Moena, Italy. Tomorrow, eighty brightly dressed skier and snowboarders—freeriders as they’re typecast in Italy—will line up to pound 2,500 vertical feet of avy debris and spring cement down the Col de Margherita in the Scufoneda Freeride Cup. But tonight, the head of snow safety for the event is dancing in his underwear and knee pads, athletes are pouring grappa down their throats, and, even though it’s 11 p.m., almost no one has taken off their ski boots.

This is Scufoneda, northern Italy’s weeklong ode to telemarking, big mountain skiing, and the general debauchery that goes along with it.