Vloggers Reveal What It's Like To Ski A Red Bull Course
The Sickos—an increasingly popular crew of action sports vloggers in the lineage of Jack*ss and Nitro Circus—have dropped another video.
This time, they headed to Solitude Mountain Resort, Utah, for Red Bull Cascade, an annual genre-bending competition dreamt up by freeskiing legend Bobby Brown.
This year's Cascade course was a fantasy come to life, combining backcountry-style features and creative superpark mega booters, making it stand apart from your traditional FIS slopestyle event.
As you might've guessed, that was the point. Brown earned his notoriety at more standard park skiing competitions like the X-Games, but with Cascade, he wanted to break the mold and fill a gap in the tapestry of competitive skiing opportunities.
Cascade's means of accomplishing this goal were twofold. First, there's the already-noted, delightfully wacky course. Second, Cascade incorporated a cooperative element, slotting athletes into teams of four rather than having them compete as individuals.
It's worth noting that, despite Cascade's success in championing an event that challenges the freeskiing park-freeride binary, the competition isn't alone.
There's Jib League, the Silver Belt, and the Nendaz Backcountry Invitational, alongside numerous competitions that, like Cascade, also fall beneath Red Bull's enormous umbrella, including Infinite Lines and the upcoming Unrailistic.
What these events share in common is they take a previously established competitive freeskiing discipline—like freeride or slopestyle—and remix its premise.
That might, as with Nendaz, involve throwing park booters on a natural, big-mountain face or, in the case of Jib League, completely altering how a competition functions by eliminating judges altogether.
This strain of events—among other pros—encourages creative riding and establishes more competitive venues for professional skiers who wouldn't normally consider themselves competitors.
In that way, the Cascades of the world are almost anti-competitions. Yes, prize money is on the table, but winning isn't the entire point. Progression, camaraderie, and—dare I say—having fun are all goals that take equal precedence. You could put it this way: when athletes arrived at this winter's Cascade, they probably weren't thinking about qualifying for the Olympics.
Neither were the Sickos. Instead, they were concerned about making it through the Cascade course without eating absolute ****. They all rip on skis and snowboards, but the gap between your typical shredder and a Red Bull athlete is huge, meaning they were puckered as they followed Brown through Cascade's collection of jumps and jibs. Thankfully, no one got hurt.
Related: Closing Dates Announced For Vermont Ski Resorts
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