{"id":2448317,"date":"2019-09-04T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-09-04T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/king-of-the-officers\/"},"modified":"2019-09-04T05:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-09-04T11:00:00","slug":"king-of-the-officers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/king-of-the-officers\/","title":{"rendered":"King of the Officers"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Brian Vanderpool, Snowmass police officer, stands for a photo during the Australian Police Winter Games. Vanderpool competed in the annual police charity event from Jul. 29 to Aug. 1 and brought the “King of the Mountain” title with him back to to Snowmass Village.<\/strong>
Provided<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

The winter sports season for most Snowmass locals ended late last spring, but for Snowmass police officer Brian Vanderpool some of his best ski days weren\u2019t until late this summer.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s when Vanderpool, a Parachute-native who just celebrated his eighth anniversary with the Snowmass Police Department, competed in the Australian Police Winter Games in Victoria, Australia \u2014 and was crowned the \u201cKing of the Mountain.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI was totally surprised, it kind of caught me off guard,\u201d Vanderpool said of winning the title.<\/p>\n

Vanderpool competed against Australian police officers from Jul. 29 to Aug. 1 at the Falls Creek Alpine Resort, winning the giant slalom race by tenths of a second and placing well in other races, which he said earned him the \u201cKing of the Mountain\u201d award.<\/p>\n

Although it was the first time winning this title, it wasn\u2019t the first time Vanderpool has trekked to the Land Down Under for the annual winter games.<\/p>\n

He said his international law enforcement ties and ski-racing career in both the U.S. and abroad started just after he became a Snowmass police officer and took part in the North American Police Ski Championships, which were held in Snowmass and mainly raised money for the U.S. Winter Special Olympics.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to say it was 2017 when this team of Australians came over for the championships and I befriended them,\u201d Vanderpool recalled. \u201cThey were like hey, we have our games, the Australian Police Winter games, you should come to Australia for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

And in summer 2018, Vanderpool and a Pitkin County deputy did just that, representing the U.S. and the Roaring Fork Valley at the longest continuing winter police competition in the world.<\/p>\n

Vanderpool said skiing in Australia is very different than what he\u2019s used to in Aspen-Snowmass, featuring more rolling hills, gum trees and low elevation \u2014 but beautiful all the same.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe chance to ski in another country and travel really interested me, and to have the chance to hang out with a bunch of cops, which is actually a lot more fun than it sounds,\u201d Vanderpool said, laughing. \u201cWe\u2019re always looking to give back in certain ways however we can and it\u2019s just a cool way to go out and ski and do a charity event. You can\u2019t do two better things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since he met the Australian police officers over two years ago, Vanderpool said he\u2019s kept in constant contact with them through various group chats, and has even planned road trips in both countries with his good friend Amy Frost, an Australian police officer better known as \u201cFrosty.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vanderpool said he definitely plans to return to the Australia winter games next summer to defend his \u201cKing of the Mountain\u201d title, but also to visit his friends. He never thought he\u2019d make international law enforcement connections as a Snowmass police officer, but said he is extremely thankful that he has.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo have that many good friends on the other side of the world because of a cop ski race? It\u2019s pretty cool,\u201d Vanderpool said.<\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brian Vanderpool, Snowmass police officer, stands for a photo during the Australian Police Winter Games. Vanderpool competed in the annual police charity event from Jul. 29 to Aug. 1 and brought the “King of the Mountain” title with him back to to Snowmass Village.Provided The winter sports season for most Snowmass locals ended late last […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2448317","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-26 04:05:04","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2448317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2448317"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2448317\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2448317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2448317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2448317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}