Craig Murray

Ōtautahi / Wānaka, New Zealand | Active: 2018-present elite freeride and film career | Discipline: Freeride, Backcountry Freestyle and Big-Mountain Skiing | Known for: FWT wins, Natural Selection Ski, Weazy, Alaska film segments

Priority One When The Face Started Moving

The Alaska wall rose above camp with 550 meters of cliffs, spines and snow that changed from chalk to crust in a single traverse. Craig Murray dropped into Priority One at Natural Selection Ski 2025 and made the face look less like a venue than a moving puzzle. A huge left 360 transfer opened the run, then a hand-drag right 360, then a backflip through the middle section. He was not protecting points. He was stacking tricks where most riders were still trying to understand the snow.

The score was 96, the highest of the day, and it sent him toward the first men’s Natural Selection Ski title. For Murray, the result did not appear from nowhere. It was the visible point where Freeride World Tour pressure, Matchstick film experience, New Zealand club-field instincts and years of creative risk finally met on one huge Alaskan face.

Canterbury Clubfields Before The World Stage

Murray’s roots sit in New Zealand’s South Island. Wanaka Snowsports describes him as born in Ōtautahi Christchurch and raised skiing the Canterbury clubfields, where there were no groomed slopes, no formal terrain parks and few obvious freeride templates for a young skier to copy. That origin matters because his later skiing has never looked overly polished or academy-made.

The club fields teach a different kind of movement. Tow ropes, variable snow, wind, poor visibility and exposed terrain make skiers adapt early. Murray grew up chasing his older brother Charlie, watching ski movies, and learning to see terrain as possibility rather than infrastructure. Those early winters explain why his best lines often look improvised without being careless. He skis like someone who learned that the mountain rarely arrives pre-shaped.

Charlie, Bikes And A Childhood Without A Screen

The Arc’teryx documentary Weazy and later coverage of the film place family at the center of Murray’s development. Friends describe the Murray family as unusually outdoor-focused, with nature replacing television and the siblings pushing each other constantly. Craig followed Charlie into sports, tricks, risk and movement before any professional identity formed.

That broader childhood still matters. Murray is not only a skier. POC describes him as a ski film figure, Freeride World Tour medalist and World Cup-level mountain bike racer, while Pivot Cycles’ athlete page connects him to South Island riding, adventure racing and months split between skiing overseas and mountain life at home. His skiing carries that cross-training: fast feet, lateral balance, line scanning, and a comfort with speed that feels closer to trail riding than a rigid freeride formula.

Verbier At Nineteen And The First Tour Shock

Murray’s first Freeride World Tour season immediately placed him among the sport’s serious names. In 2018, local New Zealand coverage reported that the 19-year-old Wānaka skier finished second at Xtreme Verbier, his second podium in his first season on the Tour. The Bec des Rosses is not a forgiving place to announce yourself.

That Verbier result gave the early career a different shape. Young freeriders can sometimes look strong on smaller venues, then disappear when the line choice becomes more exposed and the run length grows. Murray did the opposite. He stepped onto the most famous final face in freeride and showed that his freestyle instincts could survive a venue built around big-mountain judgment.

Kicking Horse And The First FWT Win

The 2019 Kicking Horse Golden BC Pro gave Murray his first Freeride World Tour victory. The official result placed him first with 93.00 points, ahead of Markus Eder and Logan Pehota. Forecast Ski’s recap described the run as a 360, a backflip and a committed bottom air, with Murray firing up the crowd before dropping over the cornice.

Kicking Horse suited him because the face rewards a skier who can mix freeride speed with freestyle timing. Golden’s terrain gives cliffs, gullies, snow texture and enough room to expose poor control. Murray did not win by skiing conservatively. He used tricks as part of the line, not as decoration. That became the template for much of his career: full-mountain skiing with freestyle embedded into the route.

Fieberbrunn And The Run People Still Rewatch

The 2020 Fieberbrunn stop pushed that identity further. On the Wildseeloder face in Austria, Murray won with 96.67 points, ahead of Isaac Freeland and Hank Bilous. Freeride World Tour later framed the run as one of the best in tour history, and the score explains why. It was a statement line on a face that can punish both hesitation and overconfidence.

Fieberbrunn matters because it showed the ceiling of his competitive style. Murray’s skiing is not built around safe trick placement. He likes exposed takeoffs, high-speed exits, 360s in serious terrain, backflips where the landing is not park-clean, and fast linking turns between features. When the conditions support him, that approach can make a freeride run feel closer to a film segment than a judged descent.

The FWT Years And The Limits Of The Format

Murray’s relationship with the Freeride World Tour has always been productive and complicated. His current FWT profile lists him as a New Zealand ski men athlete and shows a 2023 season where the results were weaker: 22nd at Baqueira, 14th at Ordino Arcalís and 20th at Kicking Horse. Those numbers are important because they keep the story honest.

By 2024, Murray was speaking openly about stepping away from traditional competition to push his skiing elsewhere. In a 1News interview after winning the Nendaz Backcountry Invitational, he said he wanted to progress on his own terms, in terrain that allowed the type of skiing he was trying to do. That sentence explains the pivot. He had not lost relevance. He was looking for venues where tricks, speed and natural terrain could meet without being forced through a one-run tour template.

Nendaz And The Peer-Judged Detour

The Nendaz Backcountry Invitational became one of the clearest signs of that shift. In 2024, Murray won the Swiss event, which uses a different format from standard FWT scoring. 1News described a peer-voting system without traditional judges, with riders scoring each other after runs in deep snow and technical backcountry terrain.

The format suited him because it rewarded the exact risk he was chasing: hit after hit, no practice, deep landings and tricks linked through a full descent. Murray described that kind of skiing as rolling dice on every feature. The event was not as globally established as the Freeride World Tour, but it gave him something the FWT sometimes could not: terrain where his most technical freeride-freestyle ideas could fully show.

Alaska With Matchstick Productions

Film work gave Murray another major stage. Matchstick Productions described his first season filming with MSP as one that made a strong impression, especially on his first trip to Alaska for Anywhere From Here. That segment earned him a 2022 iF3 Male Skier of the Year nomination, a major marker for a skier whose best work often lives between competition and film.

Alaska changes how every trick reads. A 360 on a resort face is one thing. A 360 on a spine wall with sluff moving below the skis is another. Murray’s Alaska footage matters because it shows the same vocabulary under higher consequence: exposed entries, big transfers, backflips, fall-line speed, fast slashes, and the ability to land without killing the line. The camera did not soften his skiing. It revealed why the FWT sometimes felt too narrow for it.

Terra Incognita And The Producer Role

POC’s 2023 profile places Murray beyond the athlete-only category, noting that he had produced, directed and starred in numerous films, with Terra Incognita presented as a then-current example. That matters for his skipowd.tv profile because Murray is not simply the subject of other people’s footage. He helps shape the way his skiing is shown.

That authorship fits the larger Weazy identity. He is interested in how a line feels, how a community forms around an idea, and how a film can carry more than tricks. For freeride skiers, that is a meaningful distinction. A strong athlete can land a line. A creative athlete can build a world around that line: location, crew, story, pacing, music, risk and the reason viewers care.

Weazy And The Portrait Of A Restless Skier

Arc’teryx Presents: Weazy arrived in 2025 as a short documentary about Murray’s childhood, family, risk, community and movement through freeride. Downdays described it as a cinematic portrait of Craig “Weazy” Murray, following his life from childhood to the Freeride World Tour and beyond. Powder framed the film around his evolution into a multi-faceted outdoors person.

The film matters because it gives context to a skier who can otherwise look hard to categorize. Murray is not only a contest rider, not only a film skier, not only an enduro racer, not only a brand athlete. Weazy shows a person built from siblings, club fields, road trips, fear, creativity and a need to keep changing the rules around him. That is the kind of profile that belongs in a creative freeride template, even with major contest wins on the résumé.

Natural Selection Changed The Ceiling

Natural Selection Ski 2025 gave Murray the platform he had been describing for years. The event took place on Priority One in Alaska, a face first made famous in ski and snowboard film history, with a two-section format, head-to-head rounds and a scoring system built around Creativity, Risk, Execution, Difficulty and Overall Flow. The men’s field included Markus Eder, Sam Kuch, Colby Stevenson, Parker White, Max Palm, Kai Jones and Kye Petersen.

Murray won the men’s event ahead of Sam Kuch and Markus Eder. That result carries real weight because it gathered skiers from different branches of the sport: FWT champions, Olympic freestyle, backcountry film icons and next-generation freeriders. Murray’s win showed that his skill set was not only suited to old freeride judging or film edits. It could also dominate the new format designed specifically for natural-terrain progression.

Line Of The Winter And The Spine That Paid

The 2025 GoPro Line of the Winter award added a digital-era trophy to the same season. Freeskier reported that Murray won the overall men’s ski title after judges selected his Alaskan POV run, a line with a fast spine, a stomped 360, a backflip and high-speed turns. The award came with a $10,000 overall prize.

That kind of recognition matters because POV footage strips away part of the cinema. Viewers see the speed directly. The snow flashes under the skis, the spine narrows, the landing arrives late, and the fall line feels immediate. Murray’s win reinforced what Natural Selection had already shown: his skiing is not only impressive from the helicopter angle. It also holds up when seen from his own eyes.

Atomic, Arc’teryx, POC, YETI And The Maker Image

Murray’s current brand world reflects the range of his skiing. Amer Sports described him as an athlete for both Atomic and Arc’teryx in the 2025 Grottoflage collaboration, tied to the Maverick 105 CTI Arc’teryx Edition. POC has profiled him as a film luminary and Freeride World Tour medalist, while YETI lists him as an ambassador and co-founder/director of the Gritt Youth Program.

That mix matters because the brands are not only using him as a results sheet. Atomic and Arc’teryx connect to gear development and mountain performance. POC fits the helmet, goggle and safety side of high-speed freeride. YETI emphasizes community, road life and storytelling. Murray’s sponsor picture works because his skiing is a full ecosystem: athlete, filmmaker, mountain biker, mentor, traveler and builder of projects.

How Murray Turns Exposure Into Flow

Murray’s technical signature is not one trick. It is the way he links tricks through exposed terrain. The visible vocabulary includes left 360 transfers, hand-drag 360s, backflips, corked rotations, high-speed spine riding, cliff drops, slashes, natural takeoffs, fall-line exits, double-direction control and tricks that carry speed into the next section rather than stopping the run.

His style is different from pure big-mountain charging. He does not only point down the face and survive. It is also different from park skiing imported into powder. He lets the mountain choose the rhythm, then places freestyle where the terrain allows. That is why his best runs feel musical. A trick arrives, the line keeps breathing, and the next feature appears before the viewer has finished processing the last one.

The Weazy Legacy Is Still Moving

Craig Murray belongs at 5/5 because his impact now crosses every relevant freeride category: Freeride World Tour wins, Xtreme Verbier podium history, Matchstick film segments, iF3 recognition, Nendaz Backcountry, Weazy, Natural Selection Ski 2025, GoPro Line of the Winter and brand-backed creative projects. He is not a legacy figure frozen in the past. He is still helping define the next format.

The current endpoint is concrete: defending Natural Selection champion in 2026, Atomic and Arc’teryx athlete, POC and YETI storyteller, Gritt Youth Program co-founder, and a New Zealand skier whose best lines still look like arguments for where freeride can go next. Murray’s page should not read like a standard contest résumé. It should read like the record of someone who keeps bending the mountain until the format catches up.