"Look, skiing used to be old-school. But the new, new thing is skiing again," says Kipp Nelson, 49, on a balmy March morning spent crisscrossing California's Squaw Valley, surveying preparations for the final stop of his inaugural 2007 Honda Ski Tour, a ski-and-party-palooza that's already hopped from Sun Valley to Breckenridge to Aspen and will finish here at Squaw. Nelson, a former partner at Goldman-Sachs and the driving force behind the tour, never loses an edge on the slippery Sierra cement. He displays similar finesse with employees who are setting up for the day's events, cajoling them into doing exactly what he wants. On lift rides, he's the master multitasker, replying to a stream of calls and text messages while shooting the breeze with me.

That night, things get a little fuzzy. I'm ensconced in the VIP area of the Olympic Village Lodge watching Nelson and his posse—decked out in garish fedoras, feather boas, and oversize, sparkly sunglasses—bounce around to the primal rhythms of funk master George Clinton, one of at least 12 live weekend performances.

G. Love, fresh from headlining his own gig in front of 3,000 people, works up a sweat gesticulating to the Ski Tour Girls, half a dozen models hired to enhance the award ceremonies. They're wearing matching white outfits trimmed in faux fur.

Olympic gold medalist Jonny Moseley, in town to record segments for his Sirius satellite-radio show, The Moseley Method, scans the scene. "Kipp knows how to throw down," he says.

The weekend's points leader in halfpipe skiing, Simon Dumont, tries to skip the VIP line by climbing over a bright-red couch, ripping down a partition of hanging beads in the process. When a security guard rushes over and gets in Dumont's face, Nelson breaks it up.

"Sorry about that!" he yells over the din. "Simon's with me!" And that's the end of that. This is Nelson's show.