VIDEO BLOG Storm Chasin’ USA 5 – Backcountry Aspen

February 17th, 2011

New Zealand’s very own big mountain and freestyle kid Fraser McDougall. He’s been living in Breckenridge, practicing at being devastatingly good at the skiing caper and popped over to join us for some back country pow

Words & Images | Tess Cook

[Aspen]. Four become eight. Anna and Nat Segal made the cross-desert roadie from Utah, Anna had dropped by the Mormon state to make herself slopestyle World Champion, no big deal. Fraser McDougall came from Kiwi land via Breckenridge and Ted Davenport, aka Teddy D, T-Dav and Teddy Westside had been just waiting for us to turn up so he could fling us around the backcounty with his sled tows.

Blue sky and balmy days made for perfect backcounty shooting. Ted put everyone else in their place on the Monday by launching a 60 foot cliff, no big deal – again, then towed us all out the back of Aspen Mountain on Tuesday to get creative on a backcountry kicker where everyone did cool things and Anna showed us why she’s a WC (world champion that is).

Anna and I managed to grab a couple of hours freeskiing on Aspen Mountain and were reminded again why it’s one of the world’s most popular, those long groomers and steep pitches have a great way of making you feel both like you’re skiing like a champion and working damn hard.

Night times we lay our heads down on the perfectly plumped pillows of the Viceroy Resort Hotel, Snowmass. On the hotel ‘goodness’ scale the Viceroy is off the chart. It cuts no corners – there’s that way ‘luxury’ hotels can scrimp on certain details, cheap toiletries, shower-bathes, ugly curtains. Not the Viceroy, from its crocodile leather throw pillows to the three times daily room servicing – that’s cleaning, twice and turn down, oh, plus the mini bar lady – the Viceroy is the genuine article and we lived like rockstars.

Backseat Bandits EP 4.0: A taste of the good life from backseat bandits on Vimeo.

Fraser’s video edit of our time in Aspen, thanks to Fraser for the edit

T-Dav. Ted’s a long time – full time Aspen local and it’s thanks to him, his sled and a few metres of towing rope we spent this glorious sunny day playing about in the backcountry

Yeah, Fraser’s doing a hand plant… but really it’s a photo of Boen in a tree

T-Dav!

Hitchin’ a ride

skis

Charlie

Boen impersonating a koala

Boen and sled

Anna and Nat in one of our two bathtubs. Around the same size as your average single bed