Chris Davenport's skiing adventures lead him into Hall of Fame

I've had the pleasure of meeting Chris a few times at various trade shows and was impressed by how he didn't take himself too seriously, a rare trait in the ski biz, especially for someone who has accomplished so much and given volumes back to the ski world.

Well done Chris!

The Denver Post provides the details:

Days after moving from his home in New Hampshire to attend the University of Colorado, Chris Davenport went exploring in a mountaineering store and discovered Lou Dawson's classic two-volume guide to Colorado's fourteeners. Davenport was a racer who had a vague idea he wanted to make a career out of skiing, and Dawson's book became a signpost.

Dawson was the first to ski all of Colorado's 14,000-foot peaks, an odyssey that took him 13 years.

"I loved that book," Davenport said. "Not only was it a guide to the fourteeners, it included skiing for all the peaks. It was something I'd never seen before, a guide to ski mountaineering. That book became my bible."

In 2007, Davenport made his own contribution to Colorado ski history, becoming the first to ski all of the fourteeners in a year. For that and many other achievements the Aspen resident was inducted into the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame on Saturday in Steamboat Springs. 

"I feel like I have so much more to do skiing and so much more to give," said Davenport, 44. "I'm young. I want to be Klaus Obermeyer, I want to be 95 and skiing Buttermilk every day."

Davenport has summited Mount Everest and skied the adjacent Lhotse face. He has skied Mont Blanc and the Matterhorn. He is a two-time world extreme skiing champion, a Winter X Games medalist. But he also tunes race skis for kids in the Aspen Valley Ski Club.

There is a T.S. Eliot quote he loves and lives: "Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go."

Davenport grew in up New Hampshire's Mount Washington valley, a revered place in New England skiing. He began skiing Tuckerman's Ravine before he was a teenager. There the heart of the ski mountaineer was born.

"You put in all this hard work to climb the mountain," Davenport said. "I love the workout, I love the pace and the movement, climbing on snow and ice. The skiing is the reward, the payoff: being on the summit, clicking into your bindings, high-fiving your friends and getting a ski descent that can take 10 minutes when people walking down are taking two hours or more."

But there is danger, too, when the goal is to test limits.

"The thing I'm maybe most proud of is that I'm still here, still alive," said the father of three ranging in age from 13 to 7. "I've lost so many friends in the mountains. As much as I think I am educated and know what I'm doing, the mountains don't care. We lose people that really know what they're doing, often. I'm very proud that I've done all these things and I'm still around. I'm even more proud that I've been able to raise a family while continuing to do what I do."

It was the late Shane McConkey — who died base-jumping on skis in the Italian Dolomites in 2009 — who steered Davenport's career. Davenport had moved to Aspen in 1993 and was working in the race department at Snowmass. McCon key called him, suggesting he join him at the U.S. Extreme Championships in Crested Butte.

Davenport had never heard of it but accepted the invitation.

"It blew my mind," Davenport said. "I remember driving home thinking: 'When's the next event? When can I do more of this?' Shane's phone call started all that." McConkey was inducted into the U.S. Ski Hall of Fame posthumously in 2010.

Davenport's career turning point came when he won the 1996 world extreme championships in Alaska. It meant he could quit his job in Aspen and live the life of a sponsored professional skier.

His hardest victory was the 24 Hours of Aspen in 1998, when he skied 240,000 feet on 80 runs. His most emotional moment was standing at the foot of Longs Peak after skiing his 54th fourteener in 363 days.

"It was such a personal journey, and there were a lot of times I wanted to quit," Davenport said. "There were some tears. I had no idea if I could do it."

For a single moment in time, Davenport most savors the summit of Everest in 2011.

"You're standing on the highest point in the world," Davenport said. "I shot a video of myself, and I'm getting choked up because it's just so darned beautiful. ... The story of great experiences on Mount Everest never really gets told. All you hear about is the tragedy and the garbage. That's not what we experienced. As a lover of mountains, collector of summits and ski descents, that one ranks right up there."

There are so many more mountains to ski — up and down.

"I'm always soul searching," Davenport said. "I never want to be one of those people going through the motions of life, stuck in a box or a routine. I want to experiment in the mountains and see what's possible."