Fast Times At Red Bull High

Three Days At Bobby Brown's 'Red Bull Cascade'

Words and Photos by Ella Boyd

It was like high school all over again, but instead of reading Stephen King in the corner and talking with my English teacher about surfing the pier before school, I was talking to the tan, messy-haired kid next to me about his trip to Costa Rica.

He was part of a group known as the ‘Sickos’, a content team who grew up in Oregon and now travel the world filming for their YouTube channel. The ‘Sickos’ had been invited to this weekend’s event, Red Bull Cascade, because of their proximity to ski culture.

All of the ‘Sickos’ would surely throw down on the large features in the coming days. The room was filled with lots of YouTubers, TikTokers, and influencers, laughing and joking and surprisingly not absorbed in their phones.

The room was also, more obviously, filled with professional skiers, filmers, and media organizers. Then, there was me. Like high school, I felt cursed with self awareness: my years of travel led me to pack only two outfits besides my actual ski gear. There I was, in sweatpants, while everyone else wore interesting and trendy and seemingly nonchalant outfits they wisely put together well before hopping on the plane.

I snapped out of my strange analytical intake of the scene. This ‘Sicko’ was speaking to me in a happy-go-lucky teenage drawl. He reminded me of someone I would meet at surf breaks like Trestles or Salt Creek. Unlike skiers, who are conditioned to perfect the art of small talk with years of lift riding and hot-lapping the singles line, surfers only engage in conversation when they want to.

DJ, the event announcer, stood in the front of the banquet hall, flanked by two men in snapbacks, a bingo-night wire rolling ball on the table before them. Names rattled off DJ’s tongue as teams for the competition were randomly selected. Red Bulls, mostly of the vodka variety, flowed freely, so as the night chugged on, so did the growing hum of excitement between each round table.

Only sixteen athletes were competing in Red Bull Cascade, among them Aaron Blunck, Colby Stevenson, Jed Blue Waters, Birk and Svea Irving, Tanner Blakely, and Konnor Ralph.

Each was personally invited by Brown himself, who, at the moment, was wandering around the tables, making small talk and snapping polaroids with those in attendance.

DAY 1

The athletes were clustered under the obnoxiously bright but smartly designed Red Bull tent at the base of the course. House music was already playing from the Red Bull Jeep.

The announcer singled out Gus Kenworthy, a more outwardly reserved and mature competitor. He stood at a tall, thin table, exuding a deep, inner calm.

“This is Gus’s 6th day of his season!” DJ announced excitedly. Gus had thrown down the day before, and was one of the athletes I saw from the bottom, giving perspective to the sheer size of the last jump.

Gus was briefly in a minute of quiet, so I walked up to him, guilty to interrupt his breather alone.

“So tell me, why is today on your sixth day on snow for the entire season?”

There was no hesitation in his response. “Seriously? I don't know. I mean, I love skiing, obviously, but I'm just kind of removed from it. I'm living in Los Angeles. I'm trying to pursue other things and I don't have as many opportunities to get to the snow. And last year I kind of wanted the break. I had a few head injuries and I was ready to hang my skis up and take a break and just do something separate for a while. And then this year I definitely missed it, but I only got on snow a few times. But this has definitely got me fired up and feeling the love again.”

He was focused, relaxed. “So, how's the course?”, I asked.

“It's incredible. It really is a mix between a freeride, big mountain event and a Slopestyle competition. It’s also really fun. There's not that many resorts you could do this at. And Solitude did a really great job. We got lucky with the weather today. I hope it holds for tomorrow.”

The course was, indeed, something to behold. An intimidating top section with rock bands and cliff drops transitioned into winding tree-tap opportunities and then, finally, to the man-made park.

Bobby Brown had designed this course to be a rendition of a real skiing experience: poaching pow off in the glades, hitting natural features, finishing things off in the park before loading the chair again. Bobby had succeeded not only in garnering enthusiasm from the athletes, but for making a challenging, yet entertaining, show for the crowd over the weekend.

Plus, none of the athletes had to be there, in the traditional sense. There were no points to be won, no stop to be counted towards a final qualifying event.

I caught Aaron Blunck between conversations and joked that he was the easiest person to photograph, wearing bright orange. He laughed.

“What was the main motivation to do this comp since it doesn’t, you know, count towards anything else?”, I asked.

Without missing a beat, he said, “It was something fun, that’s different, that involves a ton of different people who are all from different areas and different aspects of skiing. It was something we don't always get to do.”

His friends are laughing and calling him over. I tell him he can go before he asks. He’s nice about it, asks, “are you sure?” I laugh.

DAY 2

The bluebird weather of the day before did not hold. The mountain felt smaller in that familiar way like when fog rolls in. This was a snowstorm, fair and square, but it was coming in heavy—6-percent density, according to ski patrol, more than Utah’s famous 3-percent blower powder, and it wasn’t snowing quite enough to slash or surf.

Still, it was a bonafide powder day, and this meant extra grooming for the park builders. It is so easy to forget that not everyone likes powder. Park rats. Ski racers. Probably other people, but I can’t say who. Interestingly, no one seemed put out by the snow, despite the course being severely affected.

Bobby, even, sauntered up to the Red Bull tent with his signature, toothy grin and tasseled hat. If he was concerned, he wasn’t showing it outwardly. “Is this going to mess with the course?” I asked him.

Without any sort of contrived or polished response, he just said, “nah,” and promised we’d take some laps in the fresh snow.

The speed-requiring features were, namely, the Rainbow Rail and the jump next to the top of the Apex Lift. No matter how hard the park maintenance crew waxed the rail in between athletes, there was no hope.

The skier would come down to the jump up to the giant rail, size it up, and despite having hit it yesterday, ski by it in order to gain speed for the next jump.

I asked a couple of the park builders about the making of the course later in the day, and they said, “we knew about a month in advance what the course was kind of going to look like. But we started the build about 10 days ago. And we had about five days to get all the rails welded up.”

In other words, they built the rails from scratch.

Competitors were doing mute grabs and tail grabs and spins and flips and rail grinds and then, to top it all off, smearing or buttering through the finish line. The crowd, which had amassed quite a bit by this point, was going crazy.

Amidst the chaos, Jay Riccomini, captain of Team Centerpunch, clued me in to what was going on within the course due to the snow.

“It was pretty sketchy for sure, especially on the bottom section. But this top section was pretty chill with the snow. Just super hard to see, flat light. But on the final run we put a little bit of wax on our skis. That definitely helped.”

“I saw them waxing Rainbow Rail, but no one was getting enough speed,” I said.

“It's just really sketchy with there being the gap, and no one just wants to fall into it.”

I peered into Jay’s eyes, or tried to. Their goggles were blackout lenses. I had clear lenses in and the snowfall was so intense I still felt like things are dark. “Do you have a dark lens in?”

“I do, but they're actually a rose lens, so I can see pretty well.”

Typical contestant for Red Bull Cascade: completely relaxed, even with a dark lens on a storm day, ready as ever to hit massive jumps in front of an anxious crowd.

Although it seemed like everyone was just at the event for fun, someone—or some team—had to come out on top. It was a competition, after all.

Team Mando, which was made up of Bobby Brown, Jedson Blue Waters, Colby Stevenson, and Rell Hardwood, took first. All three top teams gathered atop stump-built podiums, barely able to balance with ski boots on the slick surfaces. The grins were real, though. Even as the media teams crowded the podium, every single athlete held an ear-to-ear smile.

GRADUATION PARTY

Bobby was seated at a table in the back of the room, similar to a principal who just gave everyone a half day because there’s an assembly. I guess that would make all of the skiers at the other tables students.

In a way, the comparison wasn’t far off. A cheeky smile lit up Bobby’s face. He was sandwiched between two people in a vigorous conversation. He didn’t gesture much with his hands, but his face gave him away.

He was proud, I think. Everyone skied well, got along, tested and proved themselves on his brainchild of a course. Why wouldn’t he be proud? The goal of any school worth its salt is to get people excited about learning. This weekend, it did.

“I have a wristband,” I stammered to the bartender behind the counter. Behind the bar was dark, but the windows normally looked out on the road going down through the canyon. Marin came up to the counter with one of her friends. You would never guess she was hucking 40 foot jumps in flat light just hours earlier. She smiled at me. “I got it.”

“I promise I’m not lying about—“ I know thank you is the better, more graceful response, but it feels weird asking someone you watched ski all day get you a drink. I should be buying her one, truth be told.

“No, yeah, we talked earlier. You’re good.” She laughed.

Just like that, the ice was broken, and we were just two girls at a bar in a crowded banquet hall. Just like that, it was senior year all over again. Cool kids and mousy writers shaking hands to go silly-string the principal’s car before the last day of school.