Cody Cirillo
Profile and significance
Cody Cirillo is a Colorado-based freeski and backcountry athlete who has built his career at the intersection of creative filmmaking, human-powered travel and playful, high-level skiing. Growing up around the terrain parks and bowls of Summit County, he learned to ski and spin at places like Breckenridge and Copper before shifting more and more of his focus into touring, road trips and story-driven projects. While he has competitive experience and a FIS freestyle background, his reputation today comes mainly from his work in films and web projects and from the way he uses skis as a tool for narrative rather than just scoring points.
As his career evolved, Cirillo became part of the athlete roster for brands such as Faction Skis and Zeal Optics, and appeared in major team movies from The Faction Collective including “The Collective” and “Roots.” Alongside those ensemble productions, he has co-created a string of smaller, personal films—“Made in Voyage,” “Southwest Scramble,” and “Au Naturel”—that put his creative direction on equal footing with his skiing. Between film festival selections, brand features and his steady presence in the digital freeski world, he has become one of the recognizable names in the current generation of North American film-focused skiers.
Competitive arc and key venues
Cody’s competitive arc is mostly a launching pad rather than the centerpiece of his story. Early on he appeared in park edits from places like Woodward at Copper, in Summit County terrain parks and in small freestyle events that sharpened his trick list and comfort on rails and jumps. He earned a FIS freestyle profile and spent time on the start lists at international contests, but even as those results accumulated, he gravitated more naturally toward the creativity and freedom of filming.
Key venues in his career map closely to the evolution of his projects. Breckenridge is the anchor, the home mountain where edits like “You wish you could ski Breck like Cody Cirillo does” showcased his ability to read every side hit and rail on the hill. Silverton Mountain in southern Colorado provided a wilder playground, from pond-skim antics with Matchstick Productions to steeper alpine lines. Later, his world expanded outward: European shoots with Faction Skis, foot-powered missions in the American West, and ski touring segments in Iceland and the Altai Mountains. In films like “Southwest Scramble,” the “venue” is literally the road itself as he bikes between ranges in the desert Southwest, turning the journey into part of the performance.
How they ski: what to watch for
On snow, Cirillo’s skiing blends strong park fundamentals with a playful, exploratory mindset suited to natural terrain. The first thing to watch is his stance: neutral, relaxed and balanced, which lets him react quickly when a landing is deeper, firmer or weirder than expected. In resort laps and backcountry shots alike, he favors smooth, slashy turns that keep his skis engaged with the snow, then snaps into more aggressive edging when he funnels into a chute or approaches a feature.
His trick selection speaks to his freestyle roots. Expect a lot of 360s with different grabs, corked spins, and the occasional big, floated backflip—often thrown off side hits, cornices or handbuilt jumps rather than manicured park kickers. Cody has a habit of using every piece of terrain available: knuckles become step-downs, rock rolls turn into improvised takeoffs, and windlips are treated like natural quarterpipes. Watch his landings closely; he tends to absorb impact low and strong, then flows straight into the next turn without that stiff check that breaks the rhythm in many riders’ lines. For viewers and progressing skiers, his segments are a study in how to let park skills bleed into the backcountry without losing flow.
Resilience, filming, and influence
Resilience in Cody’s case is as much about persistence and creative risk as it is about physical recovery. While juggling a bachelor’s degree in Environmental Science and Health from the University of Southern California, he kept pushing his skiing, building relationships with sponsors and slowly learning the production side of the camera. Instead of relying solely on film crews to shape his image, he stepped behind the lens and into the editing suite, co-directing and producing projects that demanded months of planning, travel and post-production.
“Made in Voyage,” his Wes Anderson–inspired bus movie, followed Cody and his partner living and skiing out of a rebuilt 1962 school bus nicknamed the Honey House. It showcased not just deep powder and creative lines, but also the realities of life on the road: breakdowns, logistics and the pursuit of snow across the American West. “Southwest Scramble” upped the ante by turning a bike-to-ski mission across the desert into a full narrative, while “Au Naturel” focused on “mostly foot-powered” skiing, emphasizing touring and human-powered access. As these films circulated through festivals and online premieres, Cirillo emerged as a creative director as much as a skier, influencing how younger athletes think about pairing travel narratives, environmental awareness and backcountry skiing into cohesive stories.
Geography that built the toolkit
The geography of Cody’s skiing starts in Colorado and then radiates out via road trip. Breckenridge and the broader Summit County zone gave him reliable access to parks, groomers and easy slackcountry, teaching him how to move from rails and jumps to side hits and small cliff bands in a single lap. Nearby peaks and passes added early touring experience, with springtime missions linking couloirs and high basins into longer days on skins.
From there, his projects have taken him through a catalogue of very different snow climates. Trips to Silverton and the San Juan Mountains added higher-consequence terrain and variable snow to his toolkit. European filming with The Faction Collective introduced big alpine faces and massive couloirs in the Alps. Icelandic adventures and a Mongolia journey into the Altai range layered in long approaches, wind-scoured ridges and maritime storms. In “Southwest Scramble,” he brings skiing into landscapes better known for desert towers than for snow, using long bike approaches to connect isolated snowy peaks. That breadth of geography shows in his line choices: whether he is on a Colorado resort jump line or a remote volcanic shoulder, he reads terrain with the easy confidence of someone who has seen many versions of winter.
Equipment and partners: practical takeaways
Cirillo’s sponsors give a clear picture of how he likes his setup to function. On his feet he rides for Faction Skis, favoring freeride-oriented shapes that still carry enough park DNA to be spun, buttered and whipped sideways when the shot calls for it. Goggles and eyewear come from Zeal Optics, a long-time partner whose lenses show up in nearly all his edits, from Breckenridge park days to stormy backcountry missions.
He has worked closely with Picture Organic Clothing on films and apparel, pairing their outerwear with durable gloves from brands like Hestra and facemasks from Phunkshunwear. For touring-heavy projects such as “Au Naturel,” his setups often include tech-compatible bindings and hardware from specialist outfits like CAST, allowing him to climb efficiently while still skiing the way he wants on the descent. For someone looking to learn from his approach, the takeaway is not to chase his exact gear list, but to understand the logic: a platform that can freestyle in the resort yet stay trustworthy in backcountry conditions, paired with technical clothing that holds up to long, wet days and long van or bus-based road trips.
Why fans and progressing skiers care
Fans connect with Cody Cirillo because his work feels like an invitation into a particular style of ski life: creative, road-based and driven as much by ideas as by individual tricks. His footage delivers what core viewers want—clean spins, strong grabs, fun lines in both park and powder—but the films around that footage talk about bigger themes: how to live simply in order to chase snow, how to move through landscapes at human speed, and how to let skis be a way of seeing the world, not just a way of ticking off objectives.
For progressing skiers, his path offers a template for a modern, media-oriented career. He used contests and early edits to build skills and contacts, then leaned into storytelling, environmental awareness and self-directed projects rather than waiting for a traditional team manager to script his next move. Whether someone first discovers him in a Faction team movie, a Picture Organic road film or a short clip of him lapping Breckenridge, watching Cody is a reminder that style, creativity and a willingness to build your own projects can be just as important as raw trick difficulty. In an era where many athletes chase the same few contest titles, his mix of filmmaking and foot-powered exploration shows another way to matter in freeskiing—and it is one that resonates strongly with riders who see their own future somewhere between the park jump line and the skin track.
