the winter life

The Redneck
An ex-ski racer from Dubuque, Iowa, Eben Mond’s better known now as the guy who throws backflips on telemark skis at Colorado’s Loveland Mountain. When I-70 is closed or clogged with traffic, the redneck-in-disguise throttles his snowmobile from his hometown of Silverplume, Colorado, to the ski area. After spending five years on the US Central Development Ski Team, Eben moved west and started competing in big-mountain competitions, placing 22nd at his first comp in 2003 at Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Since then, he’s dominated comps at Red Mountain, British Columbia, and appeared in Tough Guy Productions’ Core and Incognito and in several major ski publications.

The Juggler
When you watch Powderwhore Productions’ The Pact, you can’t miss Charlie Cannon, the self-proclaimed jugglemarker, who bends a knee down a groomer at Mt. Hood, Oregon, while juggling sharp objects. “It’s the next big thing,” he swears. “Everyone will be jugglemarking soon—just you wait.” If anyone knows how to spot a trend, it might be Charlie, who’s skied and filmed in Japan, British Columbia, Idaho, Utah, and racks up over 100 days of skiing each winter traveling from his home base in Oregon. “I have the most fun skiing with my home town boys,” he says. “They’re always having fun, pushing the shred, and not worrying, just riding. And they’re always willing to try something new.”

The Girl Next Door
You wouldn’t know it by looking at Amber Gale—a petite blond from Utah—but she can kick your ass. She’s a former University of Nevada at Reno ski racer who spent last summer fighting fires. She competes on the big-mountain tour and last year, placed 20th at the Freeskiing World Championships at Alyeska, Alaska. In 2007, she was the Local Lange Girl for Dynastar/Lange in the Salt Lake City area, and she’s a veteran ski tester for Skiing magazine. Maybe the athletic talent runs in her blood: Her sister, Tristan Gale, won gold at the 2002 Winter Olympics in skeleton.

The Twins
Here’s how to tell Crested Butte, Colorado–based identical twins Seaton and Colin MacMillan apart: Colin wears the blue Flylow Kung Fu jacket; Seaton wears the orange. Or maybe it’s the other way around? Seaton, who was born seven minutes ahead of Colin, stands an inch taller and weighs about 15 pounds more. “Even some of our best friends can’t tell the difference,” Seaton says. Their skiing style looks the same too: fast and fluid. Both started ski racing at young ages in New Hampshire, and moved out to Colorado to attend college and continuing skiing. In 2005, they entered the U.S. Extreme Telemark Freeskiing Championships, and every year since then there’s been a MacMillan twin in the top three. In 2008, they traveled to Japan with Tough Guy Productions to shoot footage for the film, Harmless. On some runs, Colin says he had to breath through his Avalung because the snow was so deep. “There are a lot of great ski destinations out there,” Colin says. “We hope to see as many of them as possible. Seeing the world from between your ski tips is as good of view as any.

The Jumper
When Claire Smallwood sets her mind to something, there’s no turning back. She came across the website SheJumps.org, a community for supporting women in athletics, and before long, she became the organization’s new president, ultimately helping the group achieve non-profit status. She’s played competitive soccer in England, studied an anthropological group in Senegal, and knows four languages. Growing up in New Mexico, she learned to ski on the steep, bony slopes of Taos, and eventually competed in her first big-mountain comp there. Now a Salt Lake City resident, she beats the boys down the hill at Snowbird and helps inspire other girls to live life to the fullest. “Jumping and not landing is way better than not jumping at all,” she says.

The Delawarean
Newark, Delaware, is home to the University of Delaware and is the city where Bob Marley once worked in a factory in the 1960s. It also happens to be where Ryan Banker grew up. At the age of 20, Banker left the East Coast and landed in Summit County, Colorado. Now a resident of Frisco and a local at Arapahoe Basin, the 29-year-old has made a name for himself on the U.S. and World Freeskiing tours. The big-mountain alpine skier placed in the top 50 at the 2008 National Freeskiing Championships at Alyeska, Alaska. He snagged 5th place in the 2007 New Mexico Extreme Freeskiing Championships, where he launched a 30-foot mandatory air below a dicey headwall. We don’t know anyone else from Delaware who can do that.

The Kid
When he was 11 years old, home-schooled Ryland Mauck Duff started his own magazine called The Freeheel Flyer. His dad was his assistant editor and the publication was distributed nationwide from his Cabot, Vermont, home. In between powder turns at Smugglers Notch, Vermont, he also interned at Backcountry magazine as a teenager. Now an older and wiser 18, Ryland’s climbing his way up in the world. In 2008, he worked during the winter at H2O Heli-Guides in Valdez, Alaska, and spent the summer as a researcher at Skiing magazine. He built his own roof box on his Toyota Tacoma and he’s planning to move to Jackson, Wyoming.

The Smokejumper

All summer long, Bozeman, Montana-based Sam Cox jumps out of planes to fight fires. All winter, he notches 100 days a year skiing, mainly at Bridger Bowl, Montana, but also in Utah’s Wasatch backcountry, British Columbia, and Europe. The accomplished skier has ridden in eight different countries and appeared in Unparalleled II and Powderwhore Productions’ PW05, PW06, and PW07. He drinks double crowns, and lists among his proudest accomplishments the fact that he owns multiple Iron Maiden t-shirts. Check out his guide book: ‘Stepping Up’ to find deep turns up north.

The Farmer Mike “Gimme” Gimmeson grew up on a farm in Garland, Wyoming (population 37). As a child, he skied every weekend at a tiny hill called Sleeping Giant, where his parents worked as ski patrollers, near the east entrance to Yellowstone National Park. “I would go off in the backcountry when I was 12 with no clue what I was doing,” Gimmeson says. “Now I enjoy working with kids at my ski and snowboard camps and teaching them good backcountry etiquette.” His camp, Empire Freeride, enables him to travel and ski in Canada, Alaska, Argentina, Chile, and all over the U.S. He’s appeared in KGB Productions’ Sublimation Experiment, The Precious, and Sactified. “My favorite part of skiing is going to new places and exploring. I’m going to ski every mountain in the world,” he says. “I’ve also been working with NASA on skiing some cool stuff on Neptune.” Whatever you say, Gimme.

The Park Rat
Most telemark skiers eat granola in the backcountry, while burning incense and listening to bluegrass. Not Alex Paul. “I play gangsta rap on the ukulele and think that skiing’s pretty neat,” he says. The Breckenridge, Colorado, local spends his time throwing spread eagles (among other more modern tricks) in the park. He throws switch tele moves off backcountry booters and helped induct tele brackets into existing slopestyle comps. Last year, he placed first and second, respectively, at Breck’s Spring Massive Rail jam and slopestyle events. A graduate of Colorado State University, he’s been sliding down mountains since he was young with a variety of instruments strapped to his feet.

The Cowgirl
Born and raised in upstate New York, Hannah Marie Horigan grew up skiing at Vermont’s Stratton Mountain. After racing and coaching through college, she decided to migrate west, settling in Jackson, Wyoming, after graduation. One season turned into two, then three. Now four years later, she waits tables at the Mangy Moose and works as a gardener. But her true passion is on the mountain, tackling big-mountain and backcountry terrain. She appeared in KGB Productions’ The Sublimation Experiment and in 2008, she placed second at the Jackson Hole Freeskiing Open. “I can’t wait to rock out on my skis this winter,” she says.

The Player
Ask Paul Kimbrough about his hobbies and he may not even mention skiing. “Climbing, backpacking, fly-fishing, long boarding, slack lining, futbol, and chess,” he says. What the Utah native isn’t telling you is that he’s one of the rowdiest skiers out there. He gap jumps over the road to Washington’s Mount Baker Ski Area and rides big-mountain backcountry lines. And he’s been skiing for 19 of his 21 years. Now an environmental education major at Western Washington University, he credits his parents for giving him the passion for the mountains (his 69-year-old dad still climbs 5-11s). “I live for the mountains and skiing allows me to explore them in a playful manner,” he says. “Skiing is how I express myself; it is art, and it makes me feel alive.”

The WonderWoman
Tamara Guttman can rescue you from a crevasse. She’s hula-hooped on the top of Wyoming’s 13,770-foot Grand Teton. She’s trained with the Austrian ski team. She snowmobiles, kayaks, has competed in skier-cross, and is working to raise money for charities by skiing off glaciers. Impressed? We are. Especially considering she was raised in New Jersey and learned to ski—when she was a teenager—on Pennsylvania’s shrimpy Pocono Mountains. After college in Vermont, she spent five years in Telluride and eventually landed in Jackson, Wyoming, where she now racks up 120 days a year on snow. She competes on the U.S. and World Freeskiing tours and last year, she qualified as a semi-finalist for the Canadian Freeskiing Open. “I spend most of my days in the backcountry, skiing, snowmobiling, and enjoying the peace that the mountains have to offer,” she says.

The Telemarketer
Rolf Roethlisberger may be the best telemark skier in Switzerland. He’s certainly the most enthusiastic one. “As a young boy, telemark skiing fascinated me,” he says. “In 1999, a lucky door opened and I had a chance to fulfill my dream of becoming a telemark skier. I gave up alpine skiing a few years later.” In the winter of 2006, he charged around the western U.S., dropping a knee all over Jackson Hole, Alta, Snowbird, and Lake Tahoe’s ski resorts. Now back in Switzerland, look for him in the European ski film, Territorium.