What do Chris Klug and Michael Fox have in common? Almost nothing--except that they are two of the better-liked people in Aspen, a notoriously tough town. But they are also teaming up with Emoo.com to make the Chris Klug Foundation the beneficiary of the first "Tuesdays with Michael" at the Aspen Club and Spa this coming week. EMoo.com has committed to donating $1 to the Chris Klug Foundation for every NEW registered user on eMoo.com with the reference to KLUG in the 'affiliation code' on the registration page. eMoo.com Roaring Fork Valley is a locally owned and operated free online platform where people of all ages can buy and sell goods and services. Each classified ad is pre-screened by the help desk to create a safe, family friendly environment.
Local hero Chris Klug is back in Aspen after a medallic Olympic career snowboarding around the world. What's our guy up to now: live in the valley and a career in real estate.
KSPN’s 40th annual Blitzenbanger celebration, benefits Challenge Aspen and will feature a brewfest with 15 local and regional breweries.
Posts filed under 'Snowboarding'
Aspen's ace snowboarder Chris Klug, an Olympic bronze medalist from the 2002 Salt Lake Games, still has a chance this weekend to restore Aspen's honor with an astonishing run in the giant slalom--but no one's expecting a 38-year-old Olympian to magically claim the gold.
Klug will no doubt acquit himself well, as he always does, but a trip to the podium is unlikely if not quite impossible. Should he exit Vancouver without a medal, we can begin to talk about The Aspen Curse at the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
Continue Reading February 26th, 2010
Within one hour of skiing Powderhorn in Grand Mesa, Colorado, my wife said: “I love this place.”
This revelation is no small thing in our little world because my new bride—we married in May 2009—had lost her mojo when it came to skiing and I’m the one to blame. She had learned in Ohio before skiing Vermont, and she used to love it, and do it better than well, but as I grew slightly better and much more aggressive I would take her through ungroomed terrain that became the height of her misery and perhaps even a metaphor for our marriage.
After a year or two in Colorado, she stopped getting a pass and literally stopped skiing, with me shouldering plenty of blame for same.
Continue Reading January 30th, 2010
By Courtney Smith
One week to rule them all. ESPN’s Winter X Games 14 comes to Aspen/Snowmass this week (January 28-31). And with a group of newly appointed Olympians, insane features on Buttermilk Mountain, a super stacked lineup of musicians and loads of swag to be given away, there is no doubt this year will be the biggest yet.
Big tricks, big parties, big prizes. Among them, Qittle(TM) is giving away two (2) O-matic snowboards. One board will be given away as part of Qittle’s Swag Friday prizes, where one winner is chosen from those who have entered into Qittle’s ”Live the Dream” contest. The ultimate winner of the “Live the Dream” contest will win a year living in Aspen/Snowmass, however there are weekly winners on each of the Swag Fridays. (For details, go to www.livethedreamaspensnowmass.com)
Qittle will also give out another O-matic board on the weekend through a text to win contest whereby people can enter by texting DREAM to 26469, standard carrier rates may apply. Stay tuned for details of where and when the winner will be announced!
Co-founded by pro snowboarders Todd Richards and Tara Dakides and engineer Jason Kanes, O-matic snowboards (www.omaticsnowboards.com) focuses on “more bang for your buck” and trying to make snowboarding fun for everyone. And it certainly seems to have worked for one of their team riders, Louie Vito (www.louievito.com).
Louie, 21, has just been named one of three U.S. riders going to the Winter Olympics in Vancouver in February, along with Shaun White and Scotty Lago. Louie is also a veteran of this past season’s Dancing with the Stars program on ABC and a pretty cool guy to boot. But before he heads to Canada…Louie will be throwing down double corks on his O-matic board this week in the X Games super pipe.
Shout out to O-matic for providing Qittle awesome boards to give away, to Louie Vito for good times in X Games and Olympics and to Aspen/Snowmass for being an Xcellent place to live, play, work and visit!
Qittle Mobile Marketing
January 25th, 2010
Has Aspen taken a dive?
Aspen is so used to being considered the top of the heap in skiing, the coolest of the cool, that the recent drop in rankings from SKI magazine have left the town in a bit of a huff. The very notion that somehow Aspen has lost its way-cool edge, like a skier with untoward skis, has left people hereabouts just a tad unhinged.
First the numbers. Snowmass, despite a raft of on-mountain improvements, has fallen to #6, the top ranking for any of the four mountains that make up an Aspen/Snowmass ski pass. Aspen Mountain, in turn, is falling out of sight—all the way down to #14, while Aspen Highlands is more than holding its own at #17. The fourth mountain, Buttermilk, is barely a blip on the national scene, except when it comes to the X Games.
Four high-quality mountains with top twenty rankings is much better than your average resort, of course, but bordering on disaster for the mighty Aspen/Snowmass empire, the jewel of the Crowns. So what went wrong?
Number one, keep in mind that Snowmass is skiing better than ever, with a new gondola and two new high-speed lifts that have that have left the mountain wide open to exploration. There’s a new barbeque joint at the top of Ajax Express—a good one—and even the abortive efforts at a new base village have added some culinary choices to the mix.
That’s the good news. The bad news is that the Related Westpac fiasco has left Snowmass with a gaping wound that will probably take a decade to close. And the only thing worse than too much construction is that same construction in gaping abeyance.
The result: things are getting ugly at Snowmass, with no immediate end in sight.
In my opinion, Aspen Mountain has suffered from some negative Snowmass run-off. With new gondola cabins and the same great runs, there’s no reason why the mighty mountain formerly know as Ajax should be falling in esteem, except for this: while the rest of the world continues to improve, improvements at Aspen Mountain are likely to take a backseat to backfilling at Snowmass. The overall result is a weakened Snowmass, albeit one skiing better than ever, that ironically helps Aspen Mountain in the ratings not one bit.
Amidst this flickering picture, Aspen Highlands is a glittering gem. Though modest in size, it is gnarly and beautiful, and Highland Bowl remains a literal rite of passage for skiers everywhere. The lift system is brand-new and without any obvious flaw, and the mountain can ski miraculously well on days with adequate snow or better. Highlands also has great quirky places to eat on-mountain, and a base village worthy of the Ritz that calls it home. (Though Highlands becomes a wasteland off-season.) Aspen Highlands is a natural high, and the ratings reflect that.
In the midst of the recession, there was unfortunate talk by the pols in Aspen about bringing the Aspen brand downmarket as an affordable destination. But once a brand is tarnished, it’s almost impossible to bring it back to its original sheen. If Snowmass doesn’t get its act together soon, all four mountains—even Highlands—might just keep falling down.
September 23rd, 2009
Aspen/Snowmass, Colo., September 9, 2009 – Text the word aspensnowmass to 32075 for a chance to win a free 09-10 Season Pass to Aspen/Snowmass.
Please text in only once, as each phone number will only be counted once. Standard message and data charges apply.
The contest began on September 9, 2009 and ends at 9 a.m. on September 17, 2009.
Passholders who have already purchased an Aspen/Snowmass Season Pass for 09-10 are still eligible to enter.
The Super-Early deadline for the best deal on a Season Pass is September 18, 2009.
For more information about Aspen/Snowmass Season Passes or this specific contest, please visit www.aspensnowmass.com or call 970/925-1220.
Mobile Marketing provided by Qittle http://qittle.com/.
Aspen Skiing Company operates the four mountains in the Aspen/Snowmass area – Snowmass, Aspen Mountain, Aspen Highlands and Buttermilk – as well as the award-winning Ski & Snowboard Schools of Aspen/Snowmass. The area offers unparalleled nightlife and off-slope activities as well. Aspen/Snowmass is accessible by two of the most convenient airports in the mountains – Aspen/Pitkin County Airport (ASE) (3 miles from Aspen) and Eagle County Airport (EGE) (70 miles from Aspen). For more information on Aspen Skiing Company, please call 800-525-6200 or 970-925-1220, or visit the company’s website at www.aspensnowmass.com.
September 9th, 2009
Just how badly do people need a vacation these days and can it be explained in a minute or less? Snowmass, a popular mountain ski resort town in Colorado, is about to find out through its’ You Need a Vacation, a SNOWMASS Vacation! YouTube video contest. Contestants are asked to post a video on YouTube explaining, demonstrating or using any other creative means to show just how badly they need a summer vacation in Snowmass.
Continue Reading July 6th, 2009
Yes that is it for the season of skiing/riding in Aspen. I've heard a spook of the rumor that Ajax may open for Memorial Day, but for now that's it. It was overall a great season. I had some great powder days. Although I didn't hike Highlands Bowl more than a dozen times and skied less than a hundred days I'm ready for biking season.
It was good to get out for the real last day of the 2009 ski season at Highlands but it lacked the bang because all the sizzle went to the first "closing day" two weeks ago which if anyone realized wasn't the last day.. Which in our book is lame. Kinda like celebrating Halloween on October 27th.. See these little things mean something.
So does trying to maximize profits before the season crowd leaves town, hence ZG Grill promoting the "Closing Day Party" before it is in fact the last day. Understandable for it will be a dry summer season out in Highlands as it is. Highlands Pizza has done some good things to court business such as the patio, "regular" live music, Aspen Brewing Company Beer, perhaps they have some cool things up their sleeve to make Highlands Plaza a spot to journey out to this summer.
Continue Reading April 26th, 2009
No school today at the aspen school district-------following a bomb threat made on Thursday afternoon.
At 4 p.m. yesterday, school authorities were alerted to threat written in a boy’s restroom that a bomb was on campus……most students had left by that time----but the pitkin county sheriff’s department evacuated all buildings, conducted a search---and turned up nothing.
As a precaution, classes are suspended today at the Aspen School district.
Continue Reading March 6th, 2009
An astute listener to "Con Games with Michael Conniff: writes:
I'm sure you didn't know of this or it would have been mentioned on the show today, but Sarah Burke (arguably one of the best female skiers ever) broke her back at this years xgames in the slopestyle also the crash that gretchen took in the pipe was really not out of the ordinary in snowboarding. that exact same thing (the whiplash) happens tens of times on the 4 mountains of aspen every single day, but its not replayed in super slow motion so you never see that whip back of the head. What do you think happens when a beginner on snowmass catches a heel edge and gets slammed to the ground on there back? With Gretchen's crash, at least 50% of the energy that she was carrying was dissipated when she hit the lip, then she slid to the bottom on the transition dissipating even more only to flip over at the very bottom when she was not really going that fast.. if the pipe had been smaller she would have hit the lip then landed in the bottom of the pipe and more than likely she would have taken a sled ride to the ER.
Continue Reading January 28th, 2009
When the X Gamers descend on Aspen every winter, we Booming bleeping locals are always glad to have them, if only because of our friends in the restaurant business. The slackers and knuckle-draggers have to drink and they have to eat—X does not live by Red Bull, Monster, or RockStar alone—so it’s good to know that bar bills jounced by Red Bull-and-vodkas are sure to bounce half-again higher than a tuned-up half-pipe.
That ain’t the half of it, of course. What I love about the ESPN X Games is the innocence of the athletes, the way all the snowboard girls look just exactly like our own Gretchen Bleiler—blonde, big-eyed, and absolutely fearless. I love their sportsmanship: the way they actually seem to root for each other without prompting. No other sport does sportsmanship like the X Games. That alone is cause for celebration.
The sports themselves are almost beyond compare—is there anything better than watching boardercross?—and the superpipers at their best combine ballet with rebellion in a way Balanchine would have to admire. I’m not a fan of made-for-television sports in general—the X Games, summer and winter, are the granddaddy and grandmommy of them all—but I’ve never seen anything to compare with the sound and fury of snowmobilers literally growling over your head, popping up like a Jack-in-the-box smacked by a hacky-sacker.
All of that is hard to beat, especially the sportsmanship and the sport of it, which is not to say the X Games are without flaw.
Continue Reading January 26th, 2009
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