. The Telluride Ski and Snowboard Club embraces four disciplines: alpine skiing, snowboarding, freestyle skiing and Nordic skiing.
“Hoot was a guy who always wanted to be out there practicing, and his passion was really contagious for all the disciplines,” Chandler said.
“He was a leader. We have 220 kids in this club. He could focus them when they were too excited to calm down, and pump them up if they were too mellow. Timing was always good with him.”
Brown wore his pants low and his jackets big. He favored painfully bright neon hues along with a combination of black, yellow, red and green that he called “rasta colors,” a reference to the Jamaican reggae music he loved and frequently chose when he played deejay on the team’s trips out of town.
He wore headbands and hats that he crocheted himself, usually also in rasta colors.
“Hoot had his own style, and he lived in the now,” said the club’s freestyle team coach, Caleb Martin.
“When you’re flying 60, 70 feet through the air, 25 or 30 feet above the ground, the amount of focus you need is tremendous. Your life and limbs are on the line. That was part of his love for it – not only the adrenaline, but that focus, and living in the moment.”
Survivors include mother Dee Pearce of Ridgway and father Banks Brown of Telluride.
Staff writer Claire Martin can be reached at 303-820-1477 or cmartin@denverpost.com.
