The post-holiday winter slump always have a way of lingering like the scent of woodsmoke, or jet fuel on a heavy coat. The sedentary purgatory where the world slows down just enough to make the inevitable return to the machine feel like a physical blow to the gut. For those of us tethered to the digital grind, the "off-season" is a myth as 1000 of images, and requests are made up on a daily basis. Between the relentless demand for editorial pieces that capture the ever-shifting "now" and the exhausting maintenance of a life lived off-screen, the start of the year usually feels like drowning in a sea of unread emails and blue-light fatigue. You spend weeks hunched over a keyboard, trying to distill the chaos of culture into something resembling a narrative, while the real world moves at a velocity you can only hope to glimpse through a browser tab. But, on X-Games Week…Well, I like X Games Week.

My second trip to X Games Aspen was the necessary violent jolt to break that cycle and inject the proverbial adrenaline I needed to get back into the a culture of sports not seen much here in the flat lands of the midwest . This year, I returned with a different intent with hopes to see even more of the unfiltered version of sports I have grown to love more and more as time goes on. The authentic that drives athletes, and leaders to the slopes and fear only the thought of not trying at all. Seeing legends like Zeb Powell, whose effortless style makes professional snowboarding look like a a fashion show, or Zoe Atkin, whose technical precision borders on the surgical, reminds you why we bother covering this at all. The raw, visceral human experience of people who have decided that "impossible" is just a suggestion.

The air at Buttermilk Mountain was thin, cold, and electric, charged with the kind of tension, or vibe that only exists when you put the world’s most talented athletes on a sheet of ice and tell them to find the limit. The narrative of Day Three was a sprawling epic of redemption and historical weight. The headline, of course, belonged to Mark McMorris. In a sport where the shelf life of a professional is often measured in months, McMorris has spent over a decade defying the expiration date. In the Men’s Snowboard Slopestyle Final, under a shifting sky that played havoc with visibility, McMorris delivered a masterclass in slope warfare. Trailing behind Red Gerard, who looked poised for a "three-peat," McMorris dug into the deepest reserves of his experience. His third run was a symphony of risk—a Cab 270 back lip to switch, leading into a backside triple cork 1440 Indy that was as clean as a surgical strike. It wasn't just a win; it was his 25th overall medal, making him the winningest winter athlete in X Games history. As he stood there, eighth gold in hand, he looked less like a competitor and more like a man who had finally made peace with his own legacy.

But if McMorris was the record-breaker, Kirsty Muir was the soul of the weekend. The Scottish phenom’s journey back to the top is the stuff of cinematic tragedy turned triumph. After two years in the darkness of ACL rehabilitations—missing Aspen in '24 and '25—she returned to the same course where she’d previously won bronze. To watch Muir stomp a left double cork 1440 safety to take her first gold was to witness the end of a long, lonely exile. She didn't stop there, either, pivoting to the Big Air Final to secure a silver medal just hours later. It was a reminder that the most impressive trick in Aspen isn't the spin; it’s the ability to pull yourself out of the wreckage of an injury and drop back into the gate.

The youth movement was equally relentless. In the Women’s Snowboard Knuckle Huck, 16-year-old Jessica Perlmutterfrom New Jersey stepped onto the world stage and promptly tore up the script. The Knuckle Huck is the "punk rock" of the X Games—an event judged on overall impression, creativity, and flair rather than the rigid metrics of the superpipe. Perlmutter ended Cocomo Murase’s reign with a series of "Sloth Rolls" and layout backflips that felt like a middle finger to the establishment. Murase, however, had already left her mark the night before, stomping the first-ever backside 1620 triple cork in a women's contest—a historic rotation that she performed while wearing a leather jacket, blending high-fashion defiance with elite athleticism.

As the floodlights took over and the snow began to dump in earnest, the atmosphere turned into a high-octane fever dream. The Snowmobile Speed & Style Final, modified for safety into a pure "Speed" shootout, saw 39-year-old Willie Elam take his first gold after a career of bronzes—proving that in Aspen, even the veterans can find a second wind. In the Men’s Ski Superpipe, a modern rivalry between Alex Ferreira and Nick Goepper—the 31-year-old titans of the sport—was interrupted by the Kiwi sensation Finley Melville Ives. The 19-year-old surged to 20 feet, 6 inches above the pipe, landing a switch double cork 1440 that felt like a changing of the guard, leaving the veterans to battle for the remaining steps on the podium.

The final act of the weekend belonged to Scotty James in the Snowboard Superpipe. James didn't just win his eighth gold; he tied the records of Shaun White and Chloe Kim, asserting a dominance that feels almost gravitational. He sealed his fifth consecutive victory with a switch backside 1440 to backside 1440 combination—the first time back-to-back 14s had ever been landed in competition. It was the perfect punctuation mark for a weekend defined by the relentless pursuit of the "next."

Being back in Aspen was a profound reset. There is something about the brutal honesty of the mountain that cuts through the artificiality of modern life. You can’t fake a triple cork, and you can’t pretend to be resilient when you’re staring down a 22-foot pipe wall. This weekend wasn’t just about the results; it was about the culture—the music of Alesso and Elliot Sloan thumping through the valley, the fashion of the slopes where high-performance gear meets streetwear rebellion, and the shared realization that we are all just guests in this theater of ice. I leave Aspen with a notebook full of scribbles and a renewed sense of purpose. The editorial grind will wait for me, and the emails will still be there when I get back, but for a few days, I got to stand at the edge of the frame and watch people do things that shouldn't be possible. It was a privilege to cover this level of human endeavor as more than just a media functionary. I hope to be back for many more X Games in the future; there are always more stories buried in the snow, waiting for a discerning eye to find them.

***I also lost a lens hood on that mountain. If you find it, holler!

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Photo Credit For All Images : Josh Boles