As the world’s best downhill skiers carved their final World Cup runs into Aspen’s slopes in the early 1980s, Playboy was chasing a different kind of excellence. In a town of barely 4,000 residents, more than 200 women answered a call to shed their winter layers for the camera, far more than the magazine’s pages could ever hold. What followed was a spread that took a sport defined by cold speed and turned up the heat — and isn’t that what Playboy does best?
Among these snowbunnies were women who embodied Aspen as much as the mountains themselves. A former model who trained thoroughbred horses and bred Russian wolfhounds. A skier who preferred nothing between her and the snow, blending California sun-worship with Rocky Mountain nerve. Another who swore the party culture thrived simply because altitude makes every cocktail hit harder. Different lives, different stories, all bound by the same pull of untamed terrain, adrenaline, and an escape from the flatlands.
Over the years, Playmates and Bunnies have followed Playboy from slope to slope across the country, stepping into this alpine rhythm of beauty, bravado, and freedom. Sometimes elegant, sometimes irreverent, always unmistakably Playboy, these moments in the snow capture women at play, in control, and finding freedom.
Holly Cook was one of the many women of Aspen who answered Playboy’s call – this Burbank native raced down the snowy slopes in nothing more than her boots. Even her move to Colorado couldn’t stop her from holding on to her California roots, where tan lines were never part of the plan.
Playmates and Bunny outtakes can be hard to find, but these moments with Miss February 1980 Sandy Cagle and 1971 Bunny of the Year Cheryl Lee offer a glimpse into the relaxed, authentic moments that lived just beyond the lens.
German-born Monique St. Pierre said she was once told she was “almost too sexy” for a national soft drink ad – not a concern for her Playboy feature, which celebrated her effortless allure in the November 1978 Playmate feature. She credited her sense of healthy sexuality to a more open European upbringing and an active, outdoors-driven lifestyle that regularly took her to the slopes – naturally setting the stage for a snow covered turn in front of the camera.
In the contest of gravity, the mountain usually gets the final say. Sasha Vanderhoof posed for several shots in the Women of Aspen feature – one capturing her love of fresh powder, another reminding us that the mountain sometimes wins. Unfazed by the tumble, Sasha simply shrugged it off: “I’ll be back.”
The Colorado Springs-born Playmate Kari Kennell referred to herself as “A natural, down-home, no-make-up, no-nonsense type of person.” More at home on the slopes, she embraced the “laid-back, happy-to-be-here outlook on life” of the people and the places that shaped her.
