'X' marks the spot

Alternative sports have taken over the upmarket ski slopes of Aspen. Will North America's leading resort ever be the same again?

"Buttermilk is Aspen's least challenging mountain," says the guidebook, Where To Ski And Snowboard. And indeed, for most of the season, this is where you'll find debutants wobbling down Panda Hill and children playing in Fort Frog. But for one long weekend, beginning on 30 January, this innocent frosted playground will be desecrated by the most fearless men and women in winter sport, risking their necks by throwing themselves off ramps.

For the second successive year Aspen, the most upmarket resort in North America, is hosting the winter edition of the X Games, the biggest showpiece for alternative sports in the world. Like the Olympics, the X Games are divided into summer and winter Games; unlike the Olympics, they take place every year.

The games were launched in 1995 by US sports TV station ESPN. The idea was to generate programme material about new sports such as skateboarding, BMX and snowboarding. The Godfather of these sports, the man who is bigger than Michael Jordan to many teenage Americans, is the skateboarder, PlayStation game star and multi-millionaire businessman Tony Hawk. He explained the appeal when arriving in Aspen for ESPN commentary duties: "I played baseball and basketball as a kid but I felt like I was going through the motions. Yet when I went skating, I could go whenever I wanted and do it however I wanted. A lot of it is spontaneous."

The X Games ethos: remove rules and restrictions, express your individuality, flout tradition. This meant that many people questioned the suitability of upmarket Aspen as the venue for the 2002 and 2003 events. But in 2001 the resort lifted its ban on snowboarders at one of its mountains, Ajax, just in time to be named X Games host for this year. And even the event organisers made a point of the potential culture clash: the promotional poster showed a dinner jacketed, tiara-wearing couple being terrorised by snowboards and snowmobiles. The culture clash was clearly a theoretical one, however, since at this year's event 36,000 Aspen residents and visitors came to marvel at the athletes' daring over the weekend. Snowboarders took on one of the biggest halfpipes ever built (50ft wide, 17ft high and 400ft long; so big they renamed it a Superpipe) and displayed their jumping skills down the Slopestyle obstacle course (a bit like a diagonal Hickstead minus the horses).

Since 1998, skiing, until then deemed too stale and uptight for the tastes of Generation X, has been part of the mix and in 2002 skiers competed in the same disciplines as the boarders (although they had to rename it Skier X).

One of those responsible for the rehabilitation of skiing's cool is the 1998 Olympic freestyle champion, Jonny Moseley, who introduced snowboard-style tricks to skiing. Despite being an Olympic golden boy whose face has appeared on cereal boxes, Moseley said he preferred the style of the X Games: "The Olympic experience for me was just flying in, competing, winning and flying home. When I'm here I feel like I'm part of something that's really progressive; it's a bit like the Sixties counter-culture revolution, a yearly meeting place for a generation, like the Woodstock of today."

Not that the X Games has escaped the rampant commercialism of mainstream sport. The corporate sponsors were out in force at the 2002 Games: AT&T, Jeep, Taco Bell.... Kids crowded around various concession stands trying to pick up complementary Wrigley's gum or have a go on a yet-to-be-released PlayStation game. But the largest crowd was around a camouflaged Humvee (like a Jeep after a workout), where one sponsor was handing out what appeared to be the must-scam freebie of the weekend: US Marines dog tags (which read Call 1-800-MARINE).

Anticipating the question of why the Marines would be trying to recruit from among the long-haired, baggy-jeaned fans of counter-culture sports, the cropped and uniformed servicemen issued a rehearsed spiel: "The athletes competing here are to the sports world what the Marine Corps is to the US military – extreme!", before reassuring youngsters that most bases have a skateboard ramp.

Despite the presence of the Marines, the sixth Winter X Games was the one sports event to have taken place in America since 11 September 2001 where defiant, militaristic US triumphalism was not the overarching theme. Hawk explained: "These sports are very international. We are proud of the USA but that's not our motivating factor. Everyone is inspired by each other. If someone from another country brings in a new style, our reaction is, 'Wow, that's a whole new direction we haven't thought of. Let's see where it goes'."

It's hard to imagine a place for flag-waving at the X Games when there are people such as Brian Deegan around. Deegan is a founder member of the Metal Mulisha, a group of motorcross (renamed Moto X by the neologists of ESPN) riders who claim to have broken away from "the corporate bullshit and all the people telling us how to act" by dressing in black leather adorned with metal studs.

Naturally, they now attract more sponsorship than any other Moto X rider. They also pushed their sport in a new direction. Instead of punctuating races with tricks in the air, they made the big air manouevres the whole point: doing handstands on the handlebars, jumping off and back on to the bike, tweaking the bike sideways in the air, and adopted the attitude that you should either win or crash.

Deegan, who lives in the Metal Mulisha compound in California where they run a Fight Club, is built like a bulldog and shaves his head like the actor Vin Diesel. Indeed, he filled in for the actor in the scene in xXx where the hero hangs off the back of his bike in mid-air with one hand (known as a Superman) while shooting bad guys with the other. "Vin Diesel isn't hardcore," said Deegan. "He's an actor. Actors were drama geeks at school. We're the real deal."

Deegan is not modest about the appeal of Moto X, where the competitors accelerate up a snow ramp and fly across a 70ft gap nearly 50ft up in the air: "We pretty much steal the show at the X Games. People love the danger. We go bigger than anyone else and the tricks we do are exciting because it looks like we're going to crash. People want to see chaos. The bike weighs about 220 pounds, so it's pretty gnarly when it lands on you. I've broken my arm, ankle, fingers, back. I've had tons of concussion. But I love it; I don't want to do no pussy sport."

In contrast to the anarchy of Moto X, but almost as thrilling, is Sno X (snowmobile racing). Because "sledheads" are one of the fastest growing groups of sports enthusiasts in North America, snowmobile racing is as important a marketing tool for Husqvarna or Ski-Doo as Formula 1 is for BMW or Mercedes. As a result there is a proper pit lane for works teams, with uniformed mechanics rushing in and out of logoed trailers. On the snow, the races are noisy, fast and dangerous, as the snowmobiles sometimes collide in mid-air or get nudged over the top of a banked turn.

Even the arrival of the Brooklyn rapper Mos Def and the punk band Green Day to entertain the crowds after dark was welcomed by Aspen locals. There was less trouble than when the World Cup ski circus came to town in 1998, when Hermann Maier "borrowed" a child's bicycle and an Austrian coach reversed his car into a fountain. So the boys (and girls) are back in town in January. It's worth making the trip: the tricks are breathtaking and the cultural education is invaluable.

The Winter X Games start in Aspen on 30 January. Enquiries: 001 970 920 7134, www.aspensnowmass.com