Banks Gilberti: Who I am – Eight Seasons in Breck

Eight seasons. It’s mind numbing to think that it’s been eight winters living in Breckenridge. It absolutely flew by.

I grew up in the small town of Hailey, Idaho. A cow-town to say the least but luckily graced with one bad-to-the-bone ski mountain. Colorado was always in my blood, though. I was born in Denver and raised on skis since the young age of two, learning how to ski right here in Summit County. We moved when I was four and I certainly had no idea I’d ever be living right back where I made my first turns only 13 years later. I attended Carrabassett Valley Academy, a ski academy based in northern Maine where we frequented Breck at least twice a winter. As soon as I graduated I headed straight back out west and moved into a minuscule studio apartment right in Breck. I spent the following six seasons competing at Dew Tours, US Opens and X Games. Every year got better; I would place higher and higher in the comps and living in Breck was only getting more fun. The parks were evolving into indescribable masterpieces with every single detail attended to with the utmost care. Every year would just out-do the last. I would leave during the summers to work my ass off just to come back and do it again. It was a young park skier’s dream.

Coming into the sixth season in Breck would mark my eighth year competing at the highest possible level, and it was time for a change. Time to create something that would last. I had come to the conclusion that this competition lifestyle wasn’t really taking me where I wanted to go and that I wanted to make something that would last, something that could be looked back on 10 years from now. What I created was a web series called Adventures in Transition. I thought that being the first season I’d done something like this it would be more of an experiment and less of a hunt for exposure and views. Turns out I was wrong. The series absolutely exploded, we made four full episodes and they ended up getting around 20,000 views per episode. We had no idea the impact these videos would end up having.

The following season we planed on making the second season of the series. I received a unique opportunity after the first year of Adventures in Transition and it was too good to pass up. Level 1 productions offered me a spot in their crew to get on a few trips and get some shots for their movie. I spent the whole season working with them and was fortunate to have enough shots for a full segment.

That pretty much brings us up to date; I’m still a Breckenridge local, living right in town with my girlfriend, skiing Breck every single day that I’m not traveling or working on my segment with Level 1. I wouldn’t change a thing.

– Banks Gilberti