Red Bull’s Benny’s Basecamp Event With Benny Milam Celebrates Street Snowboarding’s DIY Spirit

The quandary that presented itself at a recent snowboarding event Red Bull held for team rider Benny Milam—a lack of snow—could have seemed like an insurmountable challenge. How do you snowboard with no snow?

In execution, however, it was actually even more true to the spirit of street snowboarding.

Last week, Red Bull rented a house to serve as Milam’s “basecamp” and invited some of the freestyle snowboarder’s crew, as well as photographers and industry folks, to ride with Milam and others who came up in the Midwest snowboarding scene.

The house in St. Croix Falls, Wisconsin, was to serve as a home base as the group took to the slopes at local resorts Trollhaugen in Dresser, Wisconsin, and Wild Mountain in Chisago County, Minnesota—Milam’s hometown and the hill he grew up riding.

The only issue? The average temperature in the region the week the event kicked off was 62 degrees—a death knell to ski resorts’ ability to blow snow and maintain runs.

The promised dumping finally came on Monday, as much of the crew were departing. But the ingenuity, creativity and collaborative spirit the assembled party at Benny’s Basecamp demonstrated in the absence of snow and open resorts honored the true heart of street snowboarding, Milam’s chosen discipline.

The team sourced enough snow from local rinks—Isanti Ice Arena and Chisago Lakes Ice Arena—to construct a makeshift park in the yard of the rented house.

Corrugated pipes and rails that Milam secured served as features, and a mini ramp that Red Bull brought onsite kept the snowboarders, many of whom also skate, busy when they weren’t hitting the yard-turned-terrain park.

After all, the ethos of urban snowboarding, which counts the Midwest as a fertile breeding ground, is riding wherever you can find snow.

“It was special in the way that no one would expect you to be coming to rural Wisconsin and putting on an event like this,” said Minnesota native and snowboarding legend Chad Otterstrom, who grew up on the tow ropes of Trollhaugen.

“It was more about a cultural community vibe than it was about a competition, supporting the culture of snowboarding and our roots and what snowboarding is as opposed to making it a spectator event on TV,” Otterstrom added.

Otterstrom transitioned to other areas in the industry after years competing, including judging contests and coaching. He was on hand at Benny’s Basecamp as resident videographer, having picked up a camera when he was healing up an injury and adding that to his list of snowboarding industry gigs.

The weekend was a window into the teamwork and preparation that goes into getting the elusive perfect snowboarding clip—the lifeblood of street snowboarders, many of whom make their money (and keep their sponsors happy) filming video parts.

Unlike street skateboarding, which has become a multi-million-dollar industry and helped its biggest star, Nyjah Huston, become the world’s highest-paid skateboarder, its snowboarding counterpart remains relatively DIY in nature.

Halfpipe and slopestyle snowboarding, the disciplines casual viewers may catch on TV every few years be it at X Games, the Olympics, or otherwise, are the disciplines with the high earning ceilings. They receive coveted broadcast TV coverage, getting those sponsor logos in front of millions of eyeballs.

Even big mountain freeriding, which is something of an antidote to the structured, gymnastics-adjacent nature of current competition snowboarding, has its own contest now in the Natural Selection Tour, with big-name sponsors and big prizes (cash—and, in 2022, a Bronco Sport).

Streetstyle competitions, most commonly structured as rail jams, are less common, though they have been picking up steam of late.

X Games used to offer a separate streetstyle competition but has dropped it from the competition schedule.

Dew Tour has offered a streetstyle medal event (in which Milam took third in 2021 and 2020) since it was held in Breckenridge; now that the event has moved to Copper Mountain, it’s hosted in Red’s Backyard, a terrain park modeled after slopestyle rider Red Gerard’s home setup.

This past January, Red Bull’s Heavy Metal streetstyle contest was held for the first time since 2003, hosted in Milam’s native Minnesota. Heavy Metal will return in 2023 in Detroit, where new Red Bull team rider Grace Warner grew up. The 2022 edition was won by Milam among the men and Maggie Leon among the women, each of whom received $5,000.

The money isn’t necessarily the point—having the chance to come together with other street riders and ride an iconic spot is the real draw. But there are few ways for street riders to make money off contest winnings, so it’s an important part of the ecosystem.

Incidentally, this week many of the riders who were stationed at Benny’s Basecamp have taken off for Innsbruck, Austria, for street jam Rock A Rail.

“It definitely seems like rail jams are fully coming back,” Milam told me at Benny’s Basecamp, as he took a break from shoveling ice rink snow from a truck bed onto the grassy expanse of property. “Every other week you hear of another contest popping up.”

Milam came up on the U.S. Revolution Tour, a series of competitions for U.S. Ski & Snowboard riders who are transitioning to elite competition, and while he loved attacking the big jumps, the stress of those contests pushed him to find another path.

Of course, his true calling—street snowboarding—was right under his nose, growing up in Minnesota and riding Wild Mountain with brothers Josh and Alex, both of whom live in the Twin Cities. Out of high school, Milam moved to Salt Lake City, Utah—arguably snowboarding’s current epicenter—for two years, but found himself pulled back to the Midwest.

“The feeling after getting a clip in the streets, I can’t compare it to anything,” Milam said. “Riding away from a rail after you’ve battled it all day, that’s what we chase. That’s why we snowboard.”

Warner, 22, who was also in attendance at Benny’s Basecamp, agrees. “I’m so in love with this community and how tight we are and how age doesn’t matter either,” she said about the Midwest snowboarding scene.

“I think we have the sickest thing going on—but I might be a little biased. We find a way to have fun with what we’re given—like this weekend. It’s so special.”

With light snow (finally) falling on Saturday night and another truck bed’s worth brought in from the ice rinks, the snowboarders assembled at Benny’s Basecamp—Milam, Warner, Otterstrom, Anthony Slater, River Richer, Drayden Gardner, Garrett McKenzie, Maggie Leon, Brolin Mawejje, Lenny Mazzotti, Dylan Brunley, and Bryce and Hailey Miller, many of whom also hail from the Midwest—were able to get a proper jam session going.

The shorter and taller rails were rearranged depending on what each rider wanted to do, and the crew even built me a smaller feature using a corrugated tube so that I, a confirmed groomed runs rider, could hit my first feature.

It was Leon who truly took on the task of shoveling and packing the snow so I could have a smooth lip (and avoid having to ollie), which was also indicative of another key feature of street snowboarding—women snowboarders helping coach up other women.

It’s the difference between equality and equity—sure, everyone had a snowboard and access to the same features, but some people need a little modification on a feature and a little more instruction.

It’s why programs like Beyond the Boundaries, co-founded by Mary Walsh to help women feel more comfortable hitting features in the terrain park, have become so popular—and essential.

I possess about 1 percent of the raw talent a rider like Milam does, but with the group at Benny’s Basecamp cheering me on for a 5050 they could have done in their sleep, I understood the magic of streetstyle in a way I never will when I cover halfpipe or slopestyle from the media corral.

“In street snowboarding, if you don’t have a crew that works together properly you’re not gonna get what you want out of it,” Warner said. “You need that support and you need that extra hand and people hyping you up to get in the right mindset. Snowboarding is so mental—having the right people surrounding you is extremely important.”

Milam’s hometown Chisago City, Minnesota, is about 15 miles from St. Croix Falls. After growing up riding at Wild Mountain, he first started going to Trollhaugen when he was 13 and remembers hitting the infamous flat down flat rail there for the first time around 2010.

The event also served as the launch weekend for Red Bull’s new Winter Edition flavor, Fig Apple. Also keeping the energy up for the launch party were DJ Mary Mac and hip hop artist and Burton ambassador Miranda Writes.

The party was supposed to be held at the chalet at Trollhaugen, a legendary après party spot in the ’50s and ’60s with a chalet that is virtually untouched since then. But when the resort wasn’t able to open, the Red Bull event vehicle, equipped with a massive sound system, arrived to save the day. There are about a dozen such vehicles around the U.S., standing by to deliver vibes as needed.

Photographer Ryan Taylor, who has copious experience shooting urban Midwest snowboarding being based out of Minneapolis, captured the events of the weekend.

Taylor has been shooting Milam for more than 10 years and was the photographer/director on many of Milam’s other projects, including Hay Bale Tow Session, Lakehouse and Benny Milam’s Summer Dream (Enchanted Forest).

As a nice touch, the art on the walls of the rented house was replaced with Taylor’s and Otterstrom’s photographs, truly establishing a ground zero for backyard shredding.

“It’s wild seeing this all put together,” Milam said as we looked at Taylor’s shots around the Wisconsin house. “I definitely feel very fortunate for where I’m at. I’m still kind of in awe that I have Red Bull behind my back. It’s insane everything they’ve done for me. I can’t put into words how thankful I am.”

In February—when there should be a bit more snow—Milam will pass the torch to Warner for Red Bull Heavy Metal. Much of the same crew will once again descend upon the Midwest, this time in Michigan, to enjoy the DIY spirit and convivial vibe of the scene there.

For all the bucket-list projects Red Bull has allowed him to work on, Milam still has a few more professional aspirations up his hoodie sleeve. In the way that Danny Davis and Red Gerard have developed branded terrain parks out West (Peace Park and Red’s Backyard, respectively), he’d love to work on such a project in the Midwest.

Milam’s real goal is to offer something that’s easily accessible with beginner, “mellow” terrain that kids could hike to for free, without having to drive to a resort or spend $60 on a daily lift ticket—affordable for the industry at large, but still a lot for a kid just learning the ropes.

“In snowboarding there’s a barrier to entry, and just buying the gear alone is the hardest part for a lot of people,” Milam said. “Having a place to ride for free would grow the sport as a whole and give kids an opportunity to have fun with their friends.”

Milam’s other focus? “A dream of mine would be to get my name on a snowboard,” he said. “That’s a lifetime goal right there.” Milam’s board sponsor is CAPiTA; his bindings are Union and outerwear is Volcom. He has released signature Crab Grab mittens.

In snowboarding, however, it’s the outerwear sponsors and the energy drink sponsors that tend to provide athletes with the biggest opportunities (and the highest level of financial support).

But why put on an event like Benny’s Basecamp for an athlete? What is the direct benefit to Red Bull? Those assembled are already part of the brand’s target demographic (and drinking free product while onsite, at that). There was very little media produced during the event—no major TV broadcast to draw eyeballs.

Really, it’s a symbiotic relationship. Putting on events like Benny’s Basecamp and Lakehouse draws interest from the core of the industry—hardcore snowboarding fans who maybe aren’t all that interested in the Olympics, but who see themselves in Milam, perhaps also grew up riding tow ropes, and appreciate the authentic spirit of a grassroots event.

Perhaps most importantly, other pro snowboarders will see what Red Bull has done for Milam and think of the brand as a desirable partner that understands the culture. Warner, who just received her Red Bull helmet at the end of September, is experiencing that awe now.

“Benny’s Basecamp was such a fun, amazing time,” she said. “I think working with Red Bull is such a cool opportunity because they do bring things to life for their athletes, whether they are insane like jumping out of an airplane into the stratosphere to just getting some friends together and getting a place to stay and having some fun on a backyard setup.”

Street snowboarding may be an underappreciated discipline to the general public who know about the sport in terms of triple corks and degrees of rotation, or 22-foot halfpipes.

But the Midwest riders who make their living searching for the next rail or stairs to hit understand that snowboarding is about so much more than what happens when the TV cameras are rolling.