Dakota Connole - Off The Leash Video Edition (2024)

Profile and significance

Dakota Connole is an American freeski rider whose calm, highly readable park-and-street skiing has carried him from Utah crew edits to global showcases and a signature product. Born in 1998 and raised in the Park City ecosystem, he first surfaced on federation start lists with Park City United before choosing a film-first path; his athlete record with the international federation confirms the early competitive chapter and his later “not active” status as he moved toward projects and brand work. In 2022 he was selected as a finalist for Level 1’s SuperUnknown XIX, a week that introduced his skiing to a wide audience and validated a style built on clear axes, decisive rail lock-ins, and full-duration grabs. Since then, he has become a fixture in Child Labor’s street films—“Don’t Fret,” “Take 3,” and “All in Good Time”—and in 2024 he submitted a clean, creative entry to B-Dog’s Off The Leash video edition. The product lane soon followed: Salt Lake City–based Vishnu Freeski issued a “Key” pro graphic in his name, placing him on the short list of film-first riders with a pro-model. Apparel from 686 and poles from Joystick round out the picture: a modern street specialist whose influence travels from premiere nights to resort parks.

Competitive arc and key venues

Connole’s résumé is anchored in projects and selective showcases rather than a pursuit of points. SuperUnknown XIX finals gave him a global audition in spring conditions, and subsequent years have kept him in the Level 1 orbit as an invited rider for later Mammoth weeks. Between headline moments, he has stacked the kind of venue mileage that explains why his skiing “reads” at full speed. Home laps at Park City Mountain cultivated long-run rhythm and both-way entries on dense rail lines. Night sessions and storm windows across the Wasatch added speed management and quick decision-making, the exact instincts that street filming and rail-jam formats demand. South in California, sessions at Mammoth Unbound offered bigger, faster spacing that mirrors televised courses. Northwest swings to Oregon—spring and summer laps at Timberline and midwinter rhythm at Mt. Hood Meadows—supplied the repetition that turns pretzel exits and early-and-held grabs into muscle memory. The throughline is consistent: learn it in long park lines, prove it on imperfect urban in-runs, and present it in a format that rewards clarity.

How they ski: what to watch for

Connole skis with measured economy—the kind that editors and judges can read without slow-motion. On rails he favors a centered stance and quiet shoulders so spin-ons, transfers, and pretzel or continuing-spin exits look deliberate rather than forced. Approach angles stay conservative until the precise moment of commitment; lock-ins ride through kinks and gaps without chatter, and exits land with glide so the next feature still has room to breathe. On jumps—whether a compact street step-down or a maintained park booter—he puts the grab in early and keeps full-hand contact through rotation, keeping axes obvious for the camera. Rotation scales to the day’s speed window instead of relying on last-second corks. That discipline is why his heaviest clips feel inevitable at broadcast speed and why his segments hold up on rewatch months after premiere night.

Resilience, filming, and influence

Street skiing compresses the margin for error: short in-runs, imperfect landings, limited light. Connole treats those constraints as a craft. The workflow repeats across his parts—scout and measure, shovel and salt, test speed, refine angle, then roll only when the make will cut clean. That process has carried him through injury interruptions as well, from an early-career arm and elbow setback to a rib break during a winter trip abroad; the footage that follows those episodes shows a skier who returns with the same clarity and patience, not a gamble for headlines. The Child Labor catalogue underscores his value inside a crew: he’s the rider who preserves glide through multi-feature decks so the closer can still carry meaningful rotation, and whose choices make a segment easier to pace in the edit. Add a SuperUnknown finals stamp and a pro-model graphic, and his influence is easy to understand—style choices that younger skiers can copy because they are reproducible in the real world.

Geography that built the toolkit

Place explains the polish. The Park City corridor provides long, repeatable lines and firm-morning timing that reward tidy axes and momentum management. When Utah storms clear, he carries those habits onto bigger spacing at Mammoth Unbound, where speed windows expand and compressions increase. Spring and summer at Timberline deliver high-frequency repetitions—hundreds of hits that make both-way entries and pretzel exits feel automatic—while midwinter days at Mt. Hood Meadows add the night-lap grit that mirrors urban conditions. Stitch those environments together and you get skiing that reads the same on a municipal handrail at dusk and on a bluebird spring line.

Equipment and partners: practical takeaways

Connole rides a pro graphic on the Vishnu Key from Vishnu Freeski, a platform built for stability on jumps without sacrificing rail feel. He often appears in outerwear from 686 with poles from Joystick. For skiers trying to reverse-engineer the feel rather than the exact model, the setup principles are what matter. A true-twin park ski mounted near center supports both-way spins and stable switch landings. Keep a consistent tune with a thoughtful detune at contact points so edges don’t hook on steel while pop remains for lip-ons and step-downs. Choose boots with progressive forward flex and firm heel hold so landings finish stacked when the snow is fast or chattery. Bindings should be set for predictable release across repeated impacts. Predictable, neutral, and repeatable is the recipe—and it’s the backbone of how his lines stay intact from street to spring parks.

Why fans and progressing skiers care

Dakota Connole matters because he makes modern freeskiing easy to read without making it easy to do. If you are learning how to evaluate a rail-heavy run, watch how he conserves speed across multi-feature decks so the closer still has room for an ender, and how early—and held—grabs keep rotations unmistakable at real speed. If you’re building your own projects, study the process behind the tricks as much as the tricks themselves: plan the spot, test speed, commit to the version you can reproduce when conditions change. Add a SuperUnknown finals nod, durable street parts with Child Labor, and a Vishnu pro graphic that codifies those choices underfoot, and you get a rider whose style and method are both a blueprint and a benchmark in today’s freeski culture.