Natural Selection
After three days home in New York, I am now in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, for the inaugural Quiksilver Natural Selection snowboard contest, an all-mountain freestyle contest hosted by pro snowboarder Travis Rice. These rider-inspired-and-run contests seem to be a blossoming trend in action sports, and mostly, I believe, out of necessity. When the industry isn’t…
Read MoreBack From the Backcountry
PASS BEYOND THIS POINT AT YOUR OWN RISK. BACKCOUNTRY RISKS INCLUDE DEATH. This is the decision that began today’s adventure. I woke up this morning, slept through my 7 a.m. alarm and ignored texts from my friends insisting I “must be on the first chair”. Last night, Aspen received almost 10 inches of new snow,…
Read MoreWinter X Has Come To An End
Today is the final day of the Winter X Games, and so far, it’s been my favorite. It started at Poppycocks, my favorite breakfast spot in Aspen. About halfway through breakfast, my friend Seth pointed out, very nonchalantly, that MTV reality TV star Scott Baio, the actor formerly known as Charles, was sitting at the…
Read MoreSnow Bored Superpipe
Yesterday morning, the women’s snowboard superpipe qualifiers were held here at Winter X. After the contest, a press release went out announcing the scores, and that the top 10 women had advanced to finals. Bleiler qualified first, followed by last year’s winner Torah Bright, Kelly Clark … Then, about an hour later, a second release…
Read MoreHow’s Your Aspen?
Driving from Park City to Aspen always sounds like a good idea, until you’re four hours deep into a six-and-a-half-hour drive. But that’s what my friend Carrie and I did Monday night. It’s sort of a tradition now. Carrie, a former member of the U.S. Ski team (and a 1994 Olympian) is headed out to…
Read MoreSundance The Night Away
This weekend, I’m in Park City, Utah, for the X-Dance film festival. Think Sundance, but for action sports films. The festival runs alongside Sundance, but with no affiliation. Some great documentary films make their debut here, as they do at Redford’s festival. (At Sundance, ESPN purchased a great documentary called Kicking It, about the homeless…
Read MoreGretchen Bleiler’s On Our Cover!
Sorry, I couldn’t think of a more snappy headline. I wanted to get to the point. I’ve been covering action sports at the magazine now for almost three years. And in that time, I’ve had two very cool experiences/honors. In August 2005, my first cover story, on Mat Hoffman, was the first time ESPN The…
Read MoreRoses are Cardinal and Gold
As long as I’ve been a college football fan, I’ve wanted to attend Rose Bowl week. Floats made of flowers, a matchup of 10s and a New Year’s Eve spent in sunny SoCal—is there a better way to kick off the new year? I didn’t think so. And now, after spending the first week of…
Read MoreHolidaze
File this under: Lessons I learned over Christmas break. A couple hours after brunch on Christmas day, my mom and I went for a long walk around the neighborhood. (Which is something you can do when you spend Christmas in southwest Florida, and the temp is a bone-chilling 85 degrees. Brrr.) About mid-way through the…
Read MoreBack in the Big Apple
I’m back in New York, and already dreaming of beaches and mountain tops. But, when I landed at LGA on Wednesday night, I remembered NYC at Christmas time is one of my favorite things. (If Oprah visited this month, I’m sure it would be one of hers, too.) Today was just another ho-hum (or, ho…
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