Throwback Thursday - Camp of Champions / Birth of Freeskiing

Ben Bliesner with homemade Twintips

L-R Dave Keam, Evan Raps, Mysto, Kent Kreitler, Shane Anderson, Skogen Sprang, CR Johnson, Mysto, Josh Loubek

Watching the Newschoolers.com post on Jonny Moseley, one of our original coaches at COC, discussing the future of freestyle it made me start thinking back to when COC became the first/original freeskiing camp. I don't know what the future of slopestyle is but I'm really proud that we had a big hand in making it blow up. The Camp of Champions park was the first park and camp that actually allowed skiers in it and treated them like family. We didn't care about contests, or fame or fortune or what was to come, we just wanted to push skiing forward. We never cared about FIS and still don't.

Shane McConkey

How much fun was pioneering a new thing? It was insane. Kent Kreitler, Jonny Moseley, Shane McConkey, Shane Anderson, CR Johnson, the Three Phils, Skogen Sprang, Evan Raps, Tanner Hall, Mike Nick, Josh Loubek, Eric Pollard, Kris Ostness, JT Holmes, Matt Sterbenz, Jimbo Morgan,Tom Cooley, Ben Bliesner, Griffin Cummings, JP Martin and Jason Levinthal is a partial list of our coaches the first few years. I think you can figure out how ridiculous camp was back then. Coolest thing... It's just as fun now with coaches that will become legends.

Skogen Sprang

The campers were amazing as well. Eric Hjorliefson, CR Johnson, Henrik Windstedt, Jon Olsson, Luke Van Valin, David Wise, Wiley Miller, Mack Jones, Gus Kenworthy, Tom Wallisch, Matt Sterbenz, Jess Cumming and the group of friends that became the Line Traveling Circus. So many pros got their start at COC it's actually hard to remember how many of the people that are changing skiing have COC in their DNA.

Kris Ostness

The dig crew was what became the entire 4FRNT Skis and Line Skis team. 4FRNT was hatched at the Camp of Champions. Salomon filmed the 1080 video in the COC park. The history is so deep at the Camp of Champions you can almost taste the history through your sunscreen.

Kris Ostness

Kris Ostness

Kris Ostness

JT Holmes

JT Holmes

CR Johnson

Mysto Coach

CR Johnson

Come to camp for a taste of that history and a chance to be a part of it. Becoming a legend is easy if you start with COC. You get coached by the latest generation of legends and who knows, you could turn into one too. It's happened so many times it doesn't actually surprise us any more. If you want to come to COC this summer, you'd better hurry up and sign up soon though, we're almost sold out.

CR Johnson

Jonny Moseley

Josh Loubek

Josh Loubek

Campers - What it's all about.