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.

Pages: 1 2 3