Athlete Profile: Baker Boyd
Photos courtesy of Rossignol
I know I’m not alone in placing professional athletes up on a pedestal, longingly imagining their lives spent mastering their craft in beautiful landscapes, going on expensive trips, appearing in films and creating jaw-dropping content. When I was assigned an interview with Baker Boyd, a professional free skier in Aspen, most of my research turned up videos of Boyd dropping from helicopters, running epic lines through Colorado and Japan, and skiing and surfing the same day in Iceland. He has appeared in two Warren Miller films, Timeless and Future Retro, and has been sponsored by brands such as Rossignol, Polartec, Head and Leki. So, I was surprised when I called and his voicemail answered with “Aspen Extreme Window Cleaning.”
Turns out, in this niche profession, even the best have to figure their way through life’s uncertainties and transitions. Boyd says with a laugh that he’s a part-time professional skier, and that the window cleaning business, named after the classic ski movie Aspen Extreme, is his main source of income. He finds himself at 32 in what he calls a “midlife crisis,” watching friends get married, have kids and buy homes. Coming up against his addictive personality, his mind is constantly cycling the question of what channels he wants to put his energy into.
Being a professional athlete means “you’re asked to be a director, a producer, an athlete, a marketer and an overall easy person to be around,” he reveals. Boyd’s natural friendliness and drive makes managing this tolerable, but “it does take away from the enjoyment of actually being a skier,” he adds. There is so much to juggle as an athlete and local business owner, while also recovering from injuries and navigating normal life transitions. The window cleaning business is set to open two more locations, and at some point, he’s thinking about taking his sponsorships to the next level, because obviously, “skiing is more fun than cleaning windows,” he jokes.
Although financial stability is nice, Boyd doesn’t want to stay comfortable. He sees the risk and compromise in both pursuing a life in the mountains and having a seemingly safe, stable one outside of them. “You have to adventure and continue to explore what you’re capable of and new environments,” Boyd says. “Otherwise, life gets stagnant and you float through instead of experiencing new things and adverse situations that help you come into the present and the flow state.”
No matter what the future holds, his priority is on being as “happy as possible, focusing on simplicity, health and living in a place with access to the outdoors, organic food and a community where people are living real lives,” he shares. Currently, the influx and disparity of wealth that’s moved into Aspen removes the feel of it being a mountain town to an extent, he explains. According to The Aspen Times’ article ‘Aspen’s Impossible Math,’ “The existential threat posed to Aspen’s middle-class locals is supergentrification — a global economic force impacting elite resort towns and major metropolitan areas alike.” Boyd has his sights set on moving to Telluride, although housing is hard to come by.
In order for the community to keep its local mountain town vibes, “There needs to be restrictions on properties and becoming second home owners,” Boyd says. It takes away from the community when homeowners don’t stick around. “A lot of people can’t visit, because it’s too expensive to get a hotel room, meal or ski pass,” he adds. As a middle-class local, Boyd feels that no matter what one’s finances look like, destinations are meant to be enjoyed. “But, that’s less and less possible every year in these amazing resort towns where money is coming in and making it less affordable on multiple levels,” he says.
When the weight of decisions and transitions get heavy, Boyd takes to the mountains. “Skiing is freedom. It is the best way to connect with the moment and forget about everything else. I get absorbed into what’s happening around me and how beautiful it is. Once I’m around crossing that line of what I’m comfortable with, it forces me to get into that flow state — to only focus on what’s in front of me and forget about everything else. It is really nice in this day and age of information overload, with so many responsibilities and things to keep track of,” Boyd says. Most importantly, “You gotta do what you love, and love what you do,” he concludes.
Originally published in the Winter 2022-23 issue of Spoke+Blossom.