Hot Laps with Baker Boyd
A talk with the Freak about how his skiing is informed by the mountains he lives in and the terrain he skis
This is the second story in a series—Hot Laps—that focuses on a concept that has fascinated me for years. The idea is simple: where we ski shapes how we ski. It's about nature and nurture.
The hypothesis behind Hot Laps is that we ski the way we ski because of where we ski.
To kick it off, I spoke with Daron Rahlves about how Sugar Bowl and the Hahnenkamm inform his approach to skiing. Silver Belt and The Streif left an indelible imprint on the way Daron looks at skiing.
For the second installment of Hot Laps, I hit up Aspen’s Baker Boyd.
It’s hard to write a profile about Baker Boyd. Even though I have a decade watching him ski, it’s hard to focus on Baker. That’s not because he doesn’t deserve the spotlight. Rather, it’s because he always shares the attention.
Recently, I recorded nearly an hour of tape from a conversation we had. Baker spends a lot of that recorded conversation talking about other people. Who’d he talk about? He talked about:
His older brother Billy;
His regular ski partner Victor Major;
His two nieces who are five and three years old;
His late friend Sam Coffey;
Wiley Maple, his childhood friend and who recently retired from World Cup racing;
Greg Hope—Telluride’s wunderkid—got some airtime;
And, so did his friend “who is an accountant and an amazing snowboarder who is organizing a trip to Alaska a few days after April 15.”
He asked me a lot of questions, too.
But, this is about Baker.
“Where’s your favorite place to ski in the world?” he asked. Italy, Interior BC, Ajax and the Andes.
“How do you ski Aspen mountain on a good day?” he asked. It depends, but this year it’s started at 1A every morning.
“How fun is it to ski tree trails in Aspen with five year olds that you love?” he asked. It’s the best!
But, I was talking with him because Baker Boyd begets a story. His approach, his humility and his skiing deserve an audience. He tried hard to send the attention to people he cares about. But, Baker’s going to get a profile. And, you should all follow Studebaker Boyd’s skiing because it’s next level.
He was born in Telluride. His introductory mountains were the San Juans. Then, Baker spent four years ski racing in Park City before moving to Aspen at 12. While ski racing in Utah and Colorado, Baker bounced around both states to bang gates. It was a solid survey of mountain ranges and ski resorts before becoming a teenager.
“I got to ski a bunch of resorts while ski racing,” says Baker. “It was super fun. It was really just resort skiing for a long time. I didn’t get into the backcountry in a serious way until I was 24. Resort skiing shaped me when I was growing up because that’s all we did. Colorado doesn’t get as much snow as other places but it stays really dry here; so, you get interesting conditions for resort skiing.”
The mix of resort skiing’s efficiencies and Colorado’s varied conditions laid a foundation for Baker Boyd. He got reps—a lot of reps. Like Steph Curry getting shots up to perfect the craft of shooting a basketball, Baker got shots up. He spun laps on chalk and he hammered bumps, he banged gates in training sessions and freeskied powder when it snowed. He rode chairlifts a lot en route to honing his approach to skiing.
“The laps and the reps were a big deal in my development,” says Boyd. “Going into every season we all feel a little rusty. But, then we get our laps in. Then, we feel more confident and strong. I remember when my mind started keeping up with everything that was happening. It got a lot easier as I spent as much time as possible skiing.”
Nowadays, Baker skis Aspen when he’s not traveling or ski touring.
“The awesome community in Aspen and the terrain we access here is what keeps me around,” says Baker Boyd. “There are steep pitches on Ajax, but they’re shorter. There’s a lot of terrain and different transitions to work with and I have fun trying to generate speed out of those transitions on Aspen Mountain. Some other places have consistent steep pitches, but I don’t want to make the same turn over and over. I like having undulations and different things. Skiing under the chair gives you the best bang for your buck. Some people shy away from it, but it’s awesome to get some hoots and hollers. Who doesn’t like seeing someone go for it under the chair? If someone crashes it’s classic, but you’ll give them a holler.”
Need proof? Watch Baker show The Yooj some love!
After all the the chairlift-aided reps, Baker’s getting the chance to ski in new zones and in front of large audiences. In the last few years, Baker has shot film parts with Warren Miller in Iceland and with Head Skis and Sam Kuch in Japan, among other projects.
“It’s awesome to ski in other places because other terrain and other people help you become a better skier. Right?” asks Baker.
Here are seven questions from my chat with Baker Boyd about his evolution, his approach, his crew and more…
Greg Fitz (GF): What compelled you to start putting a beacon, shovel and probe in your kit and approach skiing in a different way at 24?
Baker Boyd (BB): I guess it was the people in my immediate friend group who inspired me, like Sam Coffey and Wiley Maple. Sam wanted to get into the alpine sooner than I was interested in it, and Wiley was skiing the World Cup Downhill and traveling all over the world. Then there’s Victor Major. He’s a couple years younger than me but he has a lot of experience skiing in the alpine, navigating technical terrain and getting into couloirs. He, honestly, is the biggest inspiration in my skiing. Morris Hogan is another friend in Aspen who is really solid. And, a dozen others. We have a really good group of friends here who love skiing.
[If you’re interested in learning more about Bake’s group of friends. Check out this article by Devon O’Neil about The Freaks of Aspen for Ski Mag!]
GF: Where would you go early on?
BB: We were just doing sidecountry laps off of the resorts. We were trying to get familiar with the snowpack in that way—deep in the woods, shorter vertical, not too many terrain traps or open spaces to trigger. We tried not to get into any deep shit early on. Then, we slowly started stepping into the alpine. For me, I got to progress a little quicker because of my friends like Victor Major. He’s been a mentor for me with this type of stuff.
GF: I see a lot of steep stuff, technical terrain and skiing between rock walls on IG. I know you guys are traveling to the Alps. How’d you go from Aspen’s sidecountry to Chamonix? How’d you know it was time to rub pennies together to get to Europe?
BB: The first trip to Europe was in 2017 with Sam Coffey, Victor Major and my friend Nico “Coco.” I followed Sam and Vic on that trip a lot. They would’ve liked for me to be more involved when we were picking lines out to ski. But, I was so overwhelmed by how much there was to ski and what was possible. We learned a lot on that first trip. Our perspective became a lot bigger and broader.
GF: It’s the Pipeline of skiing. Nate Wallace described the North Face of the Aiguille du Midi to me as “the North Shore of skiing.” Where’s next?
BB: I’d love to go to La Grave. But, I’m actually headed out to AK on the 17th (of April 2021). I’ve never been there; so, I’m really looking forward to this trip. It’s just me, Victor, Morris, Joe King, Paul Davis and Fritz Carpenter. We’re going up to a glacier on a prop plane. Hopefully we don’t get skunked and can get out there for 10 to 12 days. We’ll see what the weather does.
GF: From AK to your family, how much joy do you get out of skiing with your niece? It’s pretty cool that you get to do that with her and that you make time for it.
BB: How much fun is it to ski tree trails with a little kid that you’re just enamored with? Once they learn to slide fall line, hockey stop and smear with the fall line… it’s huge. The possibilities are so much bigger. It’s so fun to ski with my five-year-old niece and watch her get better and have fun. It’s so fun to ski all over the place, ski stuff that challenges you and also ski with your five-year-old and three-year-old nieces.
GF: Who do you want to ski with?
BB: Oh… so many people. Seth Morrison, Glen Plake, Sean Pettit, Eric Hjorleifson from the movies growing up. Now, Sam Kuch is really inspiring to ski with. He’s so consistent, super laid back and he just loves to ski. He isn’t going to ask you to take a video of him doing stuff, which I’m definitely guilty of. But, I’m trying to do it less. Then there’s Greg Hope. Watching him rip around through technical stuff is insane. He floats over everything. Same thing, actually, to Sam Kuch, Greg will never ask you to take a video of him. That time on skis is too important to stop and take a photo.
GF: Last one, how’d the Freaks come to be? How would you describe the roots of The Freaks in a few sentences?
BB: Hmmm… [Pause] Honestly, we didn’t think much about it. We didn’t think it would turn into anything. It’s just a group of buddies who like to ski. We were young, we were partying a little and we identified our friend group with a name. We took “the freaks” from Hunter S. Thompson because we identified with his ideology on a number of things. I don’t know, we made it up as we went. Then, we grew up…
GF: It’s going to be funny to see The Freaks at 50.
BB: I know. People are already having kids.