Aspen goes CaribbeanMarch 30, 1997Web posted at: 12:00 a.m. EST (CNN) -- The ski slopes are turning tropical Sunday in Snowmass Village, Colorado, with "beach" volleyball, exotic drinks and a bounty of ... bananas. The Snowmass Resort Association is hosting its annual Banana Season, a zany festival heralding spring. In addition to a high-altitude beach party and a chicken-legs contest (celebrating pale and scrawny winter limbs), there's a Banana Bonanza Hunt that rivals traditional Easter egg rolls. "We hide all these plastic bananas all over the mountain," explains the resort's Marci Calderwood. "They all have vouchers for prizes in them, and we give clues over the radio and on the boards at the bottom of every [ski] lift." The festival also features a Bartender's Banana Brawl Drink Contest (resulting in such concoctions as the "Funky Monkey" and "Banana Smash" -- a drink with its own grass skirt) and the breathlessly-named Snowmass Ski Splash Banana Season Barbecue Bash. "People ski off a ramp [into a little pool] and do a little trick," Calderwood says of the "Splash" aspect of the event. "People do it naked; people do it in costumes -- we got a guy in a big chicken suit, and people in a suit and tie. A lot of the guys dress up as women." 
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