ASPEN — The gift bags for contestants include designer makeup and women's beauty products, not Red Bull and razors. The non-contest schedule includes a yoga session, a cooking class and an environmental education seminar.

Certainly not the average snowboarding invitational. And certainly the only way Gretchen Bleiler would have it.

The Aspen-raised Olympic silver medalist sees her inaugural Snow Angels Invitational at Snowmass as the antidote to contest burnout - a ladies weekend that just so happens to include the world's top female pipe riders.

"Kelly actually said it best," said Bleiler of her rival, friend and housemate for the weekend, 2002 Olympic gold medalist Kelly Clark. "We were going through the schedule, and she was like, 'Do we actually have to snowboard while we're here?'"

It was a joke. Sort of.

Put Bleiler, Clark and fellow Olympic medalist Hannah Teter in the Snowmass pipe with the rest of the world's best female riders, then sweeten with $20,000 in prize money, and it's a surefire recipe for one of the most progressive women's snowboarding contests in the world.

What sets the Snow Angels Invitational apart, however, is that everyone who arrived in Snowmass on Thursday night for three days of riding wasn't coming to compete in just another halfpipe final. If that was the case, they would have all headed home - or to the beach - after last month's U.S. Open in frigid Vermont.

"We're used to contests that are totally based around sponsors and media," said 20-year-old Minturn local Clair Bidez, one of Bleiler's U.S. Snowboarding teammates. "It's really cool to have a contest that's based around the riders."

Or, as Teter put it, a "a mellow contest where it's just a bunch of girls hanging out, having dinner together and doing yoga."

Bleiler, who turns 27 next week, said that was basically her original idea two years ago while doing a photo shoot in the Snowmass pipe for her biggest sponsor, Oakley.

The spring snow was soft, the sun was out and the pipe was buffed to perfection.

"I was just thinking, why do all of the contests end now, when this is the most fun time of year to ride?" she said. "This is the most progressive type of conditions because it's warm, it's soft, but not too soft, and that's when the best riding happens."

Past the snow and sun, Bleiler pledged that if she were to hold her own invite, there had to be more than money to entice her best friends out to Snowmass at the end of a long season.

It had to be something she'd want to do herself. Hence, the yoga, the gourmet cooking class, the spa packages, the photo shoot and the group accommodations. For a sport known for its friendly bond between it competitors, Bleiler felt the need to unite her friends together while pushing each other, not pit them against each other like so many contests did, whether intentional or not.

"We spend the entire year competing against each other and sometimes we're too busy to hang out," she said. "That's not the case here. We're all going to be hanging out in the next few days."

Of course, a great idea is only that, unless you get someone to agree to bankroll it. To make her invite take flight, Bleiler and her agent Amy Stanton had to convince sponsors that such a contest was a valuable investment.

With Bleiler's business savvy, it didn't take a lot of convincing.

Women's snowboarding has become big business in recent years, a surge that's been pushed along by an innovator like Bleiler, an attractive, articulate marketer's dream who has an innate feel for what young women her age are into. That includes thinking outside the realm of hawking energy drinks and fast food.

Within the last year, she's helped design and market her own signature Oakley clothing line and her signature K2 model snowboard is one of the most popular in the country. She's also signed on for a Nike campaign promoting female sports and is an active spokesperson in the fight against global warming.

When Bleiler and Stanton approached Jason Dial, the Director of Global Sports for manufacturing giant Proctor &Gamble, it was a match seemingly engineered by angels in heaven. OK, maybe not that, but a great partnership waiting to happen.

"It felt very natural," said Dial, who helped orchestrate a three-year contract to have CoverGirl be the title sponsor of the event and another P&G brand, Herbal Essences, as a secondary sponsor. "CoverGirl is kind of about adventure, Herbal Essences is about adventure, and when we met Gretchen, we'd been looking at the sport and it just really fit. This event's very different. It's about celebrating female athletes and female sport and it really felt right. All the things we're doing around the event around beauty and lifestyle, it was just natural."

Other sponsors for this weekend's invite include Nike, Oakley, Dr. Hauschka Holistic Home Remedies and Aspen/Snowmass.

Bleiler said the range of patrons illustrates that women riders no longer have to fit the mold of what marketers perceive their sport to be.

"It just goes to show that it's unique," she said. "It's not just about going snowboarding and winning a contest. It's about the whole lifestyle and relaxing and enjoying each other's company.

"I think no other event has done what we're doing right now with all the other activities. All of the girls, before they got here, in Vermont at the Open, everyone was just saying how excited they were to come to this event."

npeterson@aspentimes.com

<b>ANGELS IN ACTION</b>
<b>Saturday</b> 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. — Women’s jam-format format final in the Snowmass superpipe.

<b>Sunday</b> 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. — Athlete photo shoot at the Snowmass superpipe and quarterpipe. Several pros will also teach at the Snow Angels Terrain Park Boot Camp on Fanny Hill from noon to 3 p.m. Sunday. The Boot Camp welcomes new rail and park riders (both skiers and snowboarders) to learn from top coaches and pros.

<b>Expected to compete</b> — Aspen’s own Gretchen Bleiler, Hannah Teter, Kelly Clark, Tricia Byrnes, Elena Hight, Clair Bidez, Soko Yamaoka, Kaitlyn Farrington, Shiho Nakashima, Paulina Ligocka, Lizzy Beerman, Meg Pugh and Manuela Pesko.