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 wisdom and vision from skiing's best to help every skier take their turns to the next level. Thanks again for tuning in to Next Level Skiing. We'll see you again next winter.

1:42 Chris Tatsuno

1:50 Lee Cohen

2:08 Krista Crabtree

2:23 Nader Jamal

2:41 Stephen Casimiro

2:46 Angela Hawse

3:15 Mark Morris

3:27 Adrian Ballinger

3:32 Kim Grant

3:38 Dan English

3:45 Ted Ligety

4:10 Drew Peterson

4:41 Scot Schmidt

5:00 Reggie Crist

5:28 Aaron Blunck

5:34 Kim Beekman

5:52 Cody Townsend

5:56 Doug Stenclik

6:20 Erik Lambert

6:33 Mike Douglas

7:15 Robert Koell

7:37 Skylar Holgate

7:59 Ted Mahon

8:03 Wes Wylie

8:21 Amie Engebretson

8:52 Brody Leven

9:28 Kristen Ulmer

10:04 Lou Dawson

10:51 Mike Hattrup

11:26 Pete Wagner

11: 56 Rob Dickinson

12:06 Willie Volckhausen

12:35 Allen Tran:

12:52 Evan Reece

13:03 Hilaree Nelson

13:22 Joel Gratz

13:31 Jonathan Ellsworth

13:47 Kim Relchhelm

13:59 Lindsay Anderson

14:14 Wendy Fisher

14:18 Parkin Costain

14:41 Mali Noyes

15:08 Maggie Voisin

15:09 Tom Wallisch

15:38 Josh Daiek

15:53 McRae Williams

16:07 Marcus Goguen

16:12 Mark Abma

16:22 Dr. Allen Lim

16:33 Michelle Parker

16:38 Chris Anthony

16:54 Alex Cohen

17:03 Daron Rahlves

17:10 Lorraine Huber

17:15 Julian Carr

17:27 Angel Collinson

17:35 Chris Davenport

17:54 Chris Steiner

18:00 Jake Hutchinson

18:11 Jim Lindsay

18:39 Klaus Obermeyer

19:02 Tom Hackett

19:28 Tommy Moe

Wagner Custom Skis

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, encouraging up-and-comers to find their creative voice through skiing. Listen in as Ingrid shares insights into coaching, shifting mindsets in the backcountry, balancing life as a pro skier and parent, changing training tactics as you age and the importance of getting out of control on skis. Thanks for listening to Next Level Skiing.

2:30 Winter weekends in a 1954 Bookmobile at Crystal Mountain

3:15 First move appearance in Matchstick Productions "Yearbook" in 2004

4:30 Carrying the torch for women in freeskiing

5:10 The new generation of female rippers. "The level has just gone exponentially higher."

7:30 Challenges of coming up as a pro skier 20 years ago versus today

9:40 Twenty years coaching with the Superstars Camp in Portillo Chile

11:00 "The best ways of learning something is to turn around and teach it."

12:30 Personality and style in skiing

13:00 Being able to read the front of a sweatshirt from downhill perspective

13:30 The power position

16:30 Lack of industry support for moms in pro skiing

19:10 "If you want to grow, get more women on skis."

21:00 Training shifts as you age. "Play On: The new science of elite performance at any age."

22:10 Nightly mobility exercises for 15 minutes

24:00 Diet and cooking for recovery

27:00 Mental preparation and the "75% rule."

27:40 Tuning in and asking "Why am I doing this?"

28:20 Task driven versus ego driven

30:00 Shifting mindsets in the backcountry

32:10 "Let's ask the stupid questions because there is no stupid question."

33:20 Go into the backcountry like a robot

33:50 Best advice: Get out of control

"My contracts got cut when I got pregnant. There wasn't really, at the time, a marketing demand for moms as pro skiers."

"If you want to grow, get more women on skiis."

"Just the maintenance becomes so much more important, training smarter and not harder."

"Taking away that ego piece of [asking questions] has led to a lot better discussions and, frankly, a lot better education."

Ingrd Backstrom Website

Ingrid on Instagram

Wagner Custom Skis

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 now he's sharing. His Adrenaline Performance program offers skiers customized strength plans to ward off injuries and boost performance. Listen in as the big-mountain boss shares how he is infusing structured training regimens into his freeride skiing, the importance of post skiing workouts, the role of a daily routine in comp-day confidence and how to make your body your armor.

3:00 "Everything I've done in my life is for skiing."

3:20 The Whistler Freeride Club": peer pressure, buddies, and coaches

4:30 Competing in downhill bike racing

5:30 Honing fast-twitch eye-hand coordination

6:15 Training regimen inspired by his uncle, Canada's legendary Olympic racer Thomas Grandi

7:00 Mixing the structure of training with the fun of freeride skiing

7:40 The building blocks of training

8:30 Maintenance workouts during the ski season to maintain strength

9:00 Maximizing the ski day with gym workouts

12:30 Getting into training after enduring pain at age 12

14:00 Results of training by age 14

15:00 An injury-free ski career

16:05 "In freeride, there's a lot of impact."

16:50 Structure should be fun

17:10 The evolution of Adrenaline Performance

18:00 App-driven motivation with coaches, peers

20:30 Beginner, intermediate, advanced, and Olympic-tiered programs

21:40 Building strength and infusing explosiveness into that strength

23:30 A year-round training program for all mountain athletes

25:20 Meditation to start the day, then mobility, then supplements

25:45 Creatine, omegas, collagen

29:40 The role of daily routines, so "every day is a competition day."

30:00 Skiing with E. coli poisoning

34:00 Accountability and follow-through with Adrenaline Performance app

35:12 Best advice: put a smile on your face at the start gate

"I try to do as many different sports as possible and that will always transfer over to my skiing." - Marcus

"My muscles are my armor." - Marcus

"You need to listen to your body because it's easy to burn yourself out if you go too hard." - Marcus

"To continue improving in the game, we all need some structure." - Marcus

Marcus on Instagram

Adrenaline Performance

Wagner Custom Skis

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 locations. Listen in as the 35-year-old slopestyle pioneer explores his work as a mindful athlete with a keen focus on his mental game honed through passions for diverse mountain sports, from flyfishing, pow surfing and mountain biking. Thanks for listening to Next Level Skiing

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-year-old Salomon-sponsored skier has made two movies — Mountain State and Mountain State 2.0 — detailing his crew's exploration of overlooked terrain in Nevada. You've seen his clips in the Gram and they are scroll-stoppers. Listen in as Josh connects his high-speed, fast-twitch ski style with exploration and patience, the role of repetition in dynamic skiing, using speed to navigate consequential terrain and learning from mistakes on this illuminating episode of Next Level Skiing.

2:30 The holiday ski family in Michigan, "like the East Coast minus the mountains."

4:30 Moving to Tahoe

5:34 "Rat-packing" at Kirkwood

7:18 10 years on the Freeride World Tour

8:00 Getting serious about training

9:30 Squats, dead lifts, core, shoulders and bike for cardio

12:00 Keeping the mind in-tune with fast-twitch reactions: "bang, bang, bang, react, react, react"

14:00 Time in the saddle and the role of repetition

14:00 Skiing every day all winter

15:20 Learning from mistakes and experience

16:20 The biggest mistakes

17:30 "You'll never catch me wearing ear pods in the mountains"

22:00 Exploring remote lines in Nevada

26:20 Melding a fast ski style with making movies and exploring unasked lines in Nevada

30:00 Using speed as an asset in consequential terrain

32:00 All about the fall line, fast and fluid. Straight and to the point. No bullshit.

34:10 Skiing for Salomon for 13 years

35:00 Best piece of advice: Ask yourself 'Why are you doing this?'

"When [I] wanted to give up, competition really kept me motivated." - Josh

"That's what's more important to me is making split-second decisions." - Josh

"When I'm in the mountains, and I'm in nature, I really want to be there." - Josh

"Be present in that moment. That's what works for me." - Josh

💻Josh on Facebook

💻Josh on Instagram

💻Josh on YouTube

💻Wagner Custom Skis

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 steeps is coupled with a filming prowess and business acumen that sustains a vibrant ski career at age 38. Listen in as Tom talks about his Pittsburgh roots, an "East Coast work ethic" that grows from failure, connecting mind and body and "using inspiration in a good way."

1:30 Finding skiing after unfulfilling spins through team sports

3:00 Growing up skiing city handrails in Pittsburgh. "It's all we had."

4:10 Flipping U-turns to check out quad kink rails

6:10 Transitioning from rails to steep lines

10:20 Thinking differently and creative approaches to skiing

12:40 Honing a business expertise in the ski industry

15:30 Balancing the core insiders with newcomers while announcing for NBC at the Olympics

23:10 The "nitty-gritty balance" and edge control from rail skiing

25:14 Body mechanics and repetition

27:00 Learning how to fall correctly

29:10 Listening to your body. Being smart. Knowing when to push

31:10 Teaching kids at Camp Woodward

34:20 Best advice: Find happiness or fun on the slopes on bad days on the mundane days.

"We didn't have powder. We didn't have anything like that. So the thing that was the most relatable and the thing that seemed achievable to me were the rails, the urban skiing."

"With the Wallisch Project, the one thing we all wanted to do was film everything."

"The work ethic from the East Coast, from rail skiing, is like, just hike it again, try it again. And at the same time, if you approach life in that way or skiing in that way, you never get overcome by failure."

Tom on Instagram

RENDITION

Wagner Custom Skis

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 navigated incredible pressure as one of the youngest American Winter Olympians, as devastating grief, finding strength and solace on skis. Listen in as Maggie talks about transferring her slopestyle-honed mental fortitude over to big lines in Alaska, strategies for healing, recovering from "the hardest thing ever," and inspiring the next generation of female rippers.

1:10 Growing up in Whitefish. Dad was a semi-reformed ski bum.

2:00 "Something in the water in Whitefish." Tanner Hall. Tommy Moe. Parkin Costain.

3:50 15 years old and winning silver in first X Games months before skiing in the Olympics

4:20 Younger sibling rippers

6:30 The transition from a decade of teams, coaches and training to filming in AK

8:40 Mental fortitude in slopestyle moving over to steep lines in Alaska

12:10 Breathwork to settle nerves

13:40 Calming concerns around injuries

14:30 Four knee and one ankle surgeries

16:00 Red light, sauna, yoga, breathing, stretching and mindset. "The body is powerful. It's going to heal."

17:40 The importance of rest, meditation

21:30 "The hardest thing ever." Losing Michael to suicide.

23:40 Living and carrying Michael's legacy forward. "I walk through this life differently."

26:40 "They are everywhere."

29:00 A deep, internal knowing that the strength was there.

30:00 "We are human beings who need community."

31:00 Announcing at the Winter X Games with deep knowledge and a feminine perspective

34:30 Inspiring the next generation.

35:30 Best advice: "Fun comes first."

"The mind can just take over. We all know this."

"I always take a deep breath, and on the exhale is when I drop, and I feel like that just really centers me."

"In this world, we're always athletes."

"If I can live every day, half the way that [my brother] lived his 23 years, that's what I wake up every day and remember."

Resources:

Maggie on Instagram

Maggie Voisin Unleashed: An Exclusive Season Edit

Wagner Custom Skis

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 her only 47 days. An epic achievement. Listen in as Mali shares insights into how her Nordic skiing background fueled her exploration of backcountry steeps, pushing through mental fatigue, mentorship, and honing intuition in consequential avalanche terrain.

2:30 Growing up Nordic skiing in Sun Valley

3:30 Taking up alpine skiing with mom's boots after college

4:00 After three years of downhill skiing, joining the Freeride World Tour. "I crashed my way through … overwhelmed and scared."

4:50 Transitioning to backcountry with Nordic fitness, big-mountain skills, and "a love gf spending long days" in the mountains.

4:20 An "obsessive personality" and the Chuting Gallery project

5:20 The mindset of Nordic: finding weaknesses and improving

8:10 "I wonder how fast I could ski all them?"

10:30 Getting stronger with back-to-back-to-back days

12:0 The physical part was manageable. The mental part was the crux

13:30 A brief breakdown in Cottonwood Creek on Day 24

16:30 The spreadsheet motivator

17:40 Eight rest days in three months

18:30 Balancing objective-driven skiing with safety

19:30 The most in-depth book review of any book ever published

21:10 The mountains are horrible teachers

24:10 Mentorship in the backcountry

29:00 Vetting (and being vetted by) ski partners

31:20 Honing intuition in the backcountry

36:52 Best advice: dreaming big

"You just get good when all you do is ski."

"On my rest days, I started binge watching, like, The White Lotus had just come out. So it was, like, ones that took my brain away from skiing because if I didn't distract myself, all I would do is think about what to ski."

"That spide-y sense feeling you get is through experience."

Mali on Instagram

Mali on YouTube

Wagner Custom Skis

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) and jaw-dropping segments in Warren Miller and TGR, Parker's fluid, athletic style is helping to define today's big mountain skiing.

In this episode of Next Level Skiing, Parker discusses emulating Candide to get banned from his home hill in Whitefish, blending a life on a bike with his globe-trotting adventures on skis, knee-stabilization exercises, unwinding from a ski day, and his new film, "Flipbook."

2:25 Booted from Whitefish. "It was always such a funny little feud we had going on."

6:00 Honing aerial tricks and bringing them into the backcountry / big mountain terrain

7:10 Being comfortable and confident at each step of learning

8:15 Growing up on mountain bikes, "I almost try to mountain bike like I ski."

9:20 Building trails with his dad, finding inspiration for ski lines

11:50 Early contest and emerging into a ski career

13:40 First time filming with Warren Miller and TGR

14:50 Navigating rocks at Big Sky for fast-twitch talents

16:00 Developing speed in technical terrain

18:00 Preventative maintenance in the gym with a Bosu ball, plyometrics, Adrenaline Performance program by Marcus Goguen

19:00 Working out in gyms since 12

21:04 Mixed success gap jumping with Jake Hopfinger

23:30 Spinning, rowing, and treadmill after skiing

24:07 Making Flipbook

26:30 Drones and social media enabling pro skiers without gatekeepers

29:19 "You're able to build a career out of it on your own if you put in the work."

34:59 "The gnarliest crash ever" on a pillow line in BC

34:40 Bouncing back from a scary crash

35:33 Controlling your speed with piles of snow and careful navigation

"I also feel like fortunate with the timing there because the event had started a few years prior to that, but it hadn't like fully exploded yet. So when Jake and I were getting to compete there, it was like so many eyes were on that that sponsors took notice."

"Big Sky's just made out of like literal daggers everywhere. You have to hone in on your abilities a little bit and understand the terrain and interpret it differently than you do at other resorts. There's plenty of insanely gnarly terrain you can get yourself into."

"I've never played video games. I was always outside."

"I did the full front flip, so my feet went back because if I had gone headfirst into that thing, it would have been so much worse. It would have been definitely the end of my life, actually. On camera, it looks gnarly, but in person, if you see what I actually fell through, it was the gnarliest thing I've ever experienced."

Parkin Costain on Instagram

Wagner Custom Skis

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 launched Wagner Custom Skis with an exploratory questionnaire that helps skier identify their dream skis and software that guides a warehouse full of machines in building those skis.

Nearly 20 years later, Wagner's team of 15 ski builders in Telluride are crafting skis built precisely for individuals taking their skiing to the next level. Tune in to hear Pete's riff on ski design and the manufacturing process, trends in ski designs, and how a customized ski - like a custom-fit ski boot — can improve your every minute on snow.

Topics:

1:00 - A background in material science and design software for golf

6:00 - Buying the wrong skis. How come no one is focusing on fit like in golf and cycling?

7:10 - 2006 launch of Wagner Skis with "rapid prototyping" software

8:00 - How custom ski boot fitters inspired the Wagner business plan

13::40 - Building a database of ski designs

16:00 - Customization for beginner and intermediate skiers

18:00 - Optimizing ski design with 2,500 different material combinations

19:00 - Versatility for beginners

23:00 - Ski design trends in the mid-2000s to now

25:00 - Adding rocker to the tip and tail with camber underfoot

27:10 - Matching individuals to skis

28:20 - Manufacturing without molds

36:00 - Repeat customers and changing designs as skiers refine their demands

Quotes:

"A ski that has the right flex pattern and stiffness, the benefit of that is that it will be stiff enough to give you good stability if you're going fast." - Pete Wagner

"The business model of the big companies is not about customization or agility. Their business model is that they go out in the late winter and spring, get people to try their next year's models, collect orders, mass produce stuff throughout the spring and summer, and then deliver them to the shop in the fall." - Pete Wagner

"What we realized is that you can keep things simple." - Pete Wagner

"Skiing has a lot to offer people. There are different things you can focus on and that's what makes it such a great activity and way to spend your time. And that's our goal." - Pete Wagner

Resources: Wagner Custom Skis

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 who spends his summers working his family's farm near Paonia. Over his decades of being coached and coaching, Willie's picked up more than a few techniques for improving our turns. Listen in and hear Willie talk about critical drills, his description of the best coach in the world, how farming has informed his skiing and when to find the perfect turn.

Topics:

1:00: 18 years skiing with the Bad News Bears of ski racing at Ski Sunlight

3:10: Transitioning to alpine racing coach for U12s for the Aspen Valley Ski and Snowboard Club

6:20: Balancing performance and victory with sustaining a passion for skiing

7:00: The best year for winning at Aspen Valley Ski Club wasn't about the podiums

10:10: No pedestals for elite skiers

12:10: What coaching and young racers taught him about skiing

16:00: "Skiing is the easy part" about being a ski instructor

17:00: Standing on the outside ski

19:40: The up and over drill

20:20: The best coach in the world "should be totally deaf and totally mute."

26:00: How learning patience through farming helps with skiing

30:50: How can you identify the perfect turn? Wait.

Quotes:

"Ski racing is an individual sport that is dominated by teams." - Willie Volckhausen

"It's not all about that one person. Only one person's gonna win and there's ten of us. So what are the other nine kids supposed to do the day that so-and-so wins the race? That's what we focused on a lot." - Willie Volckhausen

"Coaches and mentors have that opportunity every day to not put their elite athletes on a pedestal. The kids who win know they're good. They know they're going to win again. They know they're expected to win. I think that's some of the worst pressure we could possibly put on junior athletes." - Willie Volckhausen

"If you tuck and roll, get your feet back below you, and you stand up without ever stopping, technically that's not a crash; that's a ground trick." - Willie Volckhausen

Resources:

Willie's Instagram

Wagner Custom Skis