Team AVSC News

This past Saturday a line crept around the corner of Gondola plaza. It wasn’t a powder day but the next best thing: Aspen Valley Ski & Snowboard Club’s annual Aspen Supports Kids Equipment Day. Between the Gorsuch location for skis and the Four Mountain Sports Buttermilk location for snowboards, AVSC and its partners served up equipment to hundreds of youth, some of whom traveled from as far away as Silt. 

“This is the core of what we’re all about,” said Executive Director August Teague. “We want every single youth in the greater Roaring Fork Valley to experience our mountains and the joy and passion they offer. We couldn't make this day possible without the tremendous longtime support of Gorsuch and Four Mountain Sports, who provided all the gear.” 

With snow guns blasting in the background, youth at Gorsuch climbed up onto boot-fitting platforms, unaware that they were being outfitted by Olympians, World Cup champions, members of the Gorsuch family and some of the best competitive coaches in the nation.  

At Four Mountain Sports’ Buttermilk location, Aspen’s Snowmass’ rental retail team and AVSC’s Snowboard team helped youth find the perfect fit, ensuring families felt confident and prepared for the season ahead.  

According to Aspen Supports Kids Director Meredith Elwell, the ASK Equipment Day provided over 210 sets of skis and poles and over 140 snowboard and boot sets. To receive this gear scholarship, eligible families submitted applications for assistance in August when they applied for programming. On average, AVSC annually offers over $800,000 in financial aid to qualifying applicants. Assistance ranges from scholarships for programming costs to free bus transportation for weekend programs to Quick read more or view full article providing gear for the season to qualifying applicants.  

“With the generosity of our partners, nearly 400 young athletes now will be able to participate in the foundational activities of our mountain community,” said Elwell. “A lot of hard work and genuine care by so many people goes into making a day like this possible. These efforts are a true reflection of our community’s strength, pride, and commitment to our valley youth.” 

Photos of the day can be found here.
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AVSC is thrilled to announce that AVSC Post Graduate (PG) athlete and coach Hanna Lamm has been awarded the Andy Mill Award. This honor is typically bestowed on one of AVSC’s four Team Pursuit of Excellence winners to recognize an athlete who has achieved outstanding national and/or international results in the past year. Last season, Lamm finished 15th at the FIS World Championships in Switzerland in Freeski Park & Pipe and has already placed fifth this year at the Australian New Zealand Cup in September.

Although Lamm has been with AVSC since age eight when she joined the Alpine/Freestyle Pre-Devo program, Lamm’s rise to the World Cup stage in the halfpipe has been exceptional — and exceptionally short. Skiing was always on the menu, however.

“I grew up in the Roaring Fork Valley, and everyone wants to ski here. My parents wanted it, my friends were in Pre-Devo,” she says. “It’s a great way to meet people who love the same thing.”

She started out in moguls and switched to big mountain, competing there through her senior year in high school. At age 18, she decided to give Park & Pipe a try. Last year, Lamm told The Aspen Times that just a few short years ago, she couldn’t even ski up the halfpipe wall.

“I started late in this,” Lamm admits. “But it was great to try all the disciplines. Usually, athletes will try slopestyle and halfpipe, then pick one. I went straight into halfpipe when I was 18.”

Lamm found success through Aspen’s USASA series, competing against more seasoned athletes. Series Director Jason Cook says this is exactly Quick read more or view full article why the series is so important to our community and to our local athletes. “It gives them the opportunity to compete at a high level, qualify for higher-level competitions, and still come home to their own beds at night.”

Today, Hanna is a member of AVSC’s Post Graduate (PG) program with Dave Zweig as her coach. Zweig coached her through her first USASA competition and first encouraged her to try the halfpipe at Copper.

“He’s a great coach, so supportive, and really connected to each athlete and how we train,” Lamm says. “His coaching style is so personal, and he recognizes what each athlete needs and when to push us. He really cares about us.”

This season will be her third competitive season in Park & Pipe and her second on the World Cup circuit. She’s currently ranked fourth in the U.S. based on last year’s points, and if she can hold on to that ranking or improve, she’ll be headed to the Olympics in February (save the date to cheer her on — she’ll compete in Aspen at the Toyota U.S. Grand Prix on January 11, with the Olympic team announcement coming on January 15).

Lamm, who spoke to AVSC from an Austrian training camp, says the AVSC name comes with a certain international cachet.

“We have phenomenal training resources here with all four mountains,” she says. “AVSC has had so many great athletes come through — Hanna, Alex, Kai, Nick. When I say I’m from Aspen, people know what that means, and it’s really cool.”

In addition to training in Austria, Lamm has spent time this summer training in New Zealand and at the AVSC Clubhouse. She’s also kept busy coaching trampoline camps and will coach weekend freestyle programs this winter in between her own competition and training schedule. Looking ahead, she’s focused on being strategic in her approach, eliminating the noise, and dialing in her mental preparation.

“Hanna is an amazing member of our team — supportive of her athletes and respectful of fellow competitors,” says Coach Zweig. “She will be looking toward another season of World Cup starts and has a high goal of putting herself into the mix for a potential Olympic spot. This season is going to be a big one, full of excitement and challenges, but Hanna is looking to make the most of her season between World Cup and Nor-Am starts.”

After learning she won the Andy Mill Award, Lamm said, “That’s crazy. It means a lot. I’ve worked really hard, and this is motivation to keep going. It’s so nice and encouraging to be recognized by my hometown club.”

The Andy Mill Award is named after longtime local Andy Mill, who was considered America’s premier downhill racer in the 1970s. In the downhill at the 1976 Olympic Games, he competed on a leg so bruised from a training injury that he couldn’t stand on it without pain. He froze his leg in the snow minutes before entering the starting gate and took home sixth place.

We wish Lamm congratulations on the Andy Mill Award and a phenomenal season. We will be rooting for her the whole way!
Follow her on Instagram at @_hannalamm_

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Catching Up with the Five Trees Winners | Roger Farrell and Molly McPhee

In early October, AVSC held its traditional Five Trees Race, which officially kicks off winter training at the Clubhouse with a race up to the top of the Five Trees lift — an elevation gain of nearly 1,000 feet in a mile. Nordic athletes swept the top male and female spots, so we sat down with overall winners Roger Farrell and Molly McPhee for a quick chat.

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Molly McPhee (Nordic U16)

High school freshman Molly McPhee started in AVSC with the Bill Koch program in kindergarten. She’s participated in the Five Trees Race since fifth grade.

“I felt pretty confident,” she said. “In past years I’ve done well, but I wasn’t planning to win overall. It was pretty cool to finish and see all the boys around me, all my teammates, and see lots of girls, both older and younger. In past years it was the older Nordic girls that I looked up to and hoped to get close to their time. Now they’ve graduated, and I’m one of the older ones.”

Being one of the older athletes has its advantages, but so does running with the Aspen High School Cross Country Team and training all summer with the Nordic team, which regularly heads up the same course.

“Nordic has the advantage,” McPhee admits. “We train by going uphill. Everyone else is focused on going down hill.”

Strategy also plays a role.

“I started on the front line, and I knew a few people would sprint," she says. "I Quick read more or view full article knew what would happen to them, and so I held back and then passed them going up the steep pitches. I ended up walking and then crawling on the steep section on all fours, grabbing onto trees.”

McPhee sees the race as a moment of connection across the club and a chance for all the disciplines to gather together.

“It’s fun to race with the other disciplines and see that we’re all in the same situation,” she says. “The race puts a spotlight on other disciplines that may be underappreciated and shows, wow, they’re really strong and also have endurance.”

The race is just one small component of what makes AVSC special. McPhee has made great friendships over the years and notes that while everyone is reaching for opportunity and competing through their sport, they’re also having fun.

“It’s really unique. A lot of other places don’t have anything close to this right outside their school. It brings kids together,” she says. “At lunch, you see Nordic talking to Alpine. It’s a strong bond and really rare to have.”

McPhee’s goals for the upcoming season are to race well and get stronger, to build better relationships with older members of the team, and to get to know others outside of racing. She’ll return next October to Five Trees with a particular goal in mind.

“Next year I’ll try to go faster,” she says, “but I also want to beat my brother’s time. I’m getting pretty close. He doesn’t know that yet.”

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Roger Farrell (Nordic U20)

Sophomore Roger Farrell is modest about winning the top spot at the Five Trees Race this year.

“I just did it. It seemed like a thing. I don’t run,” he admits. “I bike and do Nordic. It was pretty hard, but I’m one of the older kids. I had a good lead — it was pretty steep and kind of fun.”

Farrell has been with AVSC since middle school, when he joined the recreational program Aspen Supports Kids. He grew up skiing with his family, and joining AVSC seemed like the logical next step. He progressed from the recreational to the competitive team programming, and like many AVSC athletes who are encouraged to try different disciplines, he participated in freestyle before settling on Nordic in the seventh grade. Since then, he’s progressed into the competitive Nordic racing team, where the opportunity to travel and compete is a highlight.

“I made a lot of friends here,” he says. “It’s like a gang, and we tour competitions together.”

Farrell has competed all over the country, and Jackson Hole tops his list of favorite destinations. 

This past season, Farrell trained with the Nordic team all summer before switching to mountain biking this fall. He clinched third place in the Division III Mountain Biking State Championships Sophomore Boys Race, even while healing from a broken collarbone.

This year, Farrell’s goal is to get faster and attend Junior Nationals in the top 12. He looks forward to the start of the winter season with AVSC this year.

“It’s pretty cool,” he says. “Great friendships have developed, and the coaches are super nice and qualified.”

And as for the Five Trees Run, he’s putting the competition on notice. “I’ll keep doing it,” he says. “I like it.”

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Aspen, CO— October 28, 2025. Aspen Valley Ski & Snowboard Club is fueling the fall stoke for the upcoming ski season with three ski movie nights in the Roaring Fork Valley in November.  

“Our athletes are so pumped for the season to begin and to return to snow,” said AVSC Freestyle/Freeride Program Director Eric Knight, who is entering his 30th year with the club. “We wanted to celebrate that anticipation with them and also build the stoke with our Roaring Fork Valley community. When we got the opportunity to bring in these movies, we jumped on it.” 
On November 6 at 7pm at the Crystal Theatre in Carbondale and November 21 at 7pm at the Wheeler in Aspen, AVSC is hosting a “Night of Stoke,” which includes a premiere showing of the feature-length ski movie Ornada by Armada as well as Hot Dog Hans favorites, a movie short by Faction, giveaways, and an appearance by Olympic athlete and X Games phenom Torin Yater Wallace, who is featured in the ORNADA movie. 

Long anticipated, the feature-length Team movie ORNADA is the culmination of Armada’s contribution to freeskiing and the culture that surrounds it. A two-year labor of love, ORNADA fuses revolutionary skiing and artistic vision into a one-of-a-kind film featuring Armada’s athletes slaying everything from the steepest lines in Alaska to rowdy street sessions in Quebec and elaborate park setups in Riksgränsen. 

Basalt-native and AVSC alum Torin Yater-Wallace will be on-hand for both showings. Yater-Wallace was the youngest athlete at the time to medal at the X Games and an Olympic athlete. Retired from competition, Yater-Wallace, an Armada ambassador, continues to showcase his groundbreaking freeskiing vision through video projects. 

“I’m fortunate to have a part in the film along with legendary professionals that I look up to, who are Quick read more or view full article icons at Armada, like Tanner Hall and Sammy Carlson,” said Yater-Wallace, who lives in the Roaring Fork Valley and will attend both events. “It’s a star-studded roster in the movie.” 

In addition to ORNADA, AVSC will show a short film “Sugar Bowl” from Faction skis and Hot Dog Hans favorites. Hans is the alter ego of Olympian and AVSC alum Alex Ferreira and a local legend in his own right.  

These Night of Stoke events are free to Team AVSC athletes and coaches with a suggested donation of $10+ for the public. All proceeds go to AVSC’s scholarship fund to support the organization’s mission to ensure all youth in the greater Roaring Fork Valley have the opportunity to excel as athletes and as people through winter sports. AVSC is grateful for the sponsorship of Hamilton Sports and Two Leaves and a Bud, who helped make these showings possible. 

A third ski movie evening will take place courtesy of the Crystal Theatre in Carbondale which also benefits AVSC. On November 13 at 7pm, the Crystal will show Teton Gravity Research’s 30th anniversary movie Pressure Drop. The first showing in Aspen sold out and included a cameo of AVSC alumni and coach Kelly Hilleke, who Powder Magazine recently called “the most exciting inclusion on the men’s roster” of the Freeride World Tour. Hilleke will be in attendance at the event as well. Tickets are $20 for the public and $15 for AVSC Team athletes and coaches.  

Tickets are now on sale for all three evenings via the Teamavsc.org link here. 

 Aspen Valley Ski and Snowboard Club is the Roaring Fork Valley’s oldest and largest youth non-profit organization. Its mission is to provide all youth in the greater Roaring Fork Valley with the opportunity to excel as athletes and as individuals through winter sports. Founded in 1937, AVSC serves 3,000 local youth from preschool through 12th grade with over 40 recreational and competitive sports programs. Through AVSC, youth experience the mountains in winter, build character skills that can serve them for a lifetime, and challenge themselves. For more information, visit Teamavsc.org.  
 
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