Brooks "Hoot" Brown died March 24 at age 16 from
injuries sustained when he slipped onto the moving track of a Sno-Cat
machine as he hitched a ride to the top of a ski terrain park near
Telluride.
Brown ranked among the top freeriders in the U.S. An accomplished skier
and snowboarder, he was 13 when he began competing on the Telluride Ski
and Snowboard Club's new freeride team.
Athletic and dauntless, he embraced freeride skiing, a new discipline
whose focus on gymnastic and stunt skiing in ski terrain parks is
luring scores of young thrill-seekers away from their snowboards.
With its combination of aggressive skiing and extreme stunts performed
using pipes, rails, jumps and boxes, freeride skiing came naturally to
Brown, a sophomore at Telluride High School.
He placed sixth in a February ski riding event in Telluride, placed
34th at the Junior Olympics earlier this month, and was nationally
ranked 57th in slope style by the U.S. Skiing Association.
"The fact he was so new to that sport and doing that well just speaks
volumes about where he could have gone," said Justin Chandler,
executive director of the Telluride Ski and Snowboard Club.
"Actually, it's pretty extraordinary how fast he got that good, going
against other kids who were more experienced in what's become the
fastest growing portion of skiing right now."
Coaches and friends admired Brown's infectious enthusiasm and his
almost preternatural ability to rally teammates into focusing their
skills as they tested their limits. The Telluride Ski and Snowboard
Club embraces four disciplines: alpine skiing, snowboarding, freestyle
skiing and Nordic skiing.
"Hoot was a guy who always wanted to be out there practicing, and his
passion was really contagious for all the disciplines," Chandler said.
"He was a leader. We have 220 kids in this club. He could focus them
when they were too excited to calm down, and pump them up if they were
too mellow. Timing was always good with him."
Brown wore his pants low and his jackets big. He favored painfully
bright neon hues along with a combination of black, yellow, red and
green that he called "rasta colors," a reference to the Jamaican reggae
music he loved and frequently chose when he played deejay on the team's
trips out of town.
He wore headbands and hats that he crocheted himself, usually also in rasta colors.
"Hoot had his own style, and he lived in the now," said the club's freestyle team coach, Caleb Martin.
"When you're flying 60, 70 feet through the air, 25 or 30 feet above
the ground, the amount of focus you need is tremendous. Your life and
limbs are on the line. That was part of his love for it - not only the
adrenaline, but that focus, and living in the moment."
CREDITS-----
Skipig25$ I Think he got it from the denver post
idk bout the braclets maybe, maybe somthing with that pic... after all it has been the top rated pic forever
