Next Level Skiing
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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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,...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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 meat. During the pandemic, he started exercising outside every day. Now he’s more than four years in without missing a single day. He’s a lifelong vegetarian, a vehement climate advocate,...
info_outlineWelcome 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 run, and the crowd loved it.
This is a fun chat with the three-time Olympian who grew up dreaming of competing in the X Games, which he won in 2017. He spent his younger years chasing his older brother Nolan around the steeps of Crested Butte Mtn Resort, where he honed his aerial prowess in gnarly cliffs and trees.
Listen and learn from one of Colorado’s best as Aaron shares insights into bouncing back from injuries, the relentless pursuit of new challenges in skiing, celebrating every turn, and embracing gratitude on snow. Thanks for listening to Next Level Skiing.
Topics:
2:00 - Copper performance
4:49 - Skiing at 18 months
5:24 - Chasing his older brother
7:21 - Unlocking a new wave of younger rippers at Crested Butte
9:10 - Big mountain laps with pipe and terrain park to finish
11:00 - Still living the dream
13:40 - Not just skiing: hockey, baseball, soccer
17:25 - Pay to play: injuries and recovery
22:00 - Mind over matter to bounce back from injuries
24:24 - Overcoming the life-changing injury
26:00 - Why not go skiing?
28:00 - This is my purpose
30:00 - Never stop learning new things
32:00 - Little-kid cruising and embracing gratitude
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