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7 Questions with Skiing Icon Chris Davenport

Chris Davenport dropped by Powder7 headquarters this week en route to giving a keynote speech at the Colorado Outdoor Industry Leadership Summit in Denver. This kicked off a typical workweek for him when he’s not out adventuring: speaking engagements, award show appearances, and presentations in three different states over the next seven days.

After Jordan brewed him a fresh Americano, Chris sat down with us to talk mountaineering, ski business, and what he fears most about his kids’ generation.

The following transcript has been edited for length and clarity. The unedited audio file of the interview is available at the bottom of this post.

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From left to right: Dav, me, Jordan, and an obscene number of skis

Jordan: Are big mountaineering descents ever actually fun with really good conditions? Or is it always kind of variable conditions with boilerplate snow?

Chris: It’s always fun! It doesn’t matter what the conditions are. Sometimes the worse the snow is the more fun it is, because it’s more challenging. I’m the kind of skier that likes to ski every day: rain, snow, sun, storm, it doesn’t matter, I just love being up in the mountains. For me, skiing is pretty much always fun. So, yea, variable conditions change the challenge. When you nail it, and you know it’s totally safe and it’s just perfect corn on a 14er and it’s steep — that’s just awesome because there’s no stress. Maybe your only concern is falling or something, but you’re not worried about avalanches or other things, then it’s particularly fun. But, I love the challenge of figuring out the puzzle of snow assessment or route finding, and trying to put it all together to make a safe descent. That’s part of the fun.

And, speaking of fun: what I do for a living, I consider myself in the business of fun. Whether it’s with selling product, guiding, media, films, photoshoots, or speaking engagements — it’s all so much fun. I have to pinch myself every morning when I wake up. It’s like, “Shit, I get to do this!” Even sitting here talking with you guys is awesome. It’s always fun.

Some people look at what I do and think that it falls in my lap, but it doesn’t. It’s hustle, man. I’ve worked my ass off to be able to do what I’m doing at my [relatively] advanced age, especially still being in the business and still being, in my opinion, at the top of my game. It takes a lot of hard work. […] At the same time, that’s what life is all about. What’s life without a little risk?

Amy: Yea, we can tell just by your schedule for the next week that you hustle and work hard.

Chris: Well yea, I’ve gotta pack it all in. I’ve gotta do it before the kids get home for the holidays.

Jordan: We usually don’t associate athletes with being entrepreneurs but you strike me as being entrepreneurial in going from classic ski racing to the extreme ski scene to ski mountaineering.

Chris: It’s totally entrepreneurial. In the early 90’s there was no pro skiing path or career, and myself and some of my contemporaries like Shane McConkey and Seth Morrison and Dean Cummings and Doug Coombs sort of paved that way by figuring out that this is a business. It’s not just about being a good skier, but also about representing brands, being involved in design and development, being involved in marketing, being able to talk like an engineer and marketer — and to not just talk, but to understand those things — represent the resort business and understand the resort business and logistics. So yea, I’ve always considered myself a businessperson. My brand is just Chris Davenport, it’s just me. But putting together a whole stable of cool brands that I work with, that’s the most fun thing. I love all of these different companies that I get to work with and hang out with. It’s part of my success. As a sole individual you can only do so much, you really need a team around you. I have my wife and an assistant who I work with, but then I have all these brands and I can always fall back on them and call them for help. Having a good team is important, just like in the mountains. You don’t go climb and ski all the 14ers or Everest by yourself, you’d die or it would be impossible, but you surround yourself with great people and you’re like, oh, we can do this.

Jordan: Absolutely. We like to say it’s all about getting the right people on the bus.

Chris: Right! I always told myself if I surrounded myself with people who were smarter and better than me, then that would make me look good. So I’ve definitely tried to do that. [laughs]

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An action shot from the interview: talking skis, business, mountaineering, and the future

Amy: We try to do that as well. I have a question for you about touring and mountaineering adventures: you hear about the really great outcomes, but have you ever had a trip that was a complete cluster? Where things just did not go well at all?

Chris: I’ve been really lucky in my life and career, and I think there’s that “you make your own luck” kind of thing there. Just by putting yourself in the right position at the right time you can score and you can do well. So I haven’t had a lot of bad ones. But you can’t control the weather. I’ve sat in Valdez [Alaska] for 12 days in the rain going “oh my God, what am I doing up here? I’ve gotta get out of here.” There’s nothing you can do about that…but, if it got colder, we would’ve scored. I’ve never had a trip that I considered a disaster, or one that I wished I hadn’t done. Because, usually, the trips where things go wrong are the ones where you learn some things about yourself or your team. We really don’t learn when we do things right, we learn when we make mistakes. So, I haven’t had any really bad ones, but I have had ones where you realize what you can do better next time. We debriefed and learned that we shouldn’t do it this way. But now, I think I’m skilled enough that I can make the right decisions, so my rate of success is quite high. It’s funny: I sort of have this reputation in the ski world as always getting really good weather and snow and it’s kind of true. I’ve been really fortunate. Most trips I go on I score. I don’t know why.

Jordan: I think you know how to put the probabilities in your favor.

Chris: Yea, I think so. I think there’s something to timing and humility — just putting yourself out there and seeing what happens and not being afraid to turn around if it’s not happening. Just as an example, when I was skiing the 14ers, people ask how many times did we have to turn around? And it was like, 5 out of 54. But that’s not 54 days, that’s over 100 days. Because some take multiple days. But I’d always pick and choose by understanding the right day because of the weather forecast or snowpack — you know, managing the team so our success rate was really high. It wasn’t just “Wake up one morning and go somewhere and see what happens” — there’s a lot of research and due diligence that would go into the process, which is cool. I like that part: figuring out how to pull it off successfully.

Amy: That ties in with a question we got from someone on Instagram. Matt Jones, from Golden, asked what are your personal keys to success for staying safe in Colorado? Do you always dig pits?

Chris: That’s a great question. I don’t always dig snow pits. But, if I’m in a new area where I haven’t been skiing and I don’t know the snow pack, even though I will have done some research and read the avalanche forecast and maybe talked to some locals, I haven’t gotten my hands dirty myself in the snow, so I will go see. Around the Aspen area, if I’m backcountry skiing a bunch, I’ll be familiar with what’s in the snow, and I might just do a quick hasty pit or something like that.

But, to be totally honest, as I’ve gotten older, I do less and less backcountry skiing in the winter. I pretty much save it for the spring. And the reason for that is I understand statistics, I understand data, and you’re most likely to get killed in an avalanche in January, February, and March, with February being the highest month. If you go back to 1952 when Colorado started keeping statistics on avalanche incidents and fatalities, by far the bulk of the curve is January, February, and March. So, if I just eliminate that 6 week period out of my world, I’m instantly safer. It doesn’t mean you’re completely safe, but the best skiing in Colorado is in April and May. That’s when you can get on the big lines and the snowpack is better.

I’m more about quality over quantity. I don’t need to just be out there in the backcountry in the middle of winter when it’s more dangerous. I can’t even believe I’m still alive. I’ve lost so many friends over the years in avalanches and accidents, and I’ve been very close to that myself. I was the most dangerous kind of skier: a ski racer, moving to Colorado from New England, thinking that I’m really good, I can handle it. I was so lucky that something really bad didn’t happen. But now, I’m feeling so fortunate that I’m still here, that I’m really careful. I’m ultraconservative. Maybe I’ll ski some low angle stuff and I’ll guide a little bit in the middle of winter, but it’s very gentle.

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The Powder7 crew, plus Dav, showing off their favorite Kastle skis

Amy: So if you avoid the backcountry in those months, what do you do for training?

Chris: Well, I ski every day, so I resort ski. I ski thousands and thousands of vertical on the resorts, and I’ll uphill at the resort. I’ll definitely skin a lot early in the morning, or even during operating hours when the resort is open, just to get a workout, and then maybe ski a few laps. In Aspen, we’ll go to Aspen Highlands and hike Highlands Bowl, and do laps. Three or four of those is a serious workout. It’s awesome. So yea, just skiing every day and staying active, that’s enough for me. I maintain a good aerobic base throughout the summer running and biking and then, once spring kicks in, I’ll be touring everyday through the beginning of June. The only month I haven’t skied this year is September. I’ve got 220 days already. So it’s a lot of time on snow.

Amy: Did you have a background in anything that built your aerobic capacity?

Chris: I started out as a [road] bike racer when I was 14 on a team out of Boston, CCB International. It’s still a really strong East Coast team, and I went to the Junior National Championships, rode some international races, grew up with some guys that went on to race the Tour [de France]. When I came out here to go to school in Boulder, I started mountain bike racing on the Colorado circuit. That has always sort of been my summer love. I try to ride almost every day in the summer, not so much in the winter, but I definitely love cycling.

Jordan: Do you aspire to do anything athletically, that’s completely outside of skiing?

Chris: I’ve always been a climber, also. So that’s maybe my 3rd passion, rock climbing, because I grew up in North Conway, New Hampshire, which is sort of a hub of climbing in New England. One of the reasons I came to school in Boulder — besides to ski race at CU — was the climbing. We, literally, would spend every day in the summer in Eldo[rado Canyon] climbing. Right over there [points out window], so close! One of my dreams, and I never did it, was to climb 5.13. So that’s something I still really want to do, and I think I can do. I just need to dedicate myself. But to be able to go to Rifle, I’ve got a few 5.13 routes that I think would work for me, I just need to spend a summer training to do it. It’s like a bucket list kind of thing.

Athletically, aside from that, no. I’m pretty happy with the stuff I’ve been doing. There’s plenty of mountains — I just love climbing mountains and skiing mountains. So, there’s thousands of those to do. I have a life list.

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Jordan, me, Dav, and what’s left of Dav’s Americano

Jordan: What athletes do you admire?

Chris: Oh man, I admire all athletes, my gosh. I guess aerobic sports have always been really important to me, so triathletes, pro cyclists, ultra runners. I just think what those people are doing is pretty spectacular nowadays. I’ll watch the Crossfit Games on TV, and even though that’s not my schtick, I’ve still spent probably thousands of hours in the gym in my life and so I can appreciate it. I think it’s just ridiculous the kind of stuff they’re doing. So that’s super impressive and my wife is actually really into Crossfit and goes 5 days a week and just loves it, even though she’s not at that kind of level. So I think that’s impressive. Climbing and alpinism too — the kinds of things I can understand and really appreciate. I think in almost all sports nowadays, the level is being pushed so far and so high of what humans are actually capable of. I wouldn’t want to be a young pro skier right now. It’s really scary. Not just what’s happening in the [terrain] park, but in what’s happening in big mountain.

I still can’t believe no one’s skied all the 14ers faster than I have yet. That record is 10 years old. Come on, guys! Somebody’s gotta get out there in the spring and nail them all! Joe Grant from Boulder biked all the 14ers in thirty days this summer, which was cool. Andrew Hamilton from Denver, broke the 14er record in like nine days, driving and climbing them all. Nine days, fifty-four peaks?!

Jordan: You have 3 kids. What worries you most about the world that their generation will live in?

Chris: Well there’s obvious answers to that! [laughs] I think that the Internet is a blessing and a curse. Humans sort of evolved and we grew up with these deep, meaningful, human connections, because we would spend time talking to eachother and reading books. And now, everyone’s in front of devices. And my kids, even though they’re very outdoorsy and sporty kids, they’re like any other kid: if there’s a device, they’ll look at it. And I’m guilty of it, too. I just worry that’s taking something away from that human nature and personality and social interaction. My wife and I try to do these great trips with the kids where there is no internet. Whether it’s a river trip or going to the desert or going on a surf trip in El Salvador, just so we’re together, and it’s really meaningful. I think there are a lot of families now that just plug their kids in, and what do you have in 20 years when that’s how you grew up?

I’m also very involved in climate advocacy with Protect Our Winters, and I always tell people that I want my kids to have the same opportunities that I had growing up as a kid in the mountains with snow and water and all these resources that are potentially depleted. So having [my kids] understand the human impacts on the Earth and being advocates for doing the right thing is really important. And I think they get it.

It’s so cool: about once a week, some student from somewhere in the country will get a hold of me and say “Hey, I’m doing my senior thesis on climate change and how athletes are involved and I want to talk to you.” And that’s really rewarding. That whole sense of giving back, for me as an athlete, you can put all the awards and championships and all that stuff aside, [giving back] is the most meaningful achievement and thing I’m most proud of. Being seen as an influencer and mentor, that’s awesome.

Jordan: The last question, I’m totally stealing from Tim Ferriss, what is an item you’ve purchased in the last year for under $100 that has had the biggest impact on your life?

Chris: Well, we talked about it already! The Pop Socket! I swear, one of my kids had one, and these little things are $18 or $20, and I’m kind of addicted to it. It’s the greatest little gadget that I’ve bought for my phone. People always ask about it, and I love that you can customize it or change them out. I’ve done custom ones for my ski camps, and Aspen Skiing Co. does them…GoPro did them for an event. And it’s from Boulder, so it’s local.

Davenport with the Pop Socket
Dav’s favorite new toy, the Pop Socket

Our thanks to Chris for taking the time to share his passion and energy with us. For additional information on Chris Davenport or the companies and causes nearest and dearest to him, please visit:

 

The complete, unedited, audio file of the interview is here:

 

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