You probably don’t know what a “nose butter triple cork 1620” is—much less ever stomped the landing on one. But 21-year-old Henrik Harlaut, a dreadlocked, high-flying skier from Sweden, was the first to complete the trick, one of the highlights of the just completed Winter X Games in Aspen. Meanwhile, snowboarder Shaun White, who at 26 was the oldest competitor during Sunday night’s closing competition, won his sixth consecutive gold in the superpipe, and depending on who you talk to—or rather the age of the person you talk to—may have cemented his place as the most famous person working on snow not named Vonn.
The action sports extravaganza has invaded Aspen for a dozen years, becoming a high-flying annual circus that fills hotels, bars, restaurants, and the slopes with a tribe younger than Aspen’s typical capital-gains-counting visitor. It’s the resort’s busiest and most popular weekend of the year. But ESPN has opened up bids for the 2015 games, with big-name winter hubs including Whistler, Park City, and Lake Tahoe looking to bank on the media cachet, and hard cash, of hosting Winter’s rowdiest barn-storming road show. Here are some images from the front row.
