K2 Skis' party on wheels; 2014 Road Trip Challenge

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Intro by Henrik Lampert | K2 recap by Damian Quigley

The Return of Road Trip Challenge

Based on Thrasher’s popular King of the Road series, FREESKIER’s Road Trip Challenge debuted in 2007. That summer, many of you followed along with the video series that showcased two weeks’ worth of shenanigans all across New England, with Team Völkl’s Scott Hibbert and Ahmet Dadali battling Michael Clarke and Andrew Hathaway of Team Salomon. The basic premise being: complete challenges, earn points, acquire the ultimate bragging rights.

Those web edits are the best. I love to watch ’em time and again. The content is absolutely hilarious, and the skiing is top-notch. The RTC of ’07 is also dear to my heart—I hold fond memories of tagging along for the ride as Hath and Clarke were among my closest friends at the time. We were all involved with a freeride program at Waterville Valley, NH, then.

I recall jibbing dumpsters, jumping over cars, bagging double-kink rails in the streets (at the time, a feat in itself) and so much more. My best buds were going to be featured in FREESKIER magazine—a multi-page story, no less. There was a huge coolness factor involved with the whole thing.

Yet, among all the ups, there were downs. I won’t soon forget an incident that occurred at Okemo Mountain Resort, March 16, 2007, during a training session for the Fischer Super Slopestyle Open, where big points were on the line.

Hathaway hooked an edge on a sticky down rail, ultimately whacking his head on the rock-hard ice and suffering a traumatic brain injury. He was airlifted to Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, just minutes from his home in Norwich, VT. We spent a number of tense days in the waiting room before Andy was finally released after surgery—he had the same shit-eating grin on his face, as always.

Despite the setback, the RTC rolled on. Clarke actually went on to take third in that contest, while one Willis Brown served as Hathaway’s substitute. Team Völkl would eventually earn the win, and the RTC was inked into freeskiing’s history book as one of the all-time road trips.

Alas, hard drives went missing, along with much of the priceless film footage. The web series never aired in full, and combined with the Hathaway scare, the blunders were enough to put the kibosh on all future editions of the Road Trip Challenge.

Until now.

From the moment I came on board full time at FREESKIER, the return of Road Trip Challenge was oft on my mind. That adventure of ’07 was just too damn fun—we had to bring it back. It took a fair amount of lobbying on the part of the edit staff, and by February 2014, the stars had aligned. Team K2 had signed on, as did Team Nordica. I could taste it. Once again, New England would be the stomping grounds. The hair now raising on the back of my neck. And from there, it was down to the finer details.

Of three things we were certain: we’d arrive in Boston on a Tuesday, we’d rent RVs and we’d depart the following Monday. On second thought, that third point was never a given. No telling where the road would carry us or bury us. Arrangements, plans and team members shuffled right up to the last minute—and I mean minute. With the flip of a coin, though, in the back of an RV parked in Cambridge, MA, it was game on.

The Players

Representing Team Nordica: skiers Ian Compton, Kieran McVeigh and Dale Talkington, along with cinematographer/Nordica team manager Evan Williams, photographer Peter Cirilli and FREESKIER editor, Henrik Lampert.

Representing Team K2: skiers Maks Gorham, Sean Jordan and Clayton Vila, along with cinematographer Kyle Decker, photographer Christopher “Topher” Baldwin and FREESKIER managing editor, Damian Quigley.

The Rules

The rules were simple. Keeping with the theme of the original RTC, each team would be given a packet of challenges; the tasks included skiing stunts of all shapes and sizes, plus off-hill antics. Challengers would travel around New England via motor home, with the goal of completing as many challenges as possible, each goal corresponding with a certain point value. Whoever racked up the most points in the allotted time period won. Eternal glory, plus an invitation to defend the title during next year’s showdown, was the prize. Pending, of course, we don’t take another six-year hiatus.

Would we remain injury free? Would the RVs be returned in one piece? Dive in; enjoy our accounts of the 2014 Road Trip Challenge.

Team K2: Life’s a Party

It’s about 5 p.m. as I weave my way through the streets of East Boston. I’m heading toward the DoubleTree hotel, overlooking the Charles River in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It would normally be an easy destination—just off Storrow Drive—but the overpasses here weren’t meant to accommodate an RV, and so I’m relegated to navigating the narrow, inner-city streets during rush hour from behind the wheel of a Ford Econoline that spans 30 feet and handles about as well as a construction dumpster with four wheels and a V-10.

With the sun low in the sky, I pull up to the hotel, and once the whole crew is assembled, we get down to business. In one of the RVs, we lay out the rules and hand out the highly anticipated list of challenges for everybody to pour over. We decide which team Lampert and I will be on with the flip of a coin. Heads it is, and I’m with Team K2—a rowdy bunch for sure. Laughing and hypothetical planning of the week quickly turn to trash talking, and we swiftly kick Team Nordica out of our RV so we can get started.

Gorham volunteers to get his ear pierced in the RV so we can put the first points on the board. Decker furnishes a bottle of whiskey while Vila “sterilizes” a paper clip with a lighter. After taking a sizeable pull of the brown water, Gorham grits his teeth and endures multiple unsuccessful jabs at his earlobe before the dull metal tears its way through. We all bang on the window, yelling at our opponents who are still parked beside us. “Alright let’s go get fucking drunk,” says Vila.

With the first points on the board, we’re all amped, but I get the feeling that Team K2 won’t exactly be losing sleep over point totals this week.

Each RV has a burner (flip) phone on board that people can call and offer to help out with challenges or just chat with the team. Just a few minutes after sending the number out to the World Wide Web, it’s starting to ring pretty frequently, and “K2 douchebag hotline” is Vila’s preferred way to answer it.

“Is this Clayton?” ask most of the people on the other end.

“Yes.”

“Really?”

“Really. We’re looking for a party. You got one for us?”

“Uhhhh…”

Click.

Not having much luck with our random callers, the group puts the phone down for the night and in some regard, for the week. We decide it’s time to park the beast for the night, but finding a place to do that in Boston isn’t very easy. After driving in circles for a while, debating the legalities of passenger drinking, we end up on Commonwealth Ave., in Allston, where we decide that it’ll be a good enough spot. Sandwiched between a Planned Parenthood and a Dunkin’ Donuts, we lock the rig up and head down the block to a dive bar for a few drinks.

It’s 50 degrees and drizzling rain the next morning as we cruise through the suburbs of Boston. With little to no snow on the ground, we scope out a few rails, but the motivation to put on ski boots in this weather is utterly low. We know there’s a serious snowstorm forecasted for northern New England, and we swing by Topher’s parents’ digs just outside the city to shower up and debate our next move. While we’re there, we get hit up by “Digi” Dave Amirault, ex-FREESKIER staffer and East Coast native, who urges us via Twitter to head towards Sunday River.

The resort’s team quickly jumps on board, offering to help us with various challenges. The mood among the ranks takes a turn for the better and seven hours plus one surf stop after waking up, we arrive in Bethel, Maine. It’s dumping snow.

Lucky for us, the journey has ended with a spread of appetizers, cold beers and boiling lobsters provided by our friendly hosts from Sunday River. The feast gets us some points, though not everybody has a taste for lobster. “Look at it. It’s an insect!” says Decker as he puts down his lobster cracker and picks up his camera.

A quick load of laundry and a post-dinner bathroom cleaning get us some more points, and after accepting an invitation to join them in their local TV studio the next day, we bid farewell to our gracious hosts. We head up the road to the Snowcap Inn where we play a little ping pong and discuss plans for tomorrow. Team K2 is feeling pretty good, but it’s anybody’s game at this point.

On day three of our adventure, our skis finally see the light of day. Gorham and I take advantage of some early morning freshies and then meet up with the rest of the crew to head over to the resort’s TV studio to film a quick segment. After finishing our taping, the staff is happy to gift us an old TV that has been sitting around gathering dust and is perfect for one of our challenges. We know that there are a ton of other challenges we could bang out around the base so we check some off and head down the road to find some grub and decide what’s next.

One of the few preplanned parts of our trip is a mandatory rendezvous in Burlington, VT, on the fourth night. Seeing how it’s late on day three, and we’re not going to do anymore skiing, we decide to make tracks in that direction. Accustomed to traveling around the American West, I find it’s pretty nice to be able to hop two states over and pull into Stowe, VT, Gorham’s hometown, in a little over three hours on the rolling booze cruise, Fred Durst blasting from the speakers. Once there, we shack up at the Gorham residence—grateful for a warm house to spend the night in.

Video Playlist (7 Videos): Watch the 2014 Road Trip Challenge unfold

We ditch our rig in town and head for the lanes via cab, arriving about 20 minutes late. Before I can finish paying for the cab, the boys are already inside the impeccably clean RV that sits across the parking lot. It seems the Nordica boys forgot to lock the window. How could they be so careless at a time like this? We get to work ransacking the joint and enjoying a few Coors Lights on the house before we head inside. Little do we know that Jordan, who emerges a few minutes later, is busy pouring beer into every single ski boot he can find.

If it weren’t already apparent, it’s now abundantly clear that this team does not exist to win by virtue of having more points but rather by having far more fun.

As we walk inside, we’re greeted at the door by some of our rivals who all have ridiculous-looking mohawks, and I surmise that most of them have tattoos to go along with them as the point values attached to these challenges were pretty significant. I know Lampert wants to win this thing, bad. And at this point, I’m 95 percent sure that his insatiable and inexplicable love for hot dogs has led to a cartoon wiener being permanently etched somewhere on his skin.

The next day, we crush some on-hill challenges at Stowe Mountain and Jordan inks a sponsorship deal with Jan’s Farmhouse crisps. Conveniently, Jan happens to be Gorham’s mom, and for a year’s worth of endorsement, Jordan picks himself up a shiny Canadian loonie and all the Farmhouse Crisps he (we) can eat.

Riding the high of a new sponsor for our teammate, we pile back into our rolling trash emporium and head north, to Burlington. Our rendezvous is to take place at a bowling alley just outside the city where we will battle for big points. The team isn’t all that excited about bowling but is naturally pumped about the potential opportunity to ransack Nordica’s RV.

An Instagram post by Vila tips the Nordica boys off to what just went down in the parking lot. They are less than thrilled. The bowling hasn’t even started and yet the look on their faces makes it feel like we’ve already won. Nonetheless, they take it on the chin like good sports, and we all start rolling balls.

Despite my playing with the skill level of a four year old, the game stays pretty tight through most of the frames. In classic, nail-biting fashion, the decision comes down to the last few rolls. I manage to lock up my game for a couple good frames, and then it’s Gorham who sticks a dagger in Nordica with a stellar follow-through. We are stoked. Not only did we get to trash their RV, but then we beat them at a game that we didn’t even want to play. Then, we raged.

After taking on the bar scene in Burlington, we rendezvous back at Casa de K2 around two in the morning, most of us with stragglers in tow. Having roughly 15 inebriated people in the RV, we naturally decide it’s time to get some points. Some poor sap chugs—and I mean chugs—beer out of one of Jordan’s Full Tilts, which smells like an abandoned gym locker. As good as that is, the group wants more.

The single highest point value on our list of challenges is associated with getting FREESKIER or a FREESKIER logo tattooed on oneself. As we talk about it, one of the stragglers inside the RV asserts his proficiency in the “stick ’n’ poke” realm of inked arts. After some loose debate, it’s Gorham who once again signs up for a challenge that should most definitely be done in a far more sterile environment—but that’s not the K2 way.

We show the “artist” what the logo looks like, and he gets to work on an oddly placed, side-finger tat while we all look on. About 10 minutes and five pulls of whiskey later, Gorham is the proud owner of a … drunk asterisk? It’s quite possibly the worst attempt at a FREESKIER logo that I’ve ever seen, and none of us knows quite what to say as we stand in front of Gorham. “That’s … sweet,” is the best I can come up with. Claiming success, the artist gets up to leave and spills ink all over the floor.

The next morning is rough. Riding high on our victory, we partied ourselves into a serious state of hangover and officially trashed the hell out of our home. The floor is covered in ink, sticky as hell, and littered with remnants of a good time. Not to mention the smell. Oh, the smell.

A few of us go grab some breakfast and bring it back to the RV where Jordan is still passed out above the cab and Gorham, suffering possibly one of the worst hangovers I’ve ever seen, is laying in the tattoo parlor. The latter makes an attempt at eating which results in his quick departure from the vehicle to avoid throwing up all over it. The cameras quickly come out, and Gorham is even quicker to tell Decker and Baldwin where they can shove them. In the meantime, we post a Craigslist ad aimed at Florida that advertises a wave runner for sale at a hell of a discount. I put the number of the Nordica team phone in there and wish that we could be there to hear what kind of phone calls result from it.

Since everybody is too hungover to ski, we decide we’ll get to work smashing the old TV we have sliding around the RV. We head for the iconic Burlington double kink and just as we pull into the parking lot across the street from the school, I hear Jordan start hurling into a pizza box while lying in the bunk above me. It seems eating wasn’t a good idea for him either. The crew is less than stoked on it, but he tells everybody to “chill” as he darts out the door with a box that’s dripping more than greasy leftovers.

We stumble out of the RV and survey the scene. Mostly quiet save a few cars in the parking lot—meaning a few people inside.

A few minutes later a loud noise pierces the silence, and the Panasonic relic does a perfect disaster down the double kink—flawless execution by Vila and points on the board for K2. The three of them jump back in the RV, and we hightail it out of there before anybody knows what happened. The annoyance of having a TV sliding around has now transformed into the danger of having jagged, broken plastic and glass pieces sliding around, and our RV continues its transformation into a rolling city dump.

It’s now about 4 in the afternoon, and our list of accomplishments includes eating, puking and destruction. “Ugh, I need to brush my teeth,” I hear coming from the back. We pull over in an attempt to get our life together and decide that some night skiing is in order. We know that we need to be in Boston in a couple days, and I suggest we point the bus south, toward Gunstock, NH—partly because it makes sense and partly because I grew up skiing there and hadn’t been back in over a decade. The group is on board. I put the Econoline in gear and hop on 89 South.

By the time we pull into the Gunstock parking lot, it’s about 8 o’clock at night. The boys shred hot laps through the park, linking up multiple lines among the different features it has to offer. Just before closing, we all beeline it for the tubing hill. We’re hoping to bag a few more points before the lights go out, and the staff is more than accommodating—giving Gorham, Jordan and Vila a ride to the top with their skis so they can mach down the icy hill, switch, as it glistens under the lights. Count it!

The next morning, we continue our trek south and meet up with some of the other Stept boys—Cam Riley and Nick Martini—who had gotten a ride up from Boston. Vila had been talking about a spot in southern New Hampshire that he wanted to hit for his upcoming solo project. It’s a dam on the outskirts of Manchester and we spend most of the day building up the feature, but a slight breeze keeps growing until Vila is forced to call off the shot. C’est la vie. We hop in the RV and roll onward to Manch-Vegas for some eats.

Following a dinner full of General Tso’s and dragon rolls, we retreat back to our mobile home, feeling lethargic and once again lacking any sort of plan. With the addition of Riley and Martini, we now number eight, and the only suggested activity, a common one, is to get drunk. We drive down the street, and I pull into a 7-Eleven where we get a little more than we bargain for from a lovely cashier. We jump back into the RV with a free case of beer and review the footage of her exposing herself from behind the register for no good reason. The mood has improved dramatically over the last 10 minutes. I point the RV south on 93 and we hightail it for Boston.

By this point, our posse is haggard. We’ve been going nonstop for almost a week, and people are starting to get on each other’s nerves. I park the RV in front of a bar in Allston and we drink a few more beers before deciding to go in and check it out. It is, after all, about 12 feet away. Decker, who has all but lost his voice to a nasty cold, declares that he’ll be staying put and trying to get some sleep.

Around closing time, the seven of us come stomping through the RV door, interrupting Decker’s slumber. We all crack a few more beers, and Jordan suggests we knock off the milk challenge—one that was almost checked off on the first night and had been brought up a number of times since then. Lampert, the creator of the challenge, had originally intended it to say “Take a shot of another man’s chest hair with milk,” but had made a typo and written “Take a shot off another man’s chest hair with milk.” We weren’t sure how or why Lampert ever came up with this, but the simple fact is it is worth a lot of points.

Jordan had bought a small bottle of 2-percent on the first night and now, keen on getting some easy points, pulls it out of the fridge. He needs a partner. Riley gets volunteered and while he isn’t psyched on the idea, agrees to be involved in the spirit of good sportsmanship. He pulls his shirt up as Jordan cracks the top off his milk and announces to the rolling cell phone cameras what he’s doing. The next few seconds are probably some of the most erotic in Stept history.

On the final day of the trip, we awake in front of The Draft house. Tired, sick, hungover and generally feeling like hell, we mount up for one final mission to Wachusset Mountain, a small resort that lies about an hour west of the city. We’ve got a feeling Team Nordica is there, and we figure we might as well show up and ruffle their feathers a bit seeing as how we’re pretty sure that our point totals aren’t going to get us any medals. As we’re getting on the highway, somebody mentions something about a text message from Martini, who had crashed with a friend the night before. Seems as though he forgot a backpack in the RV, and that we’ll need to return it later in the afternoon when we’re back. We drive on.

About 45 minutes later, it comes to light the that the backpack that was left in the RV was actually a camera bag full of equipment that Martini needs before he heads to the airport in a couple hours. By this point, it’s almost noon, and we’re nowhere close to Martini; if we turn around now our whole day is shot. To add to that, Martini has no access to a car to come meet us. The solution: I take exit 41 off of Route 2 in Littleton, MA, and Baldwin proceeds to stash roughly six thousand dollars worth of camera gear in the woods. Meanwhile, Martini hails a cab for a pricey round trip.

We pull into Wachusett’s parking lot a short while later and park head-to-head with our opponent’s RV. They round the corner on their way back to their rig, having been skiing all morning. What a bunch of go-getters. We throw out some casual shit-talking before heading up to the park where some of the local kids are out hot-lapping. Whatever challenges we can recall off the top of our heads are thrown down as we spin laps and line up transfer gaps with some local kids. With the sun high in sky, it’s a perfect ending to the week.

Related: Recounting Team Nordica’s road to victory; 2014 Road Trip Challenge

Note: This article appears in FREESKIER magazine Volume 17.2. The issue is now available via iTunes Newsstand. Subscribe to FREESKIER magazine.