By Julie Brown, Powder

On Saturday afternoon at Squaw Valley, a couple bartenders tapped a few kegs, pulled out the bar stools, and opened the renowned Chamois for business. Cars started to pull up one after the other and soon the parking lot was as full as if it were a sunny powder day. Groups of friends, many wearing trucker hats with the ubiquitous Shane McConkey Foundation logo, sat around picnic tables, talking about hopes for a deep winter.

But the conversation kept coming back to one name in particular—Shane McConkey. He was, after all, the reason why we were all there.

“There’s just going to be love oozing out of this place,” Scott Gaffney said at the Chamois before the festivities ramped up.

More than 4,500 people showed up to see the highly anticipated Squaw Valley premiere of “McConkey”. The afternoon of après felt like any other, except there wasn’t any snow and people like Mike Douglas, Bobby Brown, and Travis Rice along with two dozen other Red Bull athletes walked through the village among the locals.

People came from near and far, some taking long flights while others like Squaw locals Cody Townsend, Elyse Saugstad, and Michelle Parker just had to walk across the street. J.T. Holmes, Timy Dutton, and Miles Daisher jumped down to the crowd—literally—sky diving from above and landing at the base of Squaw’s KT-22 lift, which had been transformed into an outdoor amphitheater for the show.

Underneath a cold and starry night, we watched McConkey’s life unfold on the screen. We laughed more than we cried. We learned things we never knew about McConkey. Like how he lived in a closet, won a pro mogul tour comp without even trying, including his legendary naked bump contest run at Vail.

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