Cover Photo: Jay Wilder

At this point, there is no denying it. Colby Stevenson is one of the defining freeskiers of the current generation. Supremely talented and resilient, the man has survived brushes with death and crippling injuries on his path to the top of slopestyle podiums across the world. An Olympic medalist, a multiple X Games gold medalist and one to watch in any scenario, he somehow found time to balance the comp schedule with filming one of, if not THE video parts of the year for Good Company's Crescendo, which releases today. We caught up with Colby to figure out how he balanced his schedule and what it took to keep his body going while filming and competing at the highest level. As always, Colby was great to chat to and provided an amazing insight into how he works:

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The last time we chatted on here, you mentioned how you like to “keep things spicy” and ski more than just the park. Were you waiting for a part like this to show your skiing outside the park?

For sure, a lot of people don’t realise how much I’ve been skiing backcountry over the years. My last part was ‘Ignite’ which we filmed in 2019. We’d had an insane February in Utah that year. I filmed a sick backcountry part then. With the Olympics, the last couple years, I basically just focused on contests, I knew I wasn’t going to be able to put out something that serious.

I was just waiting for the right moment to ‘top’ my last video. I want to show my progression as a skier, instead of just the same tricks, I wanted to show what I’ve learned and bring those tricks into the backcountry.

I’ve also been skiing a lot bigger lines, so I wanted to incorporate that too. I’m newer to the bigger lines, but I’ve always had an eye for it and wanted to get into it. Until this last year, I’d never done any freeride comps or anything. It’s sick to be able to confirm that I do have that skill, that I can read that terrain and push that side of my skiing. While still mixing in a bit of my freestyle background.

I definitely scare the sh*t out of myself on those bigger lines, more than slopestyle or whatever. I’m stoked it all came together in one part and I probably had 8-10 lines in my part and it was so nice to show that I know how to ski too!

Spot the Colby... one of many insane lines from his new part

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You said you hadn’t done freeride contests before this year and you came 3rd at Red Bull Infinite Line’s last spring. Are freeride contests where you want to go? Even the FWT?

Definitely. Growing up that’s the route I thought I’d take when I started competing in slopestyle a little less. But as the FWT has progressed, it’s gotten a little crazy and I don’t see myself wanting to push my skiing in sh*tty conditions, just out of fear of getting injured and missing out on the good days of the season with actual good snow. I’d love to do a freeride contest with good conditions. If they permitted a longer weather window I definitely would be interested.

Also, contests which are more a mix of freestyle and freeride, Infinite Lines for example, where it’s a bunch of jumps scattered around the terrain. That kind of stuff is so sick. And if skiing gets a Natural Selection type event... maybe that’s something I start in the future. There’s a lot of room to push the sport in that direction and that’s something I’d definitely love to see and be a part of.

We’ll see about the FWT, I’d be down to do an event. If I got a wildcard at a sick spot, I’d definitely be interested. It’s just not something I’m focusing my energy on.

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Cool. Again from your original answer, you were saying how you like to mix in a bit of slopestyle and there were definite aspects of that in your part. Is that something you’ll always try to incorporate? Even on those bigger lines?

For sure, if I were to do a regular freeride contest, I would try to spin both ways and just try to do stuff that was more slopestyle-oriented, looking at the mountain in different ways and doing nose butters off natural hits. When I look at a freeride comp like Infinite Lines, I just think how you can be the most creative and show a different variety of tricks.

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Your part in Crescendo definitely had some elements that reminded me of some big mountain legends and in your last NS interview, you mentioned Pep Fujas as an inspiration. Did you take anyone in particular as a big mountain inspiration?

I grew up watching all of the ski movies: MSP, Level 1, TGR, and all the sickest movies. I took inspiration from a bunch of different people. There was no one specific person. I always admired T Hall and his ability to ski everything and watched him ski up in Revelstoke and a bunch of pillows in BC. I knew, for sure, that I wanted to do more of that.

I started riding snowmobiles when I was younger too, because I knew that would get me out to that terrain.

I took a lot of inspiration from Sammy Carlson: nine years ago he quit slopestyle to focus on backcountry and he’s made insane parts. X Games Real Ski was so dope and I was really hoping to take part in that before it ended. Maybe they’ll bring that back. There’s just so much room in that space and there’s not that many people riding backcountry and doing the tricks that we’re doing in the park. It’s just so fun. You land a dub 10 in the backcountry and it’s like landing a dub 18 on a park jump for most people. That’s how hard it is to land in fresh snow.

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Speaking of backcountry being harder, and your desire to ski more there, what were the challenges of filming this segment?

It really comes down to having the knowledge to move in the backcountry, having the avalanche training and having the right crew to be out there and be safe. Then stuff like, you’ve got to be up super early, be at the right place at the right time with the lighting. Obviously, the snow forecast matters so much, luckily we had an insane season in the US, which made it a lot easier to get clips. If we didn’t get a clip on a jump, it would snow and we could go back and get it. It would always be snowing so we’d always have the opportunity to get fresh pow shots. You need good conditions to make it happen and that’s probably the hardest part about it and that’s why we got so lucky this year.

When we were in Jackson, Kai Jones hit me up and we combined forces with TGR. We got some of the sickest shots of the season. We shared footage and that was super helpful. It takes partnerships to make it happen.

At the end of the year, MSP hit me up because they were looking for an athlete to go to AK. That was a perfect fit, I was already trying to get up there with Sammy and it just wasn’t really working out. Then BOOM! There you go, Sammy and I are on an AK trip, with MSP. Everyone was happy, we had a big crew, the right filmers.

It’s not something you can just start by yourself, you need the right equipment and the right crew to show you the ropes. It takes so many moving parts to come together to work out how it did. On top of that, probably the biggest issue was pushing through injuries.

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What injuries did you have?

I had a big shoulder issue, my labrum was torn all season, so I was just skiing with a brace.

On December 7th I filmed both of my nose butter dubs, then we went to film a cliff where I did a dub 10 in my part. The light was so good but I was so tired. My filmer was like:

‘The light’s so good! I don’t know when we’ll get it this good!’

I ended up crashing and scorpioning pretty bad. I pretty much broke my back. I couldn’t arch back for like a month. I was too scared to get X-rays, I’m sure there was a hairline fracture or something that would have kept me from pushing through. I was able to not have pain as long as I was leaning forward, so I was taking a risk all season with that. I had a f*cked up thumb, I hurt my right wrist from snowmobiling, and then my knee was messed up at the Dew Tour. So much sh*t I just had to power through. There was never time for a break because it just kept snowing. I figured I’d pick the pieces up at the end of the season.

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It was worth it for that part though!

Yeah, but people don’t realize how much goes into these parts. After my car crash, my pain tolerance is super high. If I didn’t push through a bunch of injuries I would not have the part I did.

Photo: Jack Francis

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It must have been the most stacked line-up that Good Company’s ever had this year though? I didn’t see the rider list before I watched it and just legends and up and comers just popped up in every segment! Obviously, you must have just all shot your segments separately. How did it work?

We all kind of split up into separate groups. That was kind of the vision with Good Company.

There’s MSP, There’s Level 1 and there’s TGR, those are the main big ski production companies. Good Company was kind of just a way to combine the homies and have it be less of a serious thing. Just whoever wants to get together and film. And make some sh*t. That’s exactly what it was this year, whoever wanted to go help build and hit the jumps.

We had Mac Forehand, and Blake Wilson, who are two of my good buddies, and they got some shots in the movie. Wallisch was out with Tucker Fitzsimons skiing a bunch of street, that was such a dope segment in the movie. Having Tim McChesney out and Thayne Rich in the backcountry together was crazy too.

We all just combined our footage and it ended up being a really sick movie. It just takes easy-going people and the right place right time.

It’s hard to get stuff done with a big crew, so we got more done splitting into smaller groups.

My filmer, Jack Francis, it was his first year filming. We grew up snowmobiling together for the last eight years. We already have really good communication and understanding of the backcountry together.

Some days we’d just go out together and stack some stuff, it just made it really easy because we were always on the same wavelength.

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The music matches so perfectly. Even if the music might not necessarily be to everyone’s taste, it fits the images so well. Was that your choice?

Yeah, I chose that song. I’ve actually had that song in a playlist for a few years. Some snowboarders used it in a teaser, a couple of years ago, I’d already had it before that and I figured it was only a teaser so it wouldn’t really matter.

Fuzz is a pretty dope rock band. Kind of hard rock, but it just has such a sick vibe for an intense segment. I knew when I added that song [Say Hello] to my edit playlist, I thought it would have to be a crazy part for the song to work. It’d have to be hammers the whole time! I was psyched that we got the rights to it.

For my part, we actually had to extend the song by like two minutes, so we looped parts of it. Which was kind of sad, because the way the song escalates, not looped, is so nice. We made it work and I think it turned out really sick.

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What did it feel like to stand at the top of those huge lines?

Those lines were definitely the gnarliest I’ve ever skied and it felt like I was stepping into some stuff that was definitely scary! Before I dropped in, on some of them, I knew that I was either going to lace it and do it perfectly or I was going to leave in a helicopter. That was pretty gnarly to think about, at times it almost felt like I was gearing up for war! You’ve done your homework though, the snow conditions are good and you can’t really pass up an opportunity like that.

I skied some sweet lines in Utah in March, right before I went up to Alaska. I just used all that experience in training for Alaska. The lines are so much bigger up there and there are a lot more landmarks that you have to remember as you’re riding. You look at a photo at the bottom and think, I’m gonna hit that cliff, then that one’...

Everything looks so different when you’re riding it. So I just moved with caution and had a lot of respect for the mountains.

I skied some big stuff in Alaska with MSP, where if I fell I definitely could have died, but honestly, the scariest lines I did were in Wyoming. You have moments where you wonder if it’s really worth it before you go. You know that you’ve trained your whole life for this kind of thing. I knew when I was in Elementary school that I wanted to go to Alaska, skiing big lines. Funny quote from my buddy, in Alaska, a few years ago. He said he had a: “I need my mommy” moment and I felt that. Once that heli drops you off and it’s so steep, you look down and you can’t see anything, that’s the real deal. That heli is not coming back to pick you up!

It’s definitely a totally different place than at the top of a slopestyle run, but that’s the beauty of it. You’re out there in the mountain and the mountain is your canvas and you can paint it however you want, but you can’t just drop in without thinking about it. I’ve definitely been a student for a long time, so it’s nice to see it all come to fruition.

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How hard is it to balance competing with getting that much footage?

The hardest thing about competing and filming is just the toll on your body. We’re only human and even when you’re not crashing at contests, you’re still taking so much impact and twisting so much. Parts of your body are just screaming at you, telling you to stop but you know it’s only the middle of the season and you have to keep pushing.

You don’t want to get hurt before a contest, and you don’t want to get hurt at a contest because you know you’ve got a film trip coming up. You still want to do well at both.

The coolest thing for me, is that I really wanted to do well filming last season and put all my attention into that, while also competing. I’m still competitive and I still wanted to win, but I set the precedent at the beginning of the season to focus on the filming. All the comps ended up going well because I was more relaxed, really calculated and only sent my bigger tricks when I needed to.

The lack of training definitely cost me in some comps, but I had success in others. The good conditions just allowed more time for filming, but no time for rest!

Good conditions do help...

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Looking to the future a bit, what are your plans for this next Olympic cycle?

I definitely want to see how far I can push my slopestyle in the next three years. I’m kind of moving away from Big Air but if I make the Olympic team for Slopestyle, you also have to compete in Big Air. Obviously, I’d do it then. I’m just not having fun with the World Cups and stuff, so I’ll just focus all my energy on Slopestyle.

This year there’s no Olympic qualifying, that’s why I’m allotting the whole second half of the season just to filming.

The next two seasons after that, the season before the Olympics there’s a lot of qualifying process for the US team. I’m definitely going to go for it and I’ll see if I can bring some new flavor into slopestyle for me and just keep on the righteous path.

It sounds like Livigno, where they’re holding the slopestyle, is one of the sickest places ever, with crazy jumps and stuff. I’ve never been there but I’ve just heard good things and that really motivates me.

To have an Olympic experience, not during COVID sounds really special. My family didn’t get to go last time. The Olympics is more for families and unity of our country and the world. It’s so cool to see everyone come together like that and after not having that in 2022 I’m definitely motivated to go, for my family to have that experience.

I don’t know, I’m just playing it by ear, I definitely have that in my mind but I’m focusing on my current goals and what I can control. That’s getting healthy, getting ready for X Games and getting psyched to ski.

I’d like to go to the Olympics and after that, we’ll see man! I might just go full film guy! We’ll see where I’m at... if I’m still really competitive and eager to learn or I want to take something new on. That’s my whole thing with Slopestyle, I’m just addicted to learning new tricks. When I stop doing that, that’ll be when I burn out a bit and then I’ll push the film side of things and I like to surf a lot too...

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So, let’s finish with a very NS question; do you have any plans to film a street part to add to the CV?

Yeah! I’ve been thinking about hitting some street in the last couple years. I used to ride a lot more street when I was younger. I always picked gnarly spots and I’d just get wrecked. I’d end up getting the shot, but I’d be so beaten up and it just didn’t seem worth it.

I’ve definitely been talking to the homies , I’ve got some edgeless skis and I want to get back in the street. Even if it’s just hitting some fun spots and some more mellow sh*t. Just going out and supporting the homies too. Hopefully I can find some time in the busy schedule, to get out there and do it.

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Good Company's Crescendo, featuring Colby's Award-winning segment drops at 5pm MT, today