Interview: Bobby Brown Talks Red Bull Cascade- Freeskiing's New Hybrid Competition

Doing things first isn't surprising, considering Brown's career. He was the first person to stomp a Switch Double Misty 1440, and he was one of the first skiers to land a Triple Cork 1440.

This year, Red Bull Cascade will be held at Solitude from March 29th-30th. Before we head over to Utah to cover the event, we had to check in with Bobby about what to expect at this year's event. 

Check out our Q&A below.

Will you be competing at Red Bull Cascade this year?

"Yes, I will . We'll see how it goes."

Red Bull Cascade is different from anything else. What inspired it, and what led you to create this year's bracket style for the competition? 

"This whole thing started from doing some top-to-bottoms that my brother and I shot back in the day. 

We had done one in Breckenridge, one at Mammoth, and one at Winter Park. It was more like riding the resort but trying to link everything. All mountain resort skiing into some groomer features, and then into the park. 

Then, we wanted to build bigger and crazier courses, and bring more riders in to get more variety and see what people could do. 

As far as the bracket, the bracket is about just wanting to create more camaraderie. Sometimes, with contests, you get a little too... self-indulgent, I guess. We wanted to get the team vibe coming back, and the bracket creates a little more rivalry and a little more fun. So yeah, looking forward to it."

Totally, that's super cool. It's exciting that you have women and men competing together. 

"Yeah, I'm stoked on that. It's just gonna be interesting to see how the teams mesh and if there's any strategy that comes into play. It'll be cool to get the teams dialed and then just see how each team feeds off each other, to have the girls working with the guys, and vice versa. It's gonna be cool to see what perspective everyone takes." 

So, why'd you pick Solitude this time around? 

"Solitude was just excited to host us and before we decided on anything, we came out and really took a look at the terrain and we were like, "whoa, this makes perfect sense." 

We rode a potential course line and checked it out and then we worked backwards and built the course out in our minds and saw if it fit on the face or not, and it really worked. It's just been a terrain based decision and that's what it all came down to." 

Which skiers are you looking forward to see competing? It must be pretty cool to see people come and play on a course that you set. 

"Yeah, that's the best part, for sure. When the vibe is good and everyone's kind of just having fun and you can tell they like what we built... that's the best feeling ever. Way better of a feeling than riding it. So that's what I'm hoping we can accomplish again. 

As far as who I'm looking forward to riding the course... that would have to be Blake Wilson. He's a Utah local right now. He has just got a different kind of big mountain style but added with the park features. 

And then Gus Kenworthy's coming back for his un-retirement, he's gonna ride the course. I'm looking forward to having him on the course this year 'cause we grew up skiing together, and I just think he's gonna do some crazy stuff. It's cool to see him back skiing again." 

You've excelled at both big mountain and park skiing throughout your career. I'm curious, do you think skiers tend to do better when they come from a park angle and then move to big mountain/freeride, or vice versa?

"Yeah, it depends what the end goal is, what you want your skiing to be like. I definitely think it's easier to adapt like more of a freestyle-y... well, to be honest it's tough because obviously you want to have the fundamentals coming from more of a big mountain-ish background, but it seems really hard for those people to develop style with the tricks, and grabs with the tricks. 

It's cool how now there's starting to be a blend, more like all the kids growing up are doing the all mountain riding built-in, and using the mountain as a park instead of having it separated. 

To be honest, I think the future is where it's gonna be the craziest. These kids are starting young by blending everything together rather than like being a big mountain skier and then being a park skier, or being a park skier and then trying to be a big mountain skier. 

The way I ski is I just wanna be able to do tricks down the mountain everywhere and I wanna look at the hill like everything's a hit. So yeah, it kind of depends on the end goal, but I just think the future kids are gonna be so far beyond everyone right now that it's gonna be cool to see."

Are there people in particular that you look to, to draw that blend?

"I mean, the two skiers I definitely think are the best at doing freestyle, maybe more park oriented, but a big amount of stuff, are Sammy Carlson and Candide, for sure. 

Those two can both ride anything, and do it with crazy style, and can ride the most tech terrain on the planet. 

And then, the future has Cole Richardson. He's just a beast, riding crazy big mountain stuff but also has a really unique freeride style. Those are the three names that I think like exemplify that the most."

Sammy has done some crazy stuff. 

"Yeah, mega." 

The last thing that I wanted to ask you about was your recovery, and coming back from an injury.

"Yeah, that was kind of crazy. Last year it felt like such a warmup year, 'cause I just didn't really know how I'd feel, and I barely skied last year, and just, almost put a bandaid on everything and made it through. But honestly, this year just feels like kind of born again a little bit. My body's actually feeling good. I've skied the most I've skied in, like, five years and just... I was definitely on a grind. 

I didn't know where I'd be, but I'm just really happy to say that like I kind of feel normal again. It took a long time to feel normal, so definitely shout out to everyone who helped me. It was a huge team effort to even come this far. 

I'm just really appreciative to all the people that kept the fire alive while I was going through some, some harder times." 

Check out Brown's Instagram post about his back injury from 2021:

That's so great to hear. What are you most excited about skiing now that you're back? 

"Just filming projects and just doing things that I haven't done before. More so just trying to do things different. It's been a lot of different things over the years but I'm finding a lot of fun just trying things that are totally not in my wheelhouse. 

So just trying keep pushing it and enjoying it and trying to have new experiences." 

Do you have anything else you want the people of POWDER to know about Red Bull Cascade before it happens? 

"Yeah, it's gonna be a sick show for sure. We're hoping to see a lot of variety and a lot of different styles come on the course, and we want to build an opportunity for younger riders to have a show to really show off their style and show off their skill and create a platform for those guys to thrive at the end of the day. 

Hopefully, we accomplish that, and everyone kills it and really enjoys the course. The course is the star here, for sure."