The New Frontier Of Freeride- Xander Guldman On The Success Of The Silver Belt Classic

It slowly faded away as interest in ski racing wavered, but those involved still hold fond memories of the one week each season that Sugar Bowl felt like the center of the skiing universe.

Enter professional freeskier Xander Guldman. The Sugar Bowl local made his Freeride World Tour debut last season, was named as iF3's 2023 'Breakout Skier Of The Year', and is still riding high after a ridiculously-deep powder skiing segment filmed at Sugar Bowl for Matchstick Production's 2023 film 'The Land of Giants'.

Guldman, along with support from Sugar Bowl's President and CEO Bridget Legnavsky, began cooking up a way to relaunch the iconic Silver Belt Classic in the Spring of 2023.

Re-imagining the race for modern skis and grooming techniques would have been a quite a bit of work in and of itself, but Guldman had bigger plans.

Marketed as a "innovative freeride competition", Guldman and the team at Sugar Bowl created something completely new. For starters, the course itself is unlike anything freeride skiing has seen to date.

Taking inspiration from mountain biking's Red Bull Rampage, Guldman and his fellow competitors built many of the features themselves. Rather than plopping a massive booter down in the middle of the gully, the riders enhanced Silver Belt's natural hips, cliffs, and rollovers to perfection.

The result was an immaculate display of modern freeride and freestyle skiing.

I spent the majority of the day picking my jaw up off the floor as I peered over the boundary rope. Similar to The Silver Belt Classic's of yesteryear, it felt as if Sugar Bowl was the most important place in the world of skiing, if even only for a day.

To break down The Silver Belt's impact on freeride further, let's hear from the event's founder himself- Xander Guldman.

Keep reading below for my Q&A with Guldman about the inspiration behind The Silver Belt, the success of the event, and what we can expect near year.

Xander Guldman Q&A

How did your vision of the Silver Belt Classic come to be?

"It was very much a shared vision. It's something I've been thinking about personally for a really long time.

Even things like Red Bull Rampage and whatnot, planted the seed from a really young age. Silver Belt always felt like a good place for it. 

Conventional knowledge says that you can't run an event like that at an ordinary ski resort, so I didn't really ever consider it until Bridget (Sugar Bowl President & CEO) started talking to me last spring about what would be the next big 'thing' to do, and that she wanted to host that at Sugar Bowl.

We got to talking, and I would say that she definitely takes a lot of responsibility for the idea. I told her that an athlete-judged terrain enhancement event was what I saw as the next frontier. I thought it would the coolest thing Sugar Bowl could host.

I didn't really expect it to even continue past that, an idea like that doesn't often gain traction, but Bridget just gave the best advice. She gave us a blank canvas to make the coolest event that we wanted. She definitely understood my perspective and wanted to make that kind of the highest priority of the event."

The Silver Belt athletes actually influenced the course design. How did that play out in the days leading up to the competition?

"So we built most of the infrastructure the week prior. And then the day before the event gave athletes free reign to finalize the shape of those features and add anything else that they wanted to."

Right as the competition started, everyone immediately started throwing down. There was no hesitation. Can you talk about how high the level of was that we saw on Sunday?

"Yeah, totally. First, were you around on that qualifier day as well?"

I was not. I didn't actually make it to Sugar Bowl until Sunday, but I'd love to hear about the qualifiers too.

"We had 13 athletes that made it from the qualifier to the final day, and our very first person on venue was a snowboarder. When she started, nobody really knew what to expect, right?

First hit she did a super sweet Front Three, and then she traversed over a little bit at the bottom and threw a super sweet Tame Dog off of the bottom lip. You don't see that very often, like hardly at all in big mountain events, and that set the tone for the entire weekend. She laid the groundwork for what was going to happen. We saw a really similar thing on the finals day as well from Sophia.

On Sunday, when there were no tracks in any of the landing, she threw a perfect D-Spin Cork Seven to bolts on the first hit. I think we all saw that and just realized that it was on. It was by far the highest level of skiing that I've ever seen- in person, or even on video. Every single person brought their unique style and flavor and progression to the table. It was just 'GO' from the first athlete."

I'd love to know more about the personal connection you have with Sugar Bowl, and bringing this comp back. I could hear the emotion in your voice as you were talking during the awards ceremony.

"Yeah, it was pretty surreal. I had this concept of what I wanted the event to look and feel like. It (The Silver Belt) was centered around fun. It wasn't stressful, and it wasn't results-based. I wanted to make something that emulated skiing with your friends, and I think the more distance I have from the event, the more I feel like that's something that we achieved. 

There are a lot of athletes who have heinous comp nerves, myself included. It's really difficult to compete at a high level, and that was the most stacked roster of skiers I've ever been a part of. Despite that, people were just having fun and enjoying themselves. It was very low stress. 

I think that was pretty special. I wasn't sure if it was possible to develop an event that minimized the stress and intensity on athletes. And, to your point, Sugar Bowl's been my home mountain since I was six years old. I basically learned to ski there. I went to Sugar Bowl Academy, which is a High School up there. Through college, I went to UC Davis, so I was a weekend warrior in Sugar Bowl.

It's been my resort of choice for forever, and I feel like this event was a turning point for me. My connection to the mountain is deeper than it ever has been before. The pride that I feel to share that as my home with other people, it's incredible. 

To have the best skiers in the world at my home was incredible, and that's something that I really savored."

Speaking of that stacked roster, I became visibly excited the first time I saw the list. Can you talk to me about how you recruited these folks and their thoughts on the competition?

"I wanted people from all disciplines of skiing because I wanted it to be a place for people to express their style in a setting that they never had before. So for big mountain skiers, I wanted to have jumps available. For slopestyle and halfpipe skiers, I wanted to have powder and some cliffs.

The main message that I got from people was that it was the most fun event that they had ever been part of. If I could express one goal of an event that I want to be part of, it's that."

I had the pleasure of watching the comp film with you and the other athletes as you judged each other. What was that like to judge your colleagues after competing against them?

"I think the democratization of it really increases athlete engagement. I've definitely been to events where you take your run and you'll hang out and watch, but like you're not engaged. For me, it was so fun to go skiing all day and knowing that I was going to get the opportunity to watch people's runs afterward. 

That, for me and many others, was the most fun part of the event. Getting to sit around and celebrate 40 athlete's different interpretations of something together was the coolest thing.

To be able to support progression without perfection, I think was a pretty cool takeaway that I had from that as well."

Progression without perfection. I like that. In keeping with that theme, what can we look forward to for future Silver Belts?

"We want to bring snowboarders into the fold next year, and we'd love to incorporate some more jib-style features. 

We definitely had a little bit of that, but putting a rail, whatever it may be, I want to build stuff that inspires a different take on that space. I'd love to make it be a little bit more big mountain heavy as well."

Stay tuned to POWDER Magazine for more content and coverage of The Silver Belt Classic at Sugar Bowl Resort.