Profile and significance
Pär “Peyben” Hägglund is a Swedish freeski original whose fingerprints are all over modern urban and park skiing. A pillar of the Stockholm-based creative collective The Bunch and a co-founder/owner of 1000 Skis, he blends rider, filmmaker, and creative director in one package. His breakout in the film era led naturally to X Games Real Ski, where he earned silver in 2019 as an athlete and later added medals behind the camera as a filmer/editor. The significance is twofold: on snow, he pushed a “horizontal” vocabulary of presses, butters, wheelies, and reverts that turned flat ground and small speed into style; off snow, he helped prove that skiers can shape their own brands, films, and formats without outsourcing the vision.
Hägglund’s edits and parts are deliberately replayable. The camera lingers on how he enters, holds, and exits positions; the skiing is framed as a language you can learn, not a stunt you can only admire. That clarity gave his Real Ski work lasting weight and made his The Bunch projects required viewing for anyone who cares about line choice and visual storytelling in freeskiing.
Competitive arc and key venues
Hägglund’s “results sheet” is unconventional by design. The headline is X Games Real Ski silver in 2019—earned with a pure-street video segment that balanced creative spots with strict technical definition. He returned as a creator in subsequent years, contributing medal-winning parts as a filmer/editor, and he also stepped into Aspen’s on-hill spectacle via the debut-era Knuckle Huck, where he brought the same touch-based tricks that define his film work. More than most peers, he used contests as proof-of-concept for ideas refined in the streets.
The venues tied to his name explain the skiing as well as any podium. Sweden’s dense park culture, especially Kläppen Snowpark and Åre’s SkiStar Snow Park, gave him night-lap repetition and quick resets that sharpen presses, backslides, and switch control. Film blocks with The Bunch took him from Stockholm’s urban textures to North America, where he stacked Real Ski-caliber clips in Quebec and elsewhere. The film pipeline with Level 1 added distribution and a demanding editorial filter—shots lived or died on style, not just difficulty. Together, these places built a skier who reads features instantly and converts modest speed into maximum expression.
How they ski: what to watch for
Hägglund skis like a craftsman. Approaches are tall and neutral; he sets rotation late and locks grabs early so the trick breathes. On rails, the signatures are long, decisive presses and backslides held just long enough to read clearly, then released with square shoulders to preserve speed. He uses minimal arm swing and sets edge pressure early, which keeps the base flat through kinks and eliminates scramble. On side hits and natural features, he favors butters that start from the ankles and hips rather than a forced upper-body lean, making every revert or shifty look inevitable. If you slow his clips down, you’ll see consistent checkpoints—calm entry, patient pop, early definition, quiet landing—that translate directly to everyday park laps.
Resilience, filming, and influence
Hägglund’s influence is amplified by the work he does off the skis. With The Bunch he helped pioneer a rider-run production model that treats films as complete artworks: story, sound, motion, and color serve the skiing, not the other way around. In the mid-to-late 2010s that approach yielded festival hardware, including street-segment recognition around Level 1 projects, and set the tone for a wave of crews who now self-produce. Real Ski validated the formula in a broadcast setting—silver as an athlete in 2019, then more hardware as a filmer/editor—which reinforced that his eye behind the lens is as sharp as his feet on snow.
The company chapter matters too. With 1000 Skis, Hägglund and friends translated their culture-first ethos into equipment design and brand decisions. The goal was never just “sell skis”; it was to give skiers a say in how products, films, and community intersect. That loop—ride, film, iterate, and build—has changed expectations for what a pro skier can be in the 2020s.
Geography that built the toolkit
Sweden is the blueprint. Night laps at Kläppen and compact lines at Åre reward precision and repetition; you either hit your marks or you miss the next feature. Stockholm’s urban zones add the thin-cover discipline you see in his Real Ski parts—measured speed, careful run-ins, and exits planned before the drop. North American trips layered in fresh textures: long, icy handrails, different snowpack sounds underfoot, and the editorial pressure of filming for brands like Level 1. Each place left a fingerprint that’s visible in how he skis and how he frames others through the lens.
Equipment and partners: practical takeaways
Hägglund’s hardware choices reflect his priorities. As an owner at 1000 Skis, he rides press-friendly, predictable platforms that accept a solid detune at the contact points but stay composed on bigger lips. That matters if you plan to hold presses, butter into spins, or exit features to switch without chatter. For riders who want to borrow his feel, keep the setup simple: a true park ski with balanced flex, a mount close enough to center to keep landings neutral, and a binding ramp that doesn’t tip you onto your heels. The bigger “equipment” is process. Film your laps, compare shoulder alignment and hip-to-ankle stack to the checkpoints visible in his clips, and repeat until the movements become automatic. That is the Peyben method, and it works whether your hill is a city rope-tow or a destination park.
Why fans and progressing skiers care
Fans care because Hägglund made style specific. He showed that a press has a duration, a shifty needs room to breathe, and a revert should land on edges you’ve already organized. Progressing skiers care because the same choices are teachable. If your park is small or your winter is short, his blueprint—calm entries, patient pop, early grab definition, square-shoulder exits—turns limited speed into memorable skiing. Add the creative engine of The Bunch and the rider-run model of 1000 Skis, and you get an athlete whose impact spans medals, movies, and the equipment under your feet. In an era that rewards both innovation and durability, Pär “Peyben” Hägglund remains a reliable reference for how modern freeskiing should look, feel, and evolve.
