In our never-ending quest to turn everyone into ski bums and mountain athletes, we went to a little place called Aspen to attend the Meeting 8. We went armed with business cards, notepads, and our camera to battle through ski and snowboard industry conferences, movie premieres, and their direct consequence, the punishment of our livers.
A Place Where The Beer Flows Like Wine, Aspen
Will and Ed on top of West Maroon pass with a cloudy Pyramid in the background.
To get over there, West Elk Project’s Ed and Will Dujardin hiked over West Maroon pass while Trent Bona drove over Kebler and McClure passes to the Roaring Fork Valley. While most of us have driven over there, the hike is something you have to do if you haven’t yet. The weather was forecasted for possibly an inch of snow accumulation over the pass by noon. To our amusement, we encountered periods of light and heavy snow, and lots of sun and clouds. We found a couple of inches of snow on top of the pass where Pyramid Peak and the Maroon Bells flanked the vibrant valley below. Looking back we had a unique view of our side of the Elks, where intermittent sightings through snowy grey clouds of Hasley Pass, the ridge to Mt. Belleview, and Mt. Baldy across Schofield Pass dusted with snow gave us that oft-quoted but very aptly termed feeling of being ‘super-stoked’ for the coming winter.
The Meeting has been run in Aspen as an effort to share people’s excitement for the changing of the seasons by showing ski and snowboard films within an overall snow sports industry context. A conference day with panels on “Content Distribution”, “Brand Building”, and “Building an Audience” was almost lost within the nightly events including the NEPSA Awards, various film premieres, and concerts featuring Stephen Marley and Brit Floyd at the Belly Up. Lucky for us, Trent, Will, and Ed actually took notes and passed out business cards in hopes of building the West Elk Project network.
Jesse Weyl: Only you can party responsibly. With Patrick Brennan.
With seasoned Aspen veterans like Mike Hans, Patrick Brennan, Gabe and Kyra Martin, and Jesse and Nina Weyl to guide our young travelers, the West Elk Project survived the weekend with new friends and the savoir-faire to take on the coming winter.
You might have noticed we have been releasing our reviews of the movies shown at Wheeler Opera House and the Aspen Sun Deck. Check out our reviews for “Sunny“, “Kill Your Boredom“, “We“, “Dream Factory“, “Super Heroes of Stoke“, “Vaya a la Cumbre”, and “Further“. If you have the chance to see any of these films, you should make an effort to. “Further” probably impressed us the most at the Meeting. The size of the lines and the solidarity of the expeditions undertaken by Jeremy Jones and his friends are truly beautiful. In a more jib-friendly film, Level1’s “Sunny” set the tone for the weekend on the Aspen Sun Deck with super-creative urban segments and cinematography by Josh Berman and friends. The traditional powerhouses of TGR, MSP, and PBP all offered spectacular, star-studded skiing in their films to the cheers of fans at the Wheeler (see the Dana Flahr, Tim Durtschi, and Angel Collinson segments in “Dream Factory”, the Richard Permin, Mark Abma, and Eric Hjorleifson segments in “Superheroes of Stoke”, and the Dane Tudor, Sammy Carlson, and Pep Fujas’ segments in “We” for good examples). All 3 balanced the ski-porn while shedding
OMG! Jeremy Jones!
some light on the more human side of our heroes and friends of the past. The loudest cheering at the Wheeler all weekend came for the local boy, Colter Hinchliffe, as he showcased the emerging young talent in “Dream Factory” while shredding Alaska. More local-support cheers came for the documentary, “Vaya a la Cumbre”, by Zach Ornitz. A former Aspenite, Ornitz went to Ski Arpa, a Chilean ski resort owned by the father-son Aspen duo of Tony and Anton Sponar, to capture the sacrifices and joys of running a high-alpine cat ski operation.
That was a lot of stuff for 3 days. Did I mention they had had an open-bar at all those premieres for ‘industry’ ticket-holders? Or that the same ticket got you into the Belly Up in Aspen to see Stephen Marley and Brit Floyd? And somehow they justify this with learning from industry professionals in a place “where the beer flows like wine and the women instinctively flock like the salmon of Capistrano?” Yea, I guess I did. The Meeting 8 in Aspen was all we expected it to be and did not disappoint.
The drive back over Kebler wasn't that bad.
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