Jim Ryan and Madison Rose Ostergren are both professional skiers living in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Jimmi is in the new Teton Gravity Research Movie “Magic Hour,” and Madison can be seen in the new Warren Miller Entertainment Film “Daymaker.” You can see them both in the Völkl x Legs of Steel recently-released “Beauty Full Send,” where they show just how much fun you can have in firm conditions.

They were kind enough to take some time to talk with our Ski Expert Rob G, who—when he is not giving ski advice on Curated—splits his time between teaching college classes in Brooklyn, coaching skiing in the Catskills, and chasing powder out West.

Catch up with our conversation below or keep scrolling to read more about these two amazing skiers.

Jim, Madison, thank you so much for taking the time to talk. Before we start with the meat and potatoes of this interview, I want to ask you one really important question: What is your favorite whimsical ski tradition?

Jimmi: Every year since I moved to Jackson Hole, I haven’t based my holidays around family as much because skiing kind of took over. So I spend non-traditional family holidays, like July 4th, with my family. But then Christmas is very much friend, community, and skiing oriented. I always do “orphan” Christmas with all my friends. That day is ours: We're just at the hill skiing so fast on Christmas Day, and that's our tradition every year. It's a community day rather than a family day. And that's pretty cool because skiing has made that a tradition for me.

I love skiing on Christmas Day and New Year's Day. Some of my best days have been then. So, Madison, how about you? Anything you like that brings whimsy to ski life?

Madison: I definitely agree with Jim. I make sure to ski with friends on Christmas as well, but a tradition I have is sleeping with my long underwear on, ready to ski the following morning. I've done that since I was a kid and still do that now. It feels good to be ready to go and constantly thinking about it.

You're both based in Jackson Hole. People who are dedicated skiers know that the best waffles in the world are at the top of the tram. Do you guys have a favorite waffle flavor combo at Corbet's Cabin?

Jimmi: Yeah, I go for the Englishman, which is pretty standard. It's just a little bit of lemon juice and sugar: I like to do a simple glucose boost if it has been a big day. The waffle itself, the base is so good. I don't really like to mess with it. Yeah, that's my order.

Madison: My usual order is just mooching off all the other people's waffles.

Jimmi: I mean, those are big waffles. If you're with a crew, you could taste five or six different ones. Is there one favorite to mooch off others?

Madison: I think anything with bananas and chocolate; that's my favorite. I don't know what it's called exactly, but if there's a selection, I'll go for that one.

I was always intrigued by Jackson’s “town hill.” The first time I got to Jackson, I flew in around noon, and there was no time to get up to the big hill, but I got a bus to Snow King and skied there for two hours. Tell me a little bit about that mountain.

Jimmi: Yeah, we're both huge fans of Snow King. And that's a little because it's the underdog, but also, it is right in town. It's so steep. Mads is from Michigan. I'm from Killington, Vermont, and Snow King has an East Coast feel. Despite being nestled in all these gigantic mountains, it's not super tall but steep. It's dark and cold, and everybody there loves skiing it. Nobody's really going on a vacation to Snow King. It's only devoted townies shredding it. It’s really fun. The vibes there are all-time.

Madison: Yeah, I couldn't agree more. It's my favorite. Jim and I live very close to Snow King as well, and people will often buy a pass and skin up. So it's also a great little bang-for-your-buck ski tour. If you only have time after work and you want to get some activity in, you can just crush and ski tour up about 1,500 vertical feet. And then you get to ski down Snow King. Both Jim and I love Snow King. I think it's special for sure. I grew up racing there. That was my introduction to Jackson when I was a kid. I was racing at Snow King, which is very cold and steep. The mountain is no joke. I love it.

You didn't start your ski careers out West or transition into big mountain skiing from park skiing. The popular image is that people go to the X-Games and then they do big mountain movies. But you both have different backgrounds. Do you want to tell us a little about how your ski careers started and what you were doing?

Jimmi: I came from a ski racing background and grew up in Vermont. I was a ski racer until I was 22 years old. I didn't own a pair of skis that weren't race skis. I had never made a pow-turn. And then, when I graduated from college, the ski racing thing just abruptly stopped. And I still felt like I had all this momentum going towards skiing. But, my love for it was as strong as ever.

I went out West mostly out of curiosity, and the whole big mountain world kind of unfurled before me. One, because it was just so fun. Learning, growing, and trying to expand my skill set in something I love so much was addicting. And then things started working out. I think anytime someone is passion-driven, success is inevitable. Because I was out there every day, I couldn't be stopped. I was obsessed with big-mountain skiing. What it brought and the potential within it was incredible.

"Learning, growing, and trying to expand my skill set in something I love so much was addicting."

5.0

Rob G.

Ski Expert

My background in ski racing, and especially East Coast skiing, allowed me to have a different skill set. Most people came from park backgrounds or the West Coast and were born and raised in the kind of environment they were skiing in, and they had a style that matched the terrain. But, I had a style that was completely from a different area. And so it allowed me to find success in different ways through innovation and through using a ski racing background in big mountains. It's been a journey.

Madison: I do want to add something about Jim. He's the most versatile skier I've ever skied with. Coming from the East Coast, he can go anywhere. We'll be on bulletproof ice on a volcano, and Jim's just charging when I'm like, "Dude, I don't know how you're doing this right now." He really has a special touch for being able to show up in any kind of conditions, especially when it's variable or technical and icy and just throw down. That's something I really admire about your skiing style.

Jimmi: Thank you, Madison.

Madison, there was this move from Michigan to Utah for you, right? That's a huge change in your environment and everything else in your life because of skiing. Was it a bit of a shock for you when you first moved out to Salt Lake City?

Madison: Yeah, absolutely. Going from Michigan to Salt Lake was a huge move. My whole family packed up, sold our house, and we moved to Salt Lake City, Utah, in the middle of high school. So I left all my friends in high school, and we went to a ski academy. That was a big transition. But I'm really happy; I couldn't be more grateful. My family's amazing; our home and family base is in Salt Lake. It's a wonderful place to be.

I noticed something about both of your skiing styles. I can see the racing background in the edits. You're both directional skiers. It's like, “Where's the fall line? Point me to it.” Boom. And I love seeing that. "Wait, the fall line goes right through these two trees? Well, that's where I'm going to go."

Madison: It's the best compliment I could've ever asked for, Rob. Thank you.

Jimmi, you went to Colby. Madison, you went to Westminster. Both of you had to balance academics and skiing. Was that a tricky line?

Madison: Yeah, I'm not very good at school, I feel like.

Jimmi: That's not true.

Madison: I was okay at school. I studied communication, and most people would say, "Oh, that's such an easy thing to study." But it aligned with me very well. I had to do video production, art, and a lot of writing, which I enjoyed. Honestly, the real struggle for me in college wasn't about academics. The entire four years I was in college were the best four years Salt Lake had for snow. So, I got “trapped” up at Alta quite a bit.

There's this thing called Interlodge, which is unique to Little Cottonwood Canyon. When an avalanche hits the road, you have to station in any hut or hotel you're in. And you get locked in because they're doing avalanche control. So often, I would be up at Alta and say, "Oh, an avalanche on the road; looks like I can't go to class." But I went to a small school, and the teachers knew. There were probably 10 people in my class, so they knew where I was and probably thought, "She just wants to ski pow."

I spent a lot of time up in Little Cottonwood Canyon skiing every single day. But it was a good balance, I think. It was a different college experience than Jimmi's in the East. I went to school and still ski-raced Division One D1. I was the only American on the team. I got to live and spend so much time with Europeans, and they taught me so much. I really grew as a skier when I was there. And then, by the end of my ski racing career, I had already started pursuing the photo-video route and became more media-focused. So that was my transition. It was through college and spending so much time, like Jim said, skiing every single day and really getting after it, wanting to be there with this amazing community up the canyon.

Jimmi, how about you? Colby College has a reputation for being a competitive, high-end ski racing school. How was that?

Jimmi: Definitely. It's a D1 school, and at that time in my life, I was convinced of the importance of both school and ski racing. Maybe it was not so much the importance of ski racing, but it was my passion then. It was my avenue to skiing, and I cared about both of them very much. So I was completely devoted to ski racing and trying to improve. And I also thrived at that time because the goals, both within school and ski racing, were very clearly defined. You know when you’re doing well, you know when you're doing poorly, and the avenues to success are clearly defined. So, I worked really hard at both. At the time, a lot of my classmates might have been surprised by that because I was shy about my academic success, but I worked really hard at Colby.

It may have been a blessing that I did not know my current career path existed. Otherwise, there is no way I would have completed school at all. Not if I had known that what I'm doing now was possible. I thought racing was the only way.

With that racing background, was there something that you had to unlearn as you switched to filming big mountain skiing?

Jimmi: I would say that I had to unlearn that there are rules in skiing. Ski racing would very much have you believe that there are things you must do to succeed. You have to be over the outside ski, your hands have to be level, and your hips, upper body and lower body separated. All of these things are borderline laws. They're rules that we adhere to in order to have the best turn or the fastest run. And in my big mountain and film careers, I have allowed the rules less to be rules and more to be guidelines because as soon as you start letting go of strict things, you allow for a lot more style to come in.

And even if it's not your own style, you can appreciate other skiers’ styles. The fact that they can bend the rules to have personal expression is something that took me a little while to appreciate. But now that I have, I really like when skiers are open to new ideas about how to ski. It brings a lot more expression, art, and beauty into the whole thing. And sometimes they miss, and sometimes they look ridiculous, but sometimes it's awesome. And it's always fun. So that's what counts.

Madison, you were doing both at the same time. Any surprising lesson you took from ski racing or are you like, "Oh, this is really applicable to what I'm doing right now, standing at the top of this peak with someone saying four, three, two, one, go"?

Madison: Yeah, I really think that some things align and are very, very similar, and I think some things are different. For example, shooting photos or just doing videos with a photographer or a videographer is very different from ski racing. You're working with another person, and you're really just creating art. And maybe that's only a few turns or maybe 10 turns versus going down a hill very fast for time. I feel like I had to change my skiing style to really understand how to shoot ski photos. That is so different from just laying it over an arc in racing. They can be very, very different in that way.

But then there are also times when Jim and I and our friends are just shredding at the resort, and that feels very much like, "All right, I'm going to beat Jim to the bottom." (But that never happens. Maybe once in a blue moon because he's so fast.) And, I also feel like there are those times where I'm like, "All right, get your head in the game." I have to talk myself up when I’m about to hit a cliff or ski a line, and I'm saying the same things I would when I was at the start gate, ready to race. I really get excited.

Jimmi, you've filmed together for Warren Miller Entertainment, and you're in a Teton Gravity movie coming out this year. Is that right?

Jimmi: Yeah, this year is my second year with Teton Gravity Research, but this year is a little bit different for me because I got to create my dream segment. They came to me and said, "All right, the Jackson segment is yours. How are we doing this?" And I made a list of all these lines and all these peaks in the park, as we call it—Grand Teton National Park. And it turned out to be a pretty ambitious list, and we still somehow pulled it off. And I don't know if I've ever been so proud of a segment my whole life, to be honest. So this year is a special one for me.

Madison: You're being humble, dude. Jimmi ripped the Grand Teton and the South Teton twice and the middle Teton and Buck [big, high consequence lines in the backcountry]. It was just like tick, tick, tick, tick. He was out there for a month straight, for 14-hour days. Ski touring and setting it all. I'm stoked for you. It was cool. It was very cool.

Madison, you're in the upcoming Warren Miller movie. Tell me a little bit about your segment in that movie.

Madison: It was so fun. We had a wild winter in the states where we had some early snow, then it just shut off, and we had no snow for six weeks. And so I actually got injured during the six-week drought. I had a pretty gnarly concussion during filming for Warren Miller, but I was cleared, so I could go. But our crew was so lucky, Rob. We showed up at this spot in British Columbia, and it had snowed a ridiculous amount of powder, so it was next level. It was perfect because all the landings were really soft. I didn't have to worry about getting hurt and hurting my head again or something.

I was with these two boys that were quite a bit younger than me, so I had gone from being the youngster on my first Warren Miller movie the year before with Jim and our teammate Kaylin [Richardson] where I was the new one and the young one. And then I roll up to this year, and suddenly I'm the grandma!

Jimmi: I've seen a couple of clips from it; it looked amazing. Madison brought the joy. If you're ever wondering what skiing feels like, watch it for 10 seconds, and you're like, "That's what I want it to feel like." It looks amazing.

You are both in a new movie from Völkl that's possibly a bit of a return to your roots and away from the big mountain skiing. Do you want to talk a little bit about “Beauty Full Send”?

Jimmi: Yeah, you were talking about accessibility and our roots, and it's exactly that. A lot of times when you watch a ski movie, you see somebody ski an Alaska face, and you're like, "Okay, that's incredible, but I have no idea what that feels like. I can't imagine myself there." It's just like, "Wow, it's gorgeous, and that looks fun." It looks difficult, and they're exercising skill, but what we were trying to do with “Beauty Full Send” is show the upper limits of inbound skiing.

In Europe, they call it piste skiing. Some people call it groomer skiing. We were just trying to show how much you can flex style, how much fun you can have, and the kind of aesthetics behind the kind of skiing that everybody has access to. I would say 99% of skiers learn how to ski using chairlifts, and they ski on trails. And so we're like, "Okay, what's the very best thing we can show in that environment?"

And so Völkl assembled four of the best in-bounds skiers in the game right now and had them create this thing together. And it also shows, among all those other things, teamwork. And then on top of all that, it was one of the most dialed film crews ever. The Legs of Steel crew is incredible. They've got multiple drones in the air, vision, and everything is detailed. They have opinions about how to make something gorgeous. And the result is this film that's just short and so potent. You could watch it a dozen times. It's really cool.

Madison, what skis were you on in “Beauty Full Send”?

Madison: I was skiing the Kenja 88s, which are my go-to for any day in the resort because they are the best for conditions where you're going to want to ski groomers but also go and transition into bumps and then crud and wind buff. They really do it all when you're skiing in the resort. And so I was so stoked to have those skis. They're just sharp, and they crushed. I had a blast on those. And I ski those a lot of my season! If I'm skiing in the resort, 75% is on those skis.

What are the Völkl skis in your quiver right now that you might bring out during the season?

Madison: So there's a lot, and that's the best part. I feel like Völkl has every single ski for anything I would want to go ski. It's just the best. I wake up, and I'm like, "What are the conditions in the park? What are the conditions in the backcountry? What are the conditions on Snow King? What are the conditions in British Columbia?" And I have a ski for everything I want to do. It's epic. I ski a lot on the Secret 96. I feel like that's kind of your one ski go-to. That's my favorite ski out of my whole quiver. You can definitely tell it's the one I break the most, and it has the most marks and core shots. I definitely ski that ski the most, but second in line is the Kenja, especially last season when we didn't have as much snow.

When I found myself skiing at the resort, I really loved that ski. It's just so fun and playful, and it's what I used when filming “Beauty Full Send.” I was comfortable on that ski, and you can ski anything in the resort. You're not planning to use that ski when you're skiing blower powder overhead, but you'll definitely want to use that ski when you're skiing groomers and bumps in kind of variable conditions when you have to blast through all sorts of snow and conditions. So those two are my go-tos.

If you were going to go home and visit one of your home mountains in Michigan or go to the East Coast, would you bring the Kenja 88 with you?

Madison: Easily. And Jim and I were talking—and he'll probably mention this too—but for the Midwest and East, I feel like that's the ski. Kenja, Kendo, that's what you want. Maybe out West, you'd want the Secret, Mantra, but my quiver is like that. And then sometimes when it's really icy, I'll go with the Deacon, and that's just when I want to flex, and I'm like, "Oh, watch me turn."

Jimmi, what ski did you ski on in “Beauty Full Send”?

Jimmi: I filmed the whole project on the M6 Mantra, which is the widest of the piece set up, so it's 96 underfoot. So of the four athletes, I had the widest ski. Still, I also think it's probably the most versatile because for almost the whole film, I skied really icy groomers, and yet, at the same time, that ski can go and ski legitimately deep powder. I would say for a technically sound, confident skier, a 96 underfoot is really wide enough to ski even the deepest days. So people say that the one ski quiver is impossible to find, but I think that the M6 Mantra is there.

I've skied overhead days, and I've filmed an entire icy groomer project on it. It really does everything. And then the sweet spot for it, of course, is the days in between. For chopped-up powder or crud, or most days what you find at the resort, the M6 Mantra is what you would use. It's the ski for somebody who has a strong grasp on the reality of conditions. It's a daily driver.

I think there's this sort of feeling that many people have that's like, "Well, if the ski's not over 100 millimeters, then it's not really for hard skiing, but you guys disprove that completely.

Jimmi: We're in Jackson, and it snows a ton in Jackson. For America, that's one of the deepest resorts, yet we still rarely go over 100 [mm] underfoot. That's just not the reality. If you're really lucky, you get like 10 pow days a year if you're out there all the time. And the other however many days you ski, if powder's what you're going for, then you're skiing suboptimal conditions. If you love crud and bumps and all the other stuff, then you're always skiing in optimal conditions. But a 96 is as wide as you would ever need for those conditions. And you can ski pow on a narrower ski, but it feels terrible to ski hardback on a wide ski.

Madison, you've performed songs at the end of some of your shorter movies. And, Jimmi, I saw in one of your bios that you're a fan of freestyle rap. Both of you are probably outgoing and chatty and maybe sing songs on a lift occasionally. Do you guys have a favorite song to sing on the lift?

Madison: Can I go first? I have way more stories! Yeah, especially around Christmastime, I Christmas carol quiz people on the lift. On Christmas this year [2021], I was going up the lift, and I would be like, "Dashing through the snow." First, I would say, "Welcome to the chairlift quiz carol song." It was like this stupid thing, and I was having a good time with it. And I would do the little song, then transfer the mic and be like, "Dashing through the snow on a one…"

Jimmi: And that's usually how it happens. Just total silence.

Madison: No!

Jimmi, how about you? Do you have a go-to karaoke song?

Jimmi: I feel like Madison and I have done a lot of really long adventures, and I feel like we usually get a song in our head.

Madison: Recently, it's been “Gloria.”

Jimmi: Yeah, at least recently, it's been [Laura Brannigan’s] “Gloria.”

So, both of you talked earlier about transitioning from being ski racers and having to move on from that. And ski racing, there's sort of a brutal pyramid there where either you're up or you're out. How did you figure out that you wanted to do filming? Or what was your introduction to filming? Was there a transition where you were working odd jobs in between, knowing that that was what you wanted to do, but you weren't quite there yet?

Madison: Yeah, that's a great question. I was in school, trying to finish a semester early, racing D1, and just trying to ski as much pow as I could. And I had really just shifted my energy into free skiing. I tried to spend a lot of time free skiing at the resort and getting to know these people up at Alta that were shooting photos. And I was like, “I really want to do that, and I want to be in these magazines that everyone talks about and these movies that everyone talks about!” I had wanted that for a long time.

The legit transition, the turning point, was my last semester of college. Midway through this racing season, I got invited to come to Switzerland—which is where we are right now–to this exact place in Engelberg. I said yes, and I just got on a flight and came out here. Then, everything just started going from there.

I started working with a handful of photographers in the Salt Lake City area and Little Cottonwood and really tried to understand how the whole industry worked and how I could transition into that. But I didn't have much time to change from one to the other. I didn't question it. I was like, "This is exactly what I want to do. I'm not going to get paid as a ski racer. I want to go in this direction." And it seemed way more fun. It was more personal expression. I'd always looked up to all these professional skiers in the big movies, and I always wanted that when I was a kid.

And truly, Rob, so many people brought me up, and I feel so lucky. The entire Little Cottonwood Canyon community in Salt Lake City was like, "We're going to help you." And so I started shooting photos. I remember my first time being in a magazine; I thought it was the best thing in the world. It still feels like such an honor to be able to be in a magazine. And then, to have these things happen is really cool.

"So many people brought me up, and I feel so lucky."

5.0

Rob G.

Ski Expert

Then, I moved to Jackson two years ago and focused more on filming and doing videos. When I moved to Jackson, it felt like I was kind of shifting and changing as a skier in some ways. And I was changing as a person in some ways. I was 22, and now I'm 25, and the last two or three years have focused on different stuff, on myself in fun ways, and my skiing. What I like to do and my passion is going more towards video and less photo. This is sad, too, because photos and magazines were such a thing, and it was really awesome to be a part of that. And I learned a lot through that. So I'm grateful for that opportunity, and it's sad they're gone, but also, it's okay. We have to adapt and keep going with what we're doing. So I'm excited about where the future leads.

You mentioned something about mentorship. I have seen something similar with people who are committed to the sport. As soon as people saw that you were serious about having fun and about skiing—and, maybe, doing both those things simultaneously—they were more than happy to bring you in and show you secret stashes. It was kind of, "This is how we do things. It’s a family.” I think that’s a wonderful part of the culture of skiing. So, I'm glad that—even in the "Who's going to get the photograph" environment—people were really bringing you up. And now you get to pay that forward.

Madison: And I think you're very right, Rob. You realize how lucky you are and how many people just went out of their way to give you love, support, and help you out. And I think that's so special. And so now, moving forward, it's like, “How do I give back?” And sometimes that's going and skiing with a bunch of fun kids. And, honestly, I don't even feel like it's me giving back. These kids are honestly giving more to me. This is awesome. But yeah, now it's all about that, and I think that's really special and a cool full-circle moment in the ski industry, even though the ski industry is so small. What we do is sometimes silly. We're going skiing, but it's a beautiful thing that we get to share with people, giving us the most amazing life experience. So I feel really happy about that.

Jimmi, how about you? I think your transition wasn't quite that seamless, is that right?

Jimmi: No, actually, when Madison talks about her transition, I am quite envious. It was streamlined. I'm not going to say it was easy because it wasn't. Madison is one of the hardest workers I've ever met, which is why she's found so much success. But my transition from one to the other was a bit more convoluted.

When I left college and ski racing, I didn't have a clear vision of how I would enter the career path I'm in now. I needed a lot of help. Everybody needs help. That's a reality. My friend Chris Hawkins, also from Killington, called me up and said, "Hey, dude, I think we should go be skiers." And I was like, "That sounds great for you." And he is like, "No, it sounds great for us. You've got this too. We got this." And I was like, "Holy smokes."

Just that one time with him saying, "Hey, I think you can do this." I will remember it for the rest of my life. Because that was the little seed of confidence I needed to move to Jackson, to try this thing and put my whole heart into it. And it's because Chris said I could, and he was the best skier I knew then and is still one of the best skiers I've ever met. And so I fully dove in, and we moved to Jackson and devoted all our time to go for this thing. And it still took years. We didn't know how to do it. We had GoPros, and we posted on Instagram. We mostly skied really fast under the Thunder lift, which is the most wholesome way to get noticed: try to be in the public eye and shred really hard.

And I got a lot better at skiing doing that. I got some initial recognition just being in Jackson, seeing where the bar was set, and trying to push a little bit harder. Being like, "Okay, this is what everybody's doing here. Here's what I have to contribute."

Then I had a couple of lucky breaks. Hadley Hammer noticed me when she was working on her TGR segment, and she's like, "Why don't you come out and help me with mine? You seem to be charging. You seem to know what you're doing.” It is hysterical because I had no idea what I was doing. And in reality, that was me setting a lot of boot packs, carrying backpacks, and seeing how the industry worked. And I got some of my initial clips from there.

And then I also got to meet Sarah Lorson, who I had known through East Coast connections. She was at Völkl at the time, and we skied together. Sarah gave me my first real break. She came out to Jackson, we skied together, and I told her my intentions. I was like, "This is what I want to do with my life." And she believed in me before anyone else did. And that was huge.

Madison: And she's Völkl.

Jimmi: Yeah. She signed me to the Völkl team. And once I had a platform and a little bit of street cred with Völkl, things took off for me from there. But in the beginning years, I just worked really hard to try and differentiate myself from all the other skiers. And I did that through skiing a lot, which I think is definitely the most fun way to make it.

And I say I'm jealous of Madison's path, but I am so happy that I went through and took the path I did because I worked so many different things and the people that I met and the community that I've built in Jackson in those years of "struggle," are still my best friends. I love them and lean on them, which is why I feel so grounded in this place because I was a ski bum like everybody else. I still am.

Madison and Jimmi, I just want to thank you so much. This has been a huge thrill because I watched you guys ski. I was like, “Wow, I'm going to get to talk to those two.” I just want to say this has been awesome. I really appreciate it.

Jimmi: For us, too, actually.

Closing Thoughts

I came into this interview with Madison and Jimmi with a little apprehension. I might be a “ski pro” (instructor), but I’m not close to being a pro skier. Although our conversation was not punctuated by ski runs, it felt a lot like sharing chairlift rides during a day on the hill.

Skiing is a crazy sport that gets us spending entire days outdoors in the winter, hoping for snow with the zeal of a 4th grader wanting a day off from school. Skiing is a family sport that also creates a family of skiers. Meeting Jim and Madison felt like meeting distant cousins for the first time—we’ve taken three very different paths but we also have a lot in common.

It is always a pleasure to meet other members of that skiing family. If you want to talk to me about the Völkl skis we mentioned in this interview or any other ski gear, please feel free to reach out to me and my fellow Experts on Curated. You’ll fill out a brief questionnaire about what you are looking for, and then we can get started finding the right gear for you.