Next Level Skiing

Welcome back to the Next Level Skiing podcast, brought to you by Wagner Skis. We've been around for eight seasons, and in that time, we've been able to ask skiing luminaries for tips and strategies, ways to improve our time on snow. From insights into fundamentals of strength and balance to perspectives on confidence, goal setting, and finding flow, this episode has it all. So many dollops of wisd...

Welcome back to the Next Level Skiing podcast, brought to you by Wagner Skis. For more than 20 years, Ingrid Backstrom has been championing women in freeskiing, through more than 20 ski movie appearances, pioneering first descents, coaching and teaching avalanche awareness classes. The mother of two who grew up skiing in Washington's Cascades continues to plow a path for women in skiing, encouragi...

Welcome back to the Next Level Skiing podcast, brought to you by Wagner Skis. Following explosive wins in the 2025 Freewride World Tour in Georgia and Kicking Horse, 4-year tour veteran Marcus Goguen claimed his first FWT world champion title. His unflappable style and huge tricks are not by chance. The 21-year-old Whistler skier has spent almost a decade following a strict training regimen. And n...

McRae Williams navigated from a childhood on trampolines to aerials on his hometown water ramps at the Olympic Training Center in Park City to become one of the most explosive slopestyle skiers in the sport. He's a World Cup world champion, two-time Olympian and three-time X Games medalist who is channeling years of Olympic-level training into audacious filming performances in remote backcountry l...

Welcome back to the Next Level Skiing podcast, brought to you by Wagner Skis. Josh Daiek skis remote, highly technical terrain with jaw-dropping speed and flow. After a decade competing on the Freeride World Tour, he's moved into ripping the loneliest lines in the lower 48, snowmobiling deep into Nevada's Sierra and Ruby ranges and skiing down steep, rock-choked chutes far from anywhere. The 42-ye...

Welcome back to the Next Level Skiing podcast, brought to you by Wagner Skis. From the concrete staircases of Pittsburgh to the steepest and deepest lines across three continents, Tom Wallisch has pushed skiing into new realms for more than 25 years. The pioneer of urban skiing infuses a one-of-a-kind creativity and style across all sorts of powdery landscapes. His mastery of park and big mountain...

Welcome back to the Next Level Skiing podcast, brought to you by Wagner Skis. Maggie Voisin soared from her Whitefish, Montana, roots into three Olympics and 11 X Games, where she's collected 7 slopestyle medals. Now 26, she's bounced back from several injuries and surgeries to build a soaring career in front of the cameras, filming with Teton Gravity Research and announcing for the X Games. She's...

Welcome back to the Next Level Skiing podcast, brought to you by Wagner Skis. Salt Lake City skier Mali Noyes, in the spring of 2025, channeled her Nordic skiing roots and more than a decade of ski touring in Utah's Wasatch to set a new bar for swift steep skiing in the West. The 36-year-old skied all 93 lines detailed in Andrew McClean's seminal steep skiing bible "The Chuting Gallery. It took he...

Welcome back to the Next Level Skiing podcast, brought to you by Wagner Skis. 26-year-old Parkin Costain grew up in Whitefish as a skiing prodigy. For the last decade, he has been pushing big-mountain skiing with a high-speed, swift-footed style in the heaviest, most technical terrain around. With bust-out performances (like stomping a ridiculous double backflip into Corbets at Kings and Queens) a...

Pete Wagner was building proprietary software to customize golf clubs when he bought a pair of skis in the early 2000s. The mechanical engineer and computer scientist wrestled those skis for a season before realizing he had purchased the wrong skis for his style. Why wasn't anyone designing skis like he was designing golf clubs or like boot fitters adjusted ski boots? In 2006, the expert skier lau...

Welcome back to the Next Level Skiing podcast, brought to you by Wagner Skis. Willie Volckhausen started skiing when he was 2 and raced with Sunlight's local ski club for over a decade. He spent 18 years coaching young skiers with the Aspen Valley Ski Club, developing not just ripping racers but athletes with a lifelong passion for skiing. And now he's a ski instructor with the Aspen Ski School wh...

Welcome back to the Next Level Skiing podcast, brought to you by Wagner Skis. Brody Leven doesn't dabble. He's an all-in type of skier. When he decided he was done with park skiing, he moved from 100 days of high-flying park time every season to 100 days of climbing and skiing mountains. And now it's been 10 years since the Fischer Ski-sponsored athlete has ridden a chairlift. He's never eaten mea...

Welcome back to the Next Level Skiing podcast, brought to you by Wagner Skis. Unless you live in Crested Butte, you likely haven't heard about Rob Dickinson. He's a former big mountain competitor who moves like a ninja through the Butte's scary steps. You really only catch glimpses of Rob … a flash in the trees, a splash of snow on a rocky face, a blur beneath impeccable tracks. He's coming up on...

Welcome back to the Next Level Skiing podcast, brought to you by Wagner Skis. Lou Dawson is a ski pioneer who has been setting the skintrack for countless skiers for decades. Since he arrived in the Roaring Fork Valley as a teenager in the mid-1960s, Dawson has helped shape backcountry skiing. From being the first person to ski all of Colorado's 14ers — finishing in the early 1990s — to meticulous...

Welcome back to the Next Level Skiing podcast, brought to you by Wagner Skis. Mike Hattrup has moved from bump skiing boss, to ski movie star to gear designer, covering smooch ground on snow that his work has touched just about every skier in the sport. From chasing his four siblings on the slopes of Alpental to winning mogul medals to hanging with Stump, Schmidt, and Blake in the seminal " Blizza...

Welcome back to the Next Level Skiing podcast, brought to you by Wagner Skis. Amie Engerbretson grew up ripping Palisades Tahoe, the daughter of a pro skier and filmmaker. She has starred in dozens of ski movies, highlighting a grace and flow honed from years of training as a dancer. Now she's making her own movies, advocating for climate action, and helping women hone confidence on and off snow....

Welcome back to the Next Level Skiing podcast, brought to you by Wagner Skis. Today's guest is Kristen Ulmer, who is one of the most accomplished big mountain skiers ever. She is now a fear and anxiety expert, helping her clients overcome disabling confusion or chaos. After studying Zen concepts for more than a decade, she authored " The Art of Fear " as a guidebook for improved mindfulness. Her t...

Welcome back to the Next Level Skiing podcast, brought to you by Wagner Skis!    A few years ago I got to join Kim Beekman on a ski trip to the San Juans. We skied at and around Telluride and all over Red Mountain Pass. I don't think she ever wondered why everyone always wanted to ski those backcountry lines before her. It was because we all wanted to get down and watch her ski.    Few ski with mo...

Welcome back to the Next Level Skiing podcast, brought to you by Wagner Skis.    I love watching Aaron Blunck ski the pipe. The Crested Butte native has spent 26 of his 27 years on skis and it shows, with amazing airs and unrivaled style. Earlier this season I got to see Aaron ski in the Copper pipe and he was throwing this ridiculously cool pipe-grinding, snow-spraying slash in the middle of his...

Welcome back to the Next Level Skiing podcast, brought to you by Wagner Skis.    Reggie Crist keeps turning the page on one skiing's most illustrious careers. A decade on the U.S. Ski Team. Pioneer in the Olympic spot of Ski Cross. One of the first to helicopter skiers into Alaska's Chugachs . And now a globe-trotting ski guide whose Stellar Adventure brings skiers to Japan, South America, Alaska...

It's difficult to overstate the role of Scot Schmidt in big-mountain freeskiing. He pretty much invented the niche with his explosive, airborne exploits. His signature tucked-knees hop turn and high-speed hip-check smear on 223 downhill skis defined a style that changed skiing. Scot's style inspired untold hordes of skiers in the 80s and early 90s, before skis got wide and rockered . His breakout...

There are a lot of great ski movies out there. But only one ranks as the most important. In a year when U.S. suicides reached record highs and many mountain towns are reporting the highest suicide rates in the country, Drew Peterson's "Ups + Downs" exposes the professional skier's anguished struggle with suicidal thoughts.   Mental health is at a critical crossroads in mountain valleys and Peterso...

Today on the Next Level Skiing podcast, brought to you by Wagner Skis, Jason chats with American gold-medal Olympic ski racer Ted Ligety.     In 2011, Ted Ligety put the FIS on blast for the governing body's new mandates for ski lengths, saying the rules would "will eventually ruin this sport." The following seasons, as he skied longer GS boards, he earned the nickname "Mr. GS," winning six World...

Dan English was making waves in the world of high-tech when he veered into a new career focused on one of the oldest fabrics in the world. Today, the founder, president, and CEO of Colorado-based Voormi has infused the foundational principles of the technology industry into a clothing company that is changing how we think about wool and overhauling stagnant domestic manufacturing. On this episode...

Welcome back to the Next Level Skiing podcast, brought to you by Wagner Skis. If you've ever crowded into the snowy, frigid lift line at the base of Silverton Mountain in the morning as groups are divided by skill level, you've likely heard requests for Kim Grant.    "Is Kim working?"    "Where's Kim's group?"    The 25-year ski guide who moves between the rowdy San Juans and the Chugachs in Alask...