Navigating a Lifelong Run in Big Mountain Skiing with Chris Davenport
On today’s episode of The Adrenaline Zone, Sandy and Sandra interview two-time World Champion skier and lifelong outdoor enthusiast, Chris Davenport. Widely recognized as one of the top skiers in the world, he is the first person to ski all fifty-four of Colorado’s 14,000-foot peaks in less than one year. Chris starts the conversation by talking about his earlier skiing experiences. As he recounts, he was exposed to all the joys of being outdoors very early on so the passion for outdoor activities was instilled in him at a young age. Then, Chris discusses the potential risks and challenges that sports like skiing involve. According to him, the trick is to get smart at handling risk.
Next, Chris talks about the “goosebump” moment that all ski athletes experience – the feeling of looking down a huge mountain, seeing a big crowd cheering you on, and observing the surroundings. Believe it or not, Chris still gets butterflies in his stomach in moments like these which is one of the many indicators of his love for skiing and ski racing. Then, Chris discusses one of his biggest accomplishments, becoming the first person to ski fifty-four mountains in one year. He even wrote a book about it, called Ski The 14ers, where he told a story about this once-in-a-lifetime adventure. Finally, Chris proceeds to talk about the importance of efficient equipment for skiers. He also opens up about his current projects and activities. He’s still very much spreading his passion for skiing and teaching others to understand the language of the mountains.
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Transcript:
Dr. Sandra Magnus: It lies somewhere between the pit of your stomach, your racing heart, and your brain, somehow trying to keep it all together. That's an area we call The Adrenaline Zone.
I'm retired astronaut Dr. Sandra Magnus.
Sandy Winnefeld: And I'm retired Navy fighter pilot, Admiral Sandy Winnefeld. We’re two adrenaline junkies who love spending time with people who are really passionate about pushing their boundaries as far as possible.
Dr. Sandra Magnus: When the vast majority of people think about going skiing, they're thinking about whether they're up for doing a black diamond expert run.
Sandy Winnefeld: Well, Aspen, Colorado native Chris Davenport blew right past the black diamonds through double black extreme terrain diamonds and into a whole different world.
Dr. Sandra Magnus: A two-time world extreme skiing champion, he's been places and done things most of us only see on films while nursing our sore legs from our days on the slopes. He's also accomplished one of the most remarkable feats in skiing history.
Sandy Winnefeld: Who is Chris Davenport? Well, we'll find out right after this.
Dr. Sandra Magnus: Many thanks to our sponsor for this episode Freedom Consulting Group. If you're looking for stimulating work in our national security intelligence sector, check them out at FreedomConsultingGroup.com.
Dr. Sandra Magnus: We caught up with Chris just after he returned from doing a bit of skiing instruction in Chile. Yes, you can ski all year.
Chris, welcome to The Adrenaline Zone. And welcome back from Chile. Good to have you with us.
Chris Davenport: Yeah! Thanks so much, Sandy. Yeah, it's so wonderful to be back after a couple of weeks break from summer getting on snow – gosh! I just missed it so much. It was fantastic. But nice to come back to Colorado and be back in the summertime here for a bit.
Dr. Sandra Magnus: Chris, you've been skiing for a long time. What got you started?
Chris Davenport: Yeah, I certainly did. I was very fortunate to come from a family that embraced the mountains and skiing as a sport and as a family activity. It goes back to my grandfather, who post-World War 2 built a small cabin in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. My dad and his siblings grew up going there. And then they raised their kids, us, skiing in the same place. So, I was exposed to all the joys of being outdoors and being a young athlete at an early age.
All of my family kind of grew up doing that and now the next generation of Davenports, of which there's 12, are all skiing and all kinds of doing the same thing. So, history is repeating itself. It's a wonderful way to grow up and learn about human potential, what you're capable of, pushing yourself outdoors, and again, I feel just very fortunate that I was able to do that, and then now able to pass it on to my kids and the next generation.
Sandy Winnefeld: So, Chris, as we're going to hear today, you've got an awful lot going on. Let's start with big mountain skiing. You’re a 2-time World Extreme Skiing champion. Tell our listeners, because some of them may not ski very much, what big mountain skiing really is and how it works.
Chris Davenport: That's a great question because actually skiing comes in sort of many different forms. It's a lot more diverse, I should say, than maybe something like golf or tennis or basketball.
There's alpine ski racing. There's cross-country skiing, where you're sort of going more flat with skinnier skis through the forest. There's freestyle skiing, where people are doing jumps and flips and all sorts of tricks. And then, there's what we call, what you mentioned, big mountain skiing.
It used to be called a kind of extreme skiing, where it's basically using skis on big mountains, typically climbing up those mountains and then skiing down, sometimes using a helicopter to do that. But you're skiing steeper terrain, more technical terrain, and just bigger mountains.
So, that's sort of been my specialty. Although I've come through all aspects of skiing, to be honest, I started as an alpine ski racing competitor and raced in the NCAA circuit in college. I never made it to the US Ski Team or the World Cup, as both my sisters did, but I was kind of trying to get there.
Anyway, I raced in college and then sort of discovered this other world of the emerging world of free skiing, or big mountain skiing, as we call it. And that's been really what sort of taken my career to where it is now, as you mentioned, winning a couple of World Championships and a medal at the ESPN X Games and lots of other sorts of competitive accolades.
But I spend most of my time right now as a guide taking people on trips, skiing all over the world, literally all seven continents, from Antarctica to Africa to North America and Europe. I love that because I get to push their limits but still stay well within my own.
When I was really sort of competing and making ski movies that are very high level, quite dangerous accidents happened. I got in some avalanches and different things. There was a time when I was like, I should probably take a step back from that if I want longevity here.
Dr. Sandra Magnus: When did you realize you wanted to do big mountain skiing as a career and that you were actually good enough to make it happen? And for that matter, how does one go about doing big mountain skiing competitively?
Chris Davenport: So, just going back a little bit further. I remember a day skiing in New Hampshire, I think I was 13 years old, and we were ski race training that day. I was riding up the chairlift and it was snowing out. The skiing was fantastic. I was going up the chairlift with this friend of mine and we looked at each other, we were having this conversation about how much fun we were having and we said, ‘Wouldn't it be so cool if we could just ski every day for the rest of our lives?’
I think these light bulbs were going off without us even knowing it. But that sort of planted the seed, like, you can actually work in the ski industry. You can live in a ski town. You can do things, jobs that allow you to be on the mountain almost every day.
And so, I kind of carried that with me. After graduating from college, I moved here to Aspen Snowmass. I had a job coaching ski racing and working on the mountain, basically, so I could ski every day.
To answer your question, more specifically, this was the early 90s and big mountain skiing or extreme skiing competitions were starting up. The way these competitions work is you basically take a section of a big mountain, Sandy, you mentioned you're in Breckenridge, right now, Mammoth Mountain California, Crested Butte, Whistler, these Palisades, Tahoe, these places that have sort of big faces with cliffs and trees and things, and yet, you put a start position at the top and you put a finish position at the bottom and the athletes are able to ski wherever they want on the mountain, as long as they start at the top and they finish at the finish line. They can go wherever they want.
Basically, this is a judged event. The judges are looking for aggressiveness, degree of difficulty, technique, control, and fluidity – 5 elements. So, what that means just to break it down is you basically want to ski the most difficult line that you can fast and then make it look good.
So, no mistakes and no bobbles. If you've watched Olympic Gymnastics, you watch the balance beam, and they do these incredibly technical tricks but as soon as there's one little bobble, you go, ‘Oh! That's a deduction.’ So, the same kind of thing in skiing. You just want to be totally fluid with great technique, skiing fast and get to the finish line and be like, ‘I did it. Yay!’
And so, I was really good at that. I think I took some of my ski racing training and skills that I built throughout my life and I brought both that, sort of those physical skills, but also more importantly, maybe the mental grit and focus to those competitions.
And to answer the final part of your question, I wasn't sure if this was going to go anywhere until a couple of years later, I won an event in South America. And that got me a qualification for the World Championships which took place in Valdez, Alaska. I went up to Valdez, I'd never been to Alaska, I'd never been in mountains that big. I'd never been in a helicopter. And here I was competing with some of the world's legends of this sport and I won that competition.
And so, on the flight home from that event, I was basically writing a business plan in my notebook of how I was going to take this newly minted World Championship title and turn it into something, which now 26 and a half years later is my career. It's been incredible.
Sandy Winnefeld: This is really an amazing sport. I've seen people do it in person out here. To reiterate, it's not carefully controlled ski jumping off of a ramp with a nice landing spot. There are twists and turns and big rocks and huge elevation changes. And as you point out, Chris, there's some artistry involved. So, there's a lot of potential for mistakes that could not only cost you points but could lead to some serious injuries. How do you manage the risk?
Chris Davenport: Yeah, it's a great question. I mean, looking at it as a sport that has risk is the most important thing to start with. If you disregard the fact that you might get hurt, or you disregard the fact that there's terrain that could mess you up or cause issues, I think you're kind of missing the point.
Part of the reason I loved doing this sport and continue to love being out in the big mountains is I love looking at it holistically, like, how do we get the best possible outcome from the thing that we're trying to do, whether it's climbing a mountain or skiing back down a mountain? And what are the things that could trip us up - trying to identify those potential risks and then figure out how we mitigate them?
So, kind of throughout this process of growing up in the mountains, doing mountain sports in the summer, as well as in the winter, I've learned a lot about managing those risks and trying to understand like,’ if I screw up right here, what's the worst that can happen and am I okay with that, right?’ That's the most important thing. If I make a mistake, is it potentially going to cost me my life? Well, yeah! Probably not going to go there. I want to push and I'm willing to make mistakes, but I also want to know that if I do, it's not going to be the end.
Sandy Winnefeld: So, how did it progress for you as a young, big mountain skier to being an older big mountain skier? I mean, we've talked to other folks who've taken risks like IndyCar drivers, they changed their approach over time as they got smarter and older, which didn't necessarily cost them in terms of performance, but they approached it differently. Did you experience that?
Chris Davenport: Yes, I think you hit the nail on the head right there, Sandy. I actually use this racecar driver analogy sometimes in my public speaking. People say, ‘When you had children, did you dial back your risk? Or as the kids got older and your family got bigger, did you take less risk?’
My answer is typical, ‘No, but I got a lot smarter at managing the risk. I understood more about my options. I understood more about the decision-making process.’
That race car analogy is if you're a race car driver and you have children, do you go out and drive slower? No, of course not. You're a racecar driver, that's what you do, you're there to win the race, you just get smarter at the way you approach it.
So, I became better at managing risks because one, I was more clear in the identification of things that could go right and things that could go wrong. Once you can identify the risks, then you can begin to either mitigate them or create a sort of plan B or plan C. Rarely do I go into the mountains saying, ‘I'm going to get to the summit, and I'm absolutely going to ski this line.’ That happens every once in a while, when the conditions are perfect, and you can feel quite confident that things will go your way.
But more often than not, I like having a bailout and a plan B and it might be because of the weather, it might be because of the snow, it might be because of a client that's not moving as fast, but I'm always trying to give myself as many options as possible.
And then, at the end of the day, I just like being outdoors. So, the goal of getting to the top or skiing back down is almost secondary to the experience of just being out there. So, when I think about it that way, and I go out and just put one foot in front of the other in the mountains, I'm just always having a good time. It's sort of managing expectations is what it is. When you keep those expectations low, you generally exceed them and then that's a good thing.
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Dr. Sandra Magnus: You mentioned earlier that you also do guiding. How do you change your approach to risk when you're bringing people with you who may or may not have the same level of experience as you do?
Chris Davenport: Yeah, that's really a great question. I would say I don't change my approach to risk at all. It remains the same. I'm constantly looking out for those things that could trip us up or cause issues. But you're responsible for other people. You're responsible for their success, their fun, and their safety. And so, I'm just more tuned in to things that are going on around me.
We like to think of our experiences in the mountains as understanding the language of the mountains, meaning you have fluency in kind of what's going on around you. I mean, Sandy, you flew airplanes. When you're a pilot, you feel what the plane is doing. You can see the clouds or the weather. You start being able to kind of speak this language of flying. It's very much the same in the mountains. Mother Nature doesn't hide anything from us humans, it's just up to us to see it all, to see that big picture, to filter out things.
And so, I'm quite fluent in this language of the mountains, meaning I can pick up on little signs, signals, and little details that are out there that other people might not see and I can use that to inform my decision-making process and then share that with clients, people that I'm out there working with, and make sure that they understand why I'm making one decision versus another or going through the process. I try to really share that.
Sandy Winnefeld: I imagine you have to be cognizant, not only in this case, when you're guiding, of your own ability, but now you're trying to manage other people's abilities that are probably not as high as yours and getting that out and figure out who these people are and how good are they has to color where you take them.
Chris Davenport: Yeah, it's important.
Dr. Sandra Magnus: Yeah! And the expectations they have, too.
Chris Davenport: Yes, yeah, you're absolutely right. It's really important to discuss those expectations. We have to talk about the goals for the day, and what we're going to try to achieve. We're looking at the weather and we're creating another plan. Hey, if we get up there and the weather's changing, or something happens, we can always turn around right here and just kind of be very communicative, very open to just let's go out, have some fun, and see what happens.
Dr. Sandra Magnus: So, do you have any hairy stories from either your competition or guiding? I'm thinking of Antarctica here. That's an extreme location.
Chris Davenport: Sure! But to be quite honest, the answer to that question is I don't have too many hairy stories. I think I've been very calculated. I think I've been very good at making good decisions. I certainly wouldn't pat myself on the back and say it's been perfect because like I said earlier, I've been in a couple of pretty big avalanches that were bad decisions on my part, when we were filming, making ski movies, and I was sort of pushing the envelope.
Sometimes we call it Kodak courage, doing something for the camera that you would never do if you were out with your friends or your family or your clients. It's just taking an unnecessary risk for the glory of a great shot in a movie. It was a red flag for me that I didn't really recognize when I was younger. But as I got older, I realized that that was something I really needed to pay attention to.
So, yeah, I've been fortunate. You mentioned Antarctica, it's hairy because it's so remote. The scariest part about Antarctica is there's no one around. Like, if you have a problem, you are in deep. It could be something as basic as a broken arm or a broken leg. Not that that's basic, but on a ski area, you'd be treated, and you'd be fine. But the closest hospital is like 800 miles away. And so, we don't take risks down there. We ski conservatively.
The whole continent is covered in glaciers. And so, that means there are crevasses which people tend to fall into and that's really, really scary. So, oftentimes, we're on a rope, in case someone does fall into a crevasse.
And so, there's just different techniques and tactics that we use down there to make sure people are safe. Typically, the only issue for people to have is sea-sickness. When you're crossing the Drake Passage, sailing from Argentina down to Antarctica, that's the one thing that tends to get people, but once we're on the continent, we're just focused on safety and focused on fun.
Sandy Winnefeld: Wow! So, looking back on your big mountain career in the old days, when you were doing those competitions. You go up a lift, maybe you take a snowmobile up, you have to do some climbing and traversing, and finally, you get to the place where you're going to start your run and you're looking down this huge steep mountain, and you can see maybe a crowd down below watching, how does that feel just before you start that run?
Chris Davenport: You're describing the goosebump moment. Right there, it is intense. You've done all your homework, meaning that you've studied your line, you've got it sort of memorized, you know where every landmark is, and where you're going to make your turns or your jumps.
So, you have a plan. What you don't do is go in without really understanding where you're going to go and where you're not going to go, where the no-fall zones are, and where the good zones are.
So, if you've done your homework, you should have some confidence. That doesn't mean you still don't get butterflies. I mean, I competed for, gosh, almost 30 years of my life as a little kid ski racing and, and then as an adult in these big mountain competitions, and I'll tell you, standing in that starting gate really never got any easier.
You could be a world champion, you can be an Olympic champion, you can have all this experience. But you still get those butterflies when you're in the gate because you care, you love it so much, you want to do your best, and it's a great feeling.
But as soon as that start person says, ‘Chris Davenport from Aspen, Colorado, in the Start – 3, 2, 1,’ and you go out, all those nerves kind of go away, and you get into this flow state where really nothing else matters, you're just focused on the next turn looking ahead and going for it. That's the rush. I mean that and then you get to the finish line, if you've done it well, it is such a powerful, emotional feeling. It's a combination of adrenaline and it's a combination of verification of all the confidence and all the hard work that you've done. It’s just a magical feeling.
I don't really get that as much anymore but I also don't really miss it terribly, so that's fine. I get really excited by skiing down something pretty easy with some clients that have huge smiles on their faces because they've never done anything like that.
Sandy Winnefeld: Kind of like landing on a ship at night. I don't miss that at all.
Chris Davenport: Yeah, I would like to do that someday. Actually, I've never landed on an aircraft carrier and I think that would be an incredible experience. And take off, of course.
Dr. Sandra Magnus: We had a great conversation with Aussie Big Wave Surfer, Jamie Mitchell, to kick off our Season 2 and one of the things we talked about was the camaraderie of the people involved in that sport. I imagine it's the same in your community because it's not a big community, big Mountain skiers, is it?
Chris Davenport: No! Sandra, that's a great lead. I know Jamie, we've met. I think the surf community and the ski communities are really similar in that they're lifestyle sports. There are towns that literally are there because of those sports. Surf towns and ski towns exist because of the activities themselves.
And then, the bonds that are created over these shared experiences, whether you're out on the water sitting in the lineup with your friends, or you're out in the backcountry ski touring with your friends or even just skinning up the ski area, a great day on the ocean is not very different than a great day in the mountains.
Yeah, these communities are small, especially at the highest levels, the professional levels, literally everybody knows each other. There's a ton of respect out there. People are sharing ideas. People are sharing trips and people share sponsors and partner brands much like they do in surfing.
I'm trying to think I don't know if there are really any other sports or activities that are like surf and ski in the fact that they bring people together in such a way that it defines them. It literally defines, like if you asked me to define myself in one word, I would say skier. That is totally who I am and Jamie Mitchell would say surfer.
Dr. Sandra Magnus: Before we move to ski mountaineering, I just want to mention to our listeners to check out your website at ChrisDavenport.com. There’s lots of cool info there.
Sandy Winnefeld: Yeah, so to ski mountaineering, which we sort of touched on a little bit already, but it's not for the faint of heart or body. This is climbing and, in your case, skiing Colorado’s 54 14ers. And that's mountains over 14,000 feet in elevation. You did it in one year, which is absolutely incredible if anybody's ever tried to climb one, much less ski down one. It's been done before, but not in a year. What motivated you to try to do 54 mountains in one year?
Chris Davenport: Yeah, this is a project that took place back in 2006. At the time, I had been competing for about a dozen years. I've been making ski movies. I had a great career. 2-time World Champion at this point. I had great sponsors, I was making a good living. But there was something missing. I kind of felt like it was a little too, status quo, I’d been doing the same thing year in and year out. Don't get me wrong, it was incredible. I was traveling to some of the world's greatest ski locations and just having a ton of fun.
But I also was looking to sort of further my career and separate myself from those other pro skiers that were doing the same thing. I was literally out on a bike ride in September of ‘05, the fall before thinking about my goals for the coming season. I've always been very goal oriented. I write down goals. I plan for the season. I try to accomplish these things. I was thinking about the coming year and as I was thinking about what I wanted to do, out of the blue, very epiphany-like, the word 14ers popped into my head – Colorado 14ers.
You mentioned them, Sandy, it's 54 peaks over 14,000 feet. Colorado has more high mountains than any other state in the United States, with the exception of Alaska, of course. But I'd climbed a lot of the 14ers in summer. I'd skied, maybe at that point about 10 or 11 of them but I thought, ‘Gosh! Wouldn't it be a cool project to try to do all of them really fast?’
This is a time when ski mountaineering and even backcountry skiing was very nascent. It wasn't a big deal. The equipment that was out there at the time was not very good. There was very little information on the internet so we would use paper guidebooks and maps and things.
And so, it was a time where just there wasn't much attention and focus placed on that. And that provided me an opportunity. So, I went out and began this project in January of 2006, and was able to ski all 54 in under a year, becoming the second person to ski them all. The guy who did it first was a mentor and good friend of mine, Luke Dawson. He started in 1979 and finished in I think, 1991 or 92 – so 12 or 13 years.
That's even more analog back then. There was no internet and they didn't know anything about skiing in these big mountains. So, they had to learn by doing, but I came along and did it and now 15 years later, I think there have been 16 people who have finished them all. There are several women. One guy has beaten by my time – actually, former Navy SEAL Josh Jespersen, a good friend of mine, did all the peaks in, I think, 130 or 40 days. So, he beat me by a bit and currently holds the record. So, just the tip of the hat to the Navy there.
Sandy Winnefeld: But there's something else about being first.
Chris Davenport: There's something about being first, of course. That was a great project. I wrote a book about it called Ski the 14ers, which did really well and it actually sort of helped wake up the industry as to the possibilities out there in the backcountry. Within 3-4 years, all these companies and brands had started investing more money in backcountry equipment, better bindings, better boots, better skis. And now we see it as really one of the fastest growing segments in skiing.
The pandemic really added fuel to that fire because chairlifts weren't running and people wanted to be out there skiing touring and climbing up mountains, so they would buy skis with skins on the bottoms, they could walk up and then ski back down. Yeah, I feel like I played a small role in helping backcountry and ski mountaineering become really popular.
Dr. Sandra Magnus: If nothing else, it sounds like a great workout program climbing all of the 14ers, some of which are fairly civilized, and some, of course, are pretty tough. And you had to be a pretty good mountaineer, I imagine, to manage the hazards on the way up as well as a great skier further way down.
Chris Davenport: Yeah, this is absolutely true. I like to think of the Colorado 14ers just like we think of ski trails on a ski area, where you've got green circles, blue runs, black diamonds, double black diamonds. The 14ers are the same. There are some very easy ones that are fairly short. I mean, the altitude is still high, but they're technically easy.
And then there's some on the opposite end of the spectrum. There are about 5 or 6 or 7 that are extremely difficult, very dangerous. And those are the ones that typically prevent people from finishing all the 14ers because they just can't get those final ones done that are really difficult.
But I kind of thrive on that. I love the challenge. I love the really difficult ones. And I love being in that what we call that no-fall zone for short periods of time, because it's quite intense, and you're extremely focused. You can't mess up. Mistakes are not allowed in that world. And then you kind of get out of it and you're like, ‘Oh my gosh! That was incredible.’ But I limit those interactions nowadays.
Sandy Winnefeld: Well, I wouldt say that the 5 peaks that people have a hard time getting up, they're having a hard time getting up in the summertime.
Chris Davenport: This is true.
Sandy Winnefeld: Yeah, I can't even imagine the wintertime. I would guess that the route going up is not always the same as the route coming down. Is that a fair statement?
Chris Davenport: Yeah, that's a fair statement. Sometimes you're gonna go up the easier way, or the path of least resistance, if you will. And then, you're going to come down the more fun way. So, skiing down is so much fun. It's so free. It can be intense but in a good way. But I'm trying to ski down the most creative and most challenging line that I can because that's what's fun to me.
That doesn't mean I'm trying to take extra risks or do something more dangerous for the sake of fun or attention. It's just that's where I get my thrills, skiing the things that are really challenging.
Sandy Winnefeld: It’s very cool.
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Dr. Sandra Magnus: So, are you mapping your route down as you go and picking the very best path? Is that how that works? Or do you do a lot of planning ahead of time?
Chris Davenport: Yes, although I will say though that the more homework that you do, the better your chances of success. So, I'm not dropping into ski something that I haven't already looked at, or thought about, trying to understand.
Nowadays, we have the advantage of so much information on the internet. There are images out there. So, I really would never ski something blindly. I just wouldn't do that. Typically, I'll climb a mountain with perhaps one route of descent in mind. But if I don't like that, I would, as I said earlier, have a plan B, always be able to descend the route that you skied up.
So, you're never really locked into doing something that's unnecessarily dangerous. I mean, we get up on mountains in the wintertime, and even in the spring, and sometimes realize that conditions are a little different than we had hoped for, or we thought, based on avalanche forecasts, weather forecasts. And so, you have a change, you say something like, ‘I thought I was going to feel good about skiing the slope. Now that I'm here, and I'm looking at it and I'm maybe digging a pit in the snow and looking at the layers, I'm not feeling good about it and I'm going to change my mind.’
That happens. That's a good thing because that means that you're getting feedback from the mountains and you are using that data to help inform a good decision. And so, it's nice when the mountains kind of confirm what you think ahead of time, but it's also nice when you get a little bit of a surprise and go, ‘Huh! I'm going to learn something from this so it doesn't happen again.’
Sandy Winnefeld: And so, Chris, I'm thinking about equipment here and reflecting on, like, when I skin up in the morning, I got my little backpack with my jacket and my goggles and when I get up to the top, I take the skins off, swap it out and put it in the backpack.
What you're talking about is completely different, right? The gear you need in order to scale some of these peaks is totally different. You're having to carry skis and boots. How do you manage that thing? Is it a pretty big loadout I imagine carrying all the equipment you need for both ascent and descent?
Chris Davenport: Yeah, it can add up, although the equipment has gotten so good nowadays, and it's gotten quite a bit lighter. So, really, I would never be carrying unless I'm on an overnight, where you've got a tent, sleeping bag, stove, those types of things. That starts getting pretty heavy.
But on a typical day, and most of the 14ers you can climb and ski in a day, you've got some of the things you mentioned, I mean, your ski boots are on your feet, all day long, you're climbing and skiing with those.
The skis are fairly light nowadays. You've got skins on the bottom for walking up, then you peel the skins off at the top, and put them in your backpack. You’ve got your food. You’ve got your water. You've got your extra layers. You mentioned, probably have an extra set of gloves, and goggles, and got my helmet. And then some technical items like crampons, if you're climbing firm snow or icier conditions. You don't want to slip off the mountain so crampons or spikes that clip to your boots.
Sometimes I'll have an ice axe in my hand for walking up. And then, some things like a GPS, tracker and communications device, perhaps a radio, definitely a camera. Yeah, probably missing one or two things, but you kind of pare it down, the more you do this, you get very efficient. Efficiency is, we haven't really talked about this yet, but it's so important. The way you move around the mountains, use the least amount of energy necessary, carry just the right things, not too much, not too little. The best gears out there are the ones that are the most efficient. They just make it look effortless.
Actually, going back to surfing. It's the same thing. You see a pro surfer paddle into a wave and it looks like they barely paddle. They were just in the right spot. The same thing happens in skiing.
The best skiers are the ones that just look like they're just flowing effortlessly. And you go, ‘Wow! How did they do that?’ Everyone else is like sweating and tired and the good guys and girls are just kind of smooth.
Sandy Winnefeld: We have a saying in backpacking that ounces turn into pounds and pounds turn into pain, right? I can imagine what you're doing is quite the same.
Dr. Sandra Magnus: So, the arc of your career is, I don't want to say overly aggressive, but really going out learning, taking some really aggressive challenges, and then maybe having a little bit more experience in pulling on the efficiency piece. So, where do you think you are in that balance now between being overly aggressive and experienced? Where do you think your career is going to go from here?
Chris Davenport: Yeah, I like the question because I'm always thinking about my career. One of the great things about skiing is it's a lifelong sport. It evolves with you as you get older. You can always be doing it in one shape or form.
While I will say I was aggressive in my goal setting and seeking out challenges, I look back on it now and I don't think in any way it was overly aggressive. I think it was perfectly aggressive. I wouldn't really have changed anything going back the last 25 years. I think I made a lot of the right decisions and put myself in front of a lot of great opportunities.
And nowadays, and we've talked about this a little bit, the things that get me really excited are skiing with other people, skiing with clients and taking people on these grand adventures and really just showing them the time of their life. I like to say that the bar for me is the best ski day ever when I hear that from someone and they're like, ‘That was the best day I've ever skied.’ I'm like, ‘Yes! All right, I did it!’
So, that's what I try to deliver. But on top of that I'm involved with a lot of different businesses in the ski industry. Their brands. Their partners. Their sponsors. I'm an owner of a number of things. I love that interaction, whether it's product design and development on skis, boots, and clothing, or it's doing something totally outside of the box. I've got an insurance business that I work with. I've got a CBD drink business that I work with. I've got a wine business that I'm involved in.
And so, all of these things are just kind of fun because they're new challenges. They involve risk, but it's a different risk. I'm not going to die doing this but there are financial risks, reputational risks, and things. But these are just fun, new challenges that, when I was 25, I probably didn't care about but now that I'm 50 I do care about now. They're fun to provide for the family and they're fun to just see again, like what you're capable of in terms of coming up with great ideas.
Sandy Winnefeld: Chris, I'm very grateful to our mutual friend, Jim Crown for introducing us. As everyone knows or you know, Jim is part of the family that is so very important to Aspen Mountain. Can you tell us about your relationship with Aspen Mountain and the whole Crown Organization?
Chris Davenport: Sure! Thanks for that. You mentioned the Crown family. So, a family from Chicago and they've been the longtime owners of Aspen Snowmass, the ski resort business here.
I think we're very fortunate to have them as our ownership group because it's not corporate. We're not owned by Wall Street. We're not beholden to shareholders. I know the family loves this place. They care deeply about the community.
And so, we just feel kind of lucky and honored that they’re our owners. I've known Jim for a long time, probably 20 or 25 years since I became a pro skier and an ambassador for Aspen Snowmass. I really have been kind of one of the most, I guess, well known athletes to come out of Aspen Snowmass in the last generation.
So, although I don't get to see them very often, we've cat-skied and we've skied all in Montana and different places, and I always enjoy the time we get to spend together. We're lucky to have them.
Sandy Winnefeld: I have to confess I've never skied Aspen, but I'm certainly looking forward to the first time I get out there.
Chris Davenport: Open invitation. We know some people that can get you a ticket.
Sandy Winnefeld: Okay!
Chris Davenport: Yeah!
Dr. Sandra Magnus: You mentioned all the things you're up to these days. Do you get a lot of requests to mentor new skiers? Is that part of what you do as well?
Chris Davenport: That is part of what I do. It’s the whole sense and idea of giving back. I've had such a wonderful career. I’ve been so blessed. I really love giving back nowadays in a number of different ways.
So, yes, we do mentorship programs, both through my ski boot company, Scarpa. So, I've been mentoring athletes, younger athletes through them, and then also with Red Bull. I'm the longest-running Red Bull athlete in North America. So, kind of the OG, if you will.
There are a lot of young Red Bull athletes that are teenagers that are world-class at their sport, but don't have the bigger picture of sort of maturity and longevity, and how do you do all the things that are going to keep you relevant for 10 or 20 or 30 years. So, I do a bunch of things with them as well.
And then, also, I'm involved in a number of different nonprofits. So, I've been the president of the Aspen Valley Ski and Snowboard Club. We have 2500 kids in our programs. We raise a ton of money to provide opportunities for those kids because we don't want any kid to be like, ‘I can't ski because I can't afford it.’
So, we're always raising money to help kids in the valley here and beyond to participate in our programs. I'm on the Board of Trustees of a school back in New Hampshire, kind of for the same reason. Well, one, it's my alma mater. I went there, to the Holderness school in Plymouth, New Hampshire, and two of my kids have gone there. Again, I just love giving back and trying to make that the best product and the best school, and the best experience it can be.
And then I serve on a bunch of ski industry awards, as well. And so, that's just the giving back part. I feel like sometimes I'm doing too much and I can't give enough attention to all these things but they're also fun and they're also inspiring, and I get to work with great people so I don't know about you guys, but I've always had a hard time saying ‘no’ to cool things.
Sandy Winnefeld: Yeah, I know the feeling.
Chris Davenport: Yeah!
Dr. Sandra Magnus: I know exactly what you're talking about. You certainly sound like you're a busy guy, Chris.
Sandy Winnefeld: This has been a remarkable discussion, to be honest with you. And I keep thinking back, a young kid, 13 years old dreaming of skiing every single day. Now you're 50 and you've accomplished so much. You've got so much going on in your life. Congratulations!
It's really been a thrill, I think, for us to be able to hear your story and all the different types of risks you're taking and your sort of relish for that sort of thing, it's an inspiration for all of us.
Chris Davenport: Well, thank you, guys. The conversation has been wonderful. I hope you can tell that I'm passionate about this stuff. I just love it so much and because of that, as I said I love sharing it with people as well. Hopefully, someday we can all get together.
Sandy Winnefeld: Absolutely! Well, thanks for being our guest.
Chris Davenport: My pleasure. Thank you!
Dr. Sandra Magnus: That was a big mountain skier, Chris Davenport. I'm Sandra Magnus.
Sandy Winnefeld: And I'm Sandy Winnefeld. Thanks again to Freedom Consulting Group for sponsoring this episode. Do some work that matters. Check them out at freedomconsultinggroup.com
Dr. Sandra Magnus: And check us out on social media including a short video of our interview with Chris on TikTok. Our handle is very simple – @theadrenalinezone.
Sandy Winnefeld: We'll see you again soon.
