The Van Clan

It wasn’t exactly the spoils of victory.

After the fanfare subsided from winning his division of the Canadian Open Freeride Championships, Matthew White, 18, retired not to a tricked-out hotel room, but a lone van in the parking lot at Rossland, B.C.’s RED Mountain Resort—a smelly, 40-square-foot Volkswagen Vanagon shared with two buddies and their damp ski gear. But the top bunk was his this time, which meant not sleeping head-to-toe next to a dirty spaghetti pot on the pullout below.