Vahalla Dreaming

Profile and significance

Collin Johnston is a U.S. freeski rider whose name grew through film-first park and street skiing rather than traditional rankings. His wide-angle introduction came as a SuperUnknown 21 finalist with Level 1, earning a week of riding and filming at Mammoth Unbound in April 2024. Since then, Johnston’s clips—often shot on compact rope-tow hills in the Upper Midwest and on larger western parks—have circulated for the same reasons judges reward in slopestyle: clean lock-ins on rails, early grab timing, and speed that stays intact from first feature to last. He rides for Surface Skis, a fit that underscores durable, park-oriented habits. For fans tracking emerging talent, he represents the modern path from internet edits to globally visible sessions without needing a World Cup bib to validate the work.

Competitive arc and key venues

Johnston’s “arc” is anchored to projects and rider-driven gatherings. The inflection point was SuperUnknown 21 with Level 1, where finalists spent six days stacking footage on Mammoth’s features and proving style at pace. That environment—fast snow, long in-runs, and big radii—spotlights takeoff discipline and landing shape, two areas where his clips hold up on rewatch. Away from California, Johnston’s presence in the Midwest scene, including laps at Wisconsin’s Trollhaugen, adds the other half of the equation: thousands of repetitions on short approaches that force accurate edge sets and quick decisions. The conversation between these venues explains why his skiing reads clearly whether the camera is in a rope-tow park or on a major build.

How they ski: what to watch for

Johnston skis with deliberate economy. On rails, approaches are squared early and centered, lock-ins look decisive rather than dramatic, and exits protect line speed into the next setup. You’ll see surface swaps that finish cleanly and presses with shape instead of wobble. On jumps, he favors measured spin speed and full-value grabs that stabilize rotation; axes stay tidy so landings arrive over the feet, not as last-second saves. Directional variety—forward and switch, left and right—appears without breaking cadence. If you study his clips frame by frame, the tell is spacing: each trick creates room for the next one instead of stealing from it.

Resilience, filming, and influence

Johnston’s footprint is strongest on camera. SuperUnknown validated what his edits already suggested and placed him alongside a global crew in a high-frequency filming environment. Post-finals, he has continued to appear in rider-led shorts where line design matters as much as trick lists. That consistency is part of his influence: younger skiers borrow the timing of his presses and the way he keeps shoulders quiet on impact; editors appreciate that his tricks are legible at full speed, so the cut can breathe. It’s a template for building a career that balances park repetition, street execution, and occasional contest-style weeks without sacrificing identity.

Geography that built the toolkit

Place explains his mix of finesse and grit. The compact, rope-tow parks of the Upper Midwest—exemplified by Trollhaugen—produce honest edge angles and quick decisions, especially when laps run late into the night. Those habits carry into larger venues where faster snow and bigger radii demand early grab timing and disciplined axes; the week at Mammoth Unbound made that translation explicit. Link the two and you get a toolkit that survives different snowpacks and feature shapes without changing the way the line reads on camera.

Equipment and partners: practical takeaways

As part of the Surface Skis family, Johnston rides park-ready shapes meant for repeated rail contact and predictable takeoffs. For progressing skiers, the lessons are straightforward: choose a symmetrical or near-symmetrical park ski with reinforced edges and a mount point that supports presses without sacrificing stability; keep edges tuned enough to hold but detuned at contact points to avoid surprise bites on swaps; and maintain fast bases so cadence doesn’t depend on perfect weather. Equipment won’t replace timing, but the right platform makes Johnston-style repeatability possible across long filming days.

Why fans and progressing skiers care

Collin Johnston matters because he turns readable difficulty into watchable segments. The pieces that travel—decisive rail work, held grabs, protected momentum—are the same pieces that make elite slopestyle runs hold up on replay. If you follow freeski to find skiers whose choices you can actually study and apply, keep Johnston on the radar. From rope-tow parks like Trollhaugen to high-profile sessions at Mammoth Unbound, he’s building a body of work that shows how thoughtful line design can carry further than hype.

Profile and significance

Dylan Patee is a park skier and filmer who sits right in the middle of the modern grassroots freeski scene: Midwest rope-tow nights, Mt. Hood summers, small-hill contests and dense rail gardens captured from just a few metres away. Under the handle “dylanpatty_” he describes himself as an ATCH CORP and Vishnu freeski artist, which is a good shorthand for what he does: ski with style, film his friends, then turn the footage into tightly edited park and urban-style clips. His own season edits and appearances in crew projects show a rider who is as comfortable behind the lens as he is on the rail set, which is exactly what today’s independent ski media ecosystem runs on.

Instead of chasing FIS points, Patee’s name shows up in YouTube credits, Newschoolers video descriptions and industry write-ups. He filmed and cut multi-rider projects like “Vahalla Dreaming,” appears in Hood edits such as “These Days,” and is one of the recurring skiers in ATCH CORP drops. A SnowSports Industries America terrain-park contest article even lists him as part of the Gunstock Terrain Park Crew, tying his work to the New Hampshire resort’s park programme. Put together, that places him in a growing class of rider–filmers who document how freeskiing really looks for most riders: floodlit nights, creative mid-sized features and the constant repetition that builds real skill.

Competitive arc and key venues

Patee’s “competitive” arc is less about bib numbers and more about where his skiing and filming show up. On the resort side, his name is attached to Gunstock’s terrain park crew in coverage of a national park-building contest, reflecting the way he has helped shape, ride and document features at the New Hampshire mountain. That kind of recognition matters: terrain-park contests are judged by industry peers, and crews that make the cut are the ones whose features both ride well and look good on camera.

On the rider side, he appears in park edits that surface repeatedly in the online freeski ecosystem. At Trollhaugen in Wisconsin, ATCH CORP’s “Birds Of The Nest” is presented explicitly as a Midwest park answer to a low street-skiing winter, and Patee is one of the skiers whose rail lines and jump tricks carry the piece. Edits from Mt. Hood’s public parks and spring lanes show him taking that same style to bigger jump sets and longer lines, often during the summer operations at Timberline Lodge on Mount Hood. These videos might not have live scoring or podium ceremonies, but within the freeski community they function like results sheets: they show who is progressing, who is filming consistently and who has something distinctive to say on skis.

How they ski: what to watch for

On snow, Dylan Patee skis exactly like someone who spends a lot of time staring down a rail through a camera viewfinder: he understands what reads well on screen. His runs in Midwest and Hood edits are defined by a low, compact stance and deliberate edge use on rails and tubes. Approaches are rarely frantic; he sets speed early, squares up to the feature and lets the trick unfold cleanly. Expect to see surface swaps, front swaps and spin-on, spin-off combinations that rely more on timing and lock-in than on sheer risk. When he exits a rail, he often lands already thinking about the next feature, which is why his park lines feel like one long thought instead of a sequence of disconnected moves.

On jumps, he leans into classic, repeatable slopestyle tricks rather than giant, one-hit bangers. Cork 7s, switch spins and well-held grabs show up in his season edits, usually done at a speed that keeps the landing forgiving and the style visible. Body language is relaxed and shoulders stay relatively quiet, which makes his skiing feel approachable for viewers who want to imagine themselves learning the same tricks with enough laps. For anyone trying to study his clips, the key details are speed control on approach and how early he commits to a line: there is very little last-second hesitation, which is exactly what keeps rail skiing safe and stylish.

Resilience, filming, and influence

Patee’s impact is most obvious when you look at ATCH CORP as a whole. The brand’s own site frames the project as a small, personality-driven ski media label, shouting out “Patty” as a ski rapper whose personal side conquest includes ATCH CORP Radio and a stream of edits. That mix of music, skiing and DIY web presence is a good snapshot of his wider role: he is not just a skier appearing in front of someone else’s camera, but a creative force helping shape what Midwest- and East Coast–centric park media looks like.

Through ATCH CORP’s YouTube channel and social clips, he has helped document events like the Open Haugen rail jam anniversary at Trollhaugen and the Encounter Jam series in the Valhalla park zone, giving local riders high-quality footage from nights that might otherwise disappear into memory. When there is no street snow, edits like “Birds Of The Nest” pivot to park-heavy storytelling, making the most of the rope-tow rhythm and dense rail builds that define Midwest skiing. For younger skiers watching from similar hills, the message is clear: you do not need a huge budget or a full-time film crew to put your scene on the map—what you need is a couple of motivated riders, a camera that can survive winter and someone willing to edit until the story feels right.

Geography that built the toolkit

The geography behind Patee’s skiing and filming is a triangle of very different places. On one side is the Midwest, anchored by Trollhaugen in Wisconsin. Trollhaugen is famous for its rope-tow terrain parks and late-night sessions, with multiple parks packed into a modest vertical drop. It is exactly the kind of place where you can stack dozens of rail hits in a single evening, and ATCH CORP edits show Patee and friends doing just that, using every tube, wall and transfer option available.

Another vertex sits in New England at Gunstock Mountain Resort in New Hampshire, where the terrain park crew—listed in industry write-ups alongside his name—builds features overlooking Lake Winnipesaukee. Working and riding in that environment means dealing with variable weather and tight build timelines, which in turn teaches patience, versatility and respect for how much labour goes into every feature. The third point is the Pacific Northwest, centred on the near year-round terrain parks at Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood. Summer and spring edits from Hood place Patee in long, flowing slopestyle-style lanes where the snow is soft, the light is bright and tricks can be dialled over thousands of repetitions. Together, these locations explain why his skiing looks both precise and adaptable—he has learned to read very different parks and snowpacks.

Equipment and partners: practical takeaways

Although he is not marketed around a single pro model, Patee’s gear choices are easy to read from his clips. He often rides symmetrical, soft-flexing park skis from indie brand Vishnu Freeski, models built specifically for rails, presses and urban-style lines. That setup pairs well with the kind of skiing he does: lots of switch approaches, surface swaps, nose and tail butters and repeated impacts on metal. For everyday riders, the practical takeaway is that if your winter looks like his—rope tows, small jumps and rail gardens—a durable, centre-mounted park ski with a forgiving flex will help more than a stiff, directional freeride plank.

On the softgoods side, ATCH CORP’s own hoodies and collab pieces appear frequently in his edits, signalling a preference for gear that can survive slams and late nights as well as look good in frame. Because much of his skiing happens in cold, windy Midwestern or New England weather, layering and outerwear that stay warm while lapping chairs or rope tows are just as important as skis and boots. His projects also highlight the value of a small, reliable camera kit—gimbals and action cameras that can handle repeated cold starts and still deliver stable follow-cam footage.

Why fans and progressing skiers care

Fans and progressing skiers care about Dylan Patee because he represents the real texture of modern freeski life: working on terrain parks, skiing with the crew after dark, saving for that Mt. Hood trip and then turning all of it into edits that make people want to clip in. He is not a World Cup slopestyle star or an X Games headliner; instead, he is part of the backbone that keeps park culture evolving at the local level. His work with ATCH CORP, his presence in multi-rider edits and his role in crew projects at places like Trollhaugen, Gunstock and Timberline show that you can have a meaningful impact on freeskiing without ever stepping onto a FIS podium.

For riders coming up on similar hills, his path is a blueprint. Learn to treat your local park as a creative space. Help build or maintain features when you can. Film your friends and yourself, even if the first edits are rough. Use rope-tow nights and spring laps to refine tricks until they feel automatic. Watching how Patee skis and how his edits stitch small moments into coherent stories turns his career into both inspiration and instruction for the next wave of park and street-focused freeskiers.

Profile and significance

Jack Kaiser is a Midwest freeski park rider and filmer whose name has become closely tied to rope-tow culture, Trollhaugen laps and the DIY media world around ATCH CORP. Through a string of season edits on Newschoolers, appearances in the long-running “Human Being” series from Trollhaugen and his role in ATCH CORP videos like “Orientation,” “Nah,” “Encounter” and “Birds Of The Nest,” he has become one of the recognisable faces of the modern Midwestern jib scene. Rather than chasing FIS points or World Cup starts, Kaiser has built his profile through consistent presence in crew edits, small-brand collaborations and local events that show what freeski really looks like for most park skiers.

His Newschoolers season edits from 2018–19 through 2020–21, all tagged to Trollhaugen, emphasise that connection: short, dense park segments full of rails, tubes and side-hits, often highlighted as Video of the Day. Trollhaugen’s own “Human Being” episodes list him among the skiers and give him special thanks in the credits, reflecting the fact that he is part of the local fabric rather than just a guest. By 2024 and 2025 he is credited not only as a skier but also as a filmer and editor for projects ranging from ATCH CORP webisodes to clothing collab videos, positioning him as a rider–creator whose influence extends beyond his own tricks.

Competitive arc and key venues

Kaiser’s “competitive” arc is best understood through the places and projects that feature him rather than through podium lists. One pillar is Trollhaugen in Wisconsin, the rope-tow park hill that has become a global reference point for rail-heavy skiing. Trollhaugen’s Human Being series, park event recaps and terrain-park contest submissions all place him within the core crew that shapes and rides the features. In an industry terrain-park contest overview, the Trollhaugen Park Crew is called out by name, listing Kaiser among the creative staff and locals who design, build and showcase the park line-up. That behind-the-scenes role is as important to his story as any formal contest result.

The second pillar is the broader Midwest and its jam-style events. In Freeskier’s feature about Phil “B-Dog” Casabon’s return to Minnesota, Kaiser appears “representing ATCH CORP” at Wild Mountain, sharing a down-flat-down rail with John Robinson in JahFlow. The event has no official podium, by design, but the article singles out his riding, which is a strong signal of how he is perceived among peers. Other clips and recaps show him at Wild, at Trollhaugen anniversary events like the Open Haugen rail jam and in local park sessions that draw some of the most committed jib skiers in the region.

Summer adds a third key venue: Mount Hood. In the 2025 Hood edit “These Days,” his name appears in the rider list alongside a cast of core park skiers, taking the Trollhaugen-honed skill set to the public parks and summer lanes at Timberline Lodge. Between Midwest rope tows, Minnesota event rails and Oregon summer slush, Kaiser’s “tour” is made of places that prioritise creativity, repetition and community more than formal rankings.

How they ski: what to watch for

On snow, Jack Kaiser skis like someone who has learned to make every metre of a small hill count. His season edits from Trollhaugen are built around tight, efficient lines where almost no feature goes unused. Approaches are calm and deliberate, the stance is low and centred, and spin direction changes often from rail to rail, making the most basic park layout feel complex. Expect to see surface swaps, quick front and back swaps and spin-on, spin-off combinations that rely on precision rather than brute-force risk. Landings are usually set up to feed straight into the next tube or wall, which gives his runs a sense of momentum that works especially well on camera.

On jumps he tends to keep things practical and repeatable. Mid-sized park booters become platforms for clean, well-grabbed spins rather than for maximum-rotation experiments. That fits the environment he skis in: Trollhaugen and Wild Mountain are about lapping a rope tow for hours, building consistency and style on features that might not be huge but are hit countless times a night. In Mt. Hood footage, the same approach appears on longer, more flowing lines, with smooth switch takeoffs and relaxed grabs rather than spin-to-win trick lists.

For viewers who want to learn from his skiing, the important details are speed control and commitment. Kaiser usually sets his line and speed well before the feature, so there are few last-second speed checks or posture changes. That gives his tricks an unhurried look and makes even technical rail moves seem accessible, provided you are willing to do the same amount of focused repetition.

Resilience, filming, and influence

Kaiser’s influence is amplified by his work behind the lens. On Newschoolers his list of published videos includes not only his own season edits but also a string of ATCH CORP projects, from “Orientation” and “Nah” to “Encounter,” “Terror on Tomte,” “Ottering,” “I Just Did,” “Obscured,” “The Big Spot (glyph x atch)” and the full-length “ATCH CORP // Birds Of The Nest//.” In several cases he is credited as filmer and editor, and a midwest ski clothing collab video explicitly notes that it was filmed and edited by him. That dual role—skier and filmmaker—makes him part of the backbone of ATCH CORP’s visual identity.

Those projects capture more than just tricks. They show the full texture of Midwestern freeski life: dark rope-tow sessions under lights, parking-lot hangs, spring slush at Trollhaugen’s Valhalla park and the occasional road trip west. By consistently documenting that world, Kaiser helps turn local nights into something that skiers across the globe can watch and relate to. When the snow does not cooperate for urban missions, ATCH CORP edits shift focus to park-heavy storytelling, and his camera work keeps the energy high.

This steady output makes him a reference point for younger skiers coming up at Trollhaugen, Wild Mountain or other small hills. They see that one of the locals is not only throwing tricks but also shaping how the scene is seen from the outside. In an era when every crew needs at least one dedicated filmer-editor to get noticed, he shows what it looks like when that role is filled by someone who skis at a high level as well.

Geography that built the toolkit

The geography behind Kaiser’s skating-on-snow style is almost entirely rope-tow and small-hill based. Trollhaugen, with its compact vertical and dense rail gardens, is the obvious core: his early and mid-pandemic season edits are built on nothing but Troll laps, and Trollhaugen’s Human Being videos list him among the regulars. Night after night of riding the same tow, hitting the same line of rails in different ways, breeds a kind of creativity and comfort on metal that larger resorts cannot always replicate.

Minnesota’s park hills, especially Wild Mountain, add a slightly different flavour. Events like the B-Dog-hosted jam bring outside attention and force locals to raise their level in front of legends and cameras. Those sessions, where Kaiser appears under the ATCH CORP banner, are the kind of high-energy, high-pressure laps that translate perfectly to edits later. Finally, summer at Timberline Lodge on Mount Hood stretches out the distances between features and adds slushy, forgiving landings into the mix, letting him adapt his Midwest rail game to longer slopestyle-style runs. Together, these spots form a tight but varied triangle that explains both his technical rail skills and his ability to make almost any park look interesting.

Equipment and partners: practical takeaways

While Kaiser is not heavily marketed around a single pro model, his gear choices can be read through the brands and setups seen in his edits. ATCH CORP’s own apparel and the aesthetics of small, rider-run Midwest brands show up often in his clothing, underscoring a preference for pieces that can handle repeated slams on steel and snow while still looking good on film. Footage from Trollhaugen and Hood suggests the use of centre-mounted, jib-focused twin-tips well suited to butters, surface swaps and urban-style hits, even if the exact ski brand is not always foregrounded.

More important than any logo is how the gear is used. Edge life matters when most of your skiing happens on rails, so detuning tips and tails while keeping enough bite underfoot is a recurring theme in this style of skiing. Boots need to be supportive enough to survive heavy landings but forgiving enough to allow all-day park sessions without destroying your feet. For riders inspired by Kaiser, the main practical takeaway is simple: build a setup around rope-tow parks and repeatable laps, not around hypothetical big-mountain days that rarely happen if you live in the Midwest.

Why fans and progressing skiers care

Fans and progressing skiers care about Jack Kaiser because he represents the everyday reality of core freeskiing: working with a local park crew, skiing under lights after work or school, filming with your friends and slowly building a body of edits that tell the story of a place. He is not an X Games medallist or a World Cup slopestyle regular; instead, he is one of the riders and filmers making sure that Midwest skiing is seen and respected on its own terms.

For skiers coming up on small hills with rope tows and modest jump lines, his path is a clear and motivating blueprint. Film your seasons, thank your local park crew, support independent projects like ATCH CORP, and treat each lap as a chance to refine both your tricks and your eye for what looks good on camera. Watching Kaiser in Trollhaugen edits, Wild Mountain features and Hood projects turns his skiing into more than entertainment. It becomes a case study in how a rider from a tiny hill can help define a regional style and contribute meaningfully to freeski culture without ever needing a bib number to prove it.

Profile and significance

Kian Barrett is a North American freeski park rider and filmer whose name has become tightly linked with the rope-tow culture of Trollhaugen in Wisconsin and the wider Midwest jib scene. Through a long run of season edits under the handle “BianKarrett” on core platforms and recurring appearances in Trollhaugen’s Human Being web series, he has grown into one of those riders you keep seeing whenever Midwest park skiing shows up on screen. His early edits from the mid-2010s, filmed almost entirely at Trollhaugen and nearby JCK Terrain Park, documented his progression from “freeskiing for one year only” to a fully formed park skier with a distinct style and a clear understanding of how to make small hills look big.

As his skiing matured, Barrett moved from one-off uploads to being a regular name in crew projects. Season cuts like his 2015–2016 and 2016–2017 edits, a 2017–2018 “Eastcoast shredder” feature highlighted by a German ski magazine, and his 2020 compilation all show the same pattern: dense rail lines, consistent jumps and constant shout-outs to Trollhaugen, the JCK crew and brands like J Skis that support his scene. Meanwhile, Human Being episodes list him both as a featured skier and as part of the extended Trollhaugen family, reinforcing that he is not just passing through but part of the resort’s park identity. Add in his name on multi-resort edits filmed from the Midwest to Alta and Jackson Hole, and Barrett’s significance becomes clear: he is one of the riders quietly stitching together small-hill park laps and western trips into a recognizable, core freeski story.

Competitive arc and key venues

Barrett’s “competitive arc” runs more through videos and session recaps than through formal start lists and FIS points. His resume is built in front of park cameras rather than judges’ clipboards. Trollhaugen is the central venue: midseason edits list the resort as the sole location, and Human Being episodes from 2016 onward repeatedly feature him as a main skier when the park line is truly firing. Those videos effectively serve as an ongoing park showcase, highlighting not only the work of the Trollhaugen park crew but also the riders, like Barrett, who give the features meaning.

Beyond his home hill, Barrett shows up in wider regional projects that function like unofficial “tours.” One prominent Midwest edit credits him among the skiers filmed at Big Sky in Montana, multiple Minnesota hills including Elm Creek, Buck Hill, Welch Village and Lutsen, and then farther afield at Mount Bohemia in Michigan and the frontcountry glades of northern Minnesota. The same project lists Alta and Snowbird in Utah and Jackson Hole in Wyoming among its locations, confirming that Barrett’s skiing has moved well beyond local-only status and onto classic western destinations. Even when there is no podium at stake, these edits are treated inside the community as proof of who can hang on a variety of parks and natural terrain, and Barrett’s repeated presence in their credits underlines his role as a reliable, versatile jib skier.

How they ski: what to watch for

Watching Kian Barrett ski is a good way to understand how modern rope-tow park skiing works. His style is compact, centred and rail-focused, built for hitting long lines of features without wasting time or energy. Approaches are calm: he sets speed early, keeps his upper body quiet and lets the skis do the work as he locks onto tubes, down rails and creative side features. Surface swaps, quick front and back swaps and spin-on, spin-off tricks appear frequently, but they are rarely thrown in just for shock value. Instead, they are placed where they keep the line moving, allowing him to exit each rail already pointed toward the next feature.

On jumps, Barrett favours clean, medium-sized tricks that look good on camera and work in real life. Season edits and Human Being segments show corked spins, switch hits and solid grabs done at a speed and height that are sustainable over long nights on the rope tow. Landings are typically well-stomped and often set up to flow into a follow-up trick or into the rail section below, reinforcing the sense that every run is designed as a continuous line rather than a series of isolated moves. For progressing park skiers, the key things to watch are his speed control and his commitment: he rarely checks speed at the last second or wavers on the takeoff, which is a big reason why his skiing looks both stylish and repeatable.

Resilience, filming, and influence

Barrett’s influence extends beyond his own tricks because he has been documenting his skiing and his crews for years. Under the BianKarrett account, his timeline of edits forms a kind of personal archive of the mid-2010s to early-2020s Trollhaugen era: midseason cuts, end-of-year compilations, B-roll releases and quick side projects like “Dad-O-Licious” that show a looser, behind-the-scenes side of the same riders who appear in more polished edits. In several Human Being volumes he is credited not only as a skier but also for additional filming, proving that he is as willing to stand behind the lens as he is to drop first into the set.

That consistency is a form of resilience. Even in seasons where snow conditions limit street missions, Barrett and his friends turn their attention to the park, producing heavy rail content and creative lines rather than disappearing until the next big winter. His 2020 season compilation, for example, merges clips from a long list of sessions and publicly thanks everyone who pointed a camera or hyped him up, as well as Trollhaugen and the brands that keep the park scene alive. For younger skiers studying these edits, the message is clear: meaningful influence in freeskiing is built slowly, session after session, by showing up for your local crew, contributing footage and helping tell the story of a place.

Geography that built the toolkit

The geography behind Barrett’s skiing is a tight but surprisingly rich network of hills and mountains. Trollhaugen in Dresser, Wisconsin is the unquestioned anchor. The resort’s terrain parks, rope tows and famously late-night hours have long been a laboratory for jib-heavy skiing, and Barrett’s early edits explicitly shout out Trollhaugen for keeping the parks prime. Human Being episodes shot there show him and a rotating cast of local skiers making use of every line the park crew can build, from simple down rails to elaborate multi-feature sets. Spending winters in that environment means hitting hundreds of rail features per night, dialing muscle memory and creativity in equal measure.

Surrounding hills in Minnesota and the wider Midwest deepen the toolkit. Edits that list him as a skier are filmed at places like Buck Hill, Wild Mountain, Elm Creek, Mount Bohemia and Lutsen, each with its own park layout, snow texture and rhythm. Those trips force even the most dialed Trollhaugen rider to adapt quickly to new features and slightly different speeds. Western segments, especially those filmed at Alta and Snowbird in Utah or Jackson Hole in Wyoming, add natural terrain into the mix: sidecountry pillows, in-resort cliffs and long groomers where he can stretch out his turns between park days. Together, this map explains why Barrett looks at home whether he is threading a dense rope-tow line, popping side hits on a powder day or joining a multi-state road trip crew.

Equipment and partners: practical takeaways

Barrett’s gear choices, visible across multiple years of edits, match the demands of his terrain. He often rides modern twin-tip park skis from independent brands, and his 2020 season edit includes explicit thanks to J Skis, the rider-driven company whose playful, durable park and all-mountain models fit his mix of rails and jumps. For most of his skiing, the key is a symmetrical or near-symmetrical ski mounted close to true center, with enough flex to butter and press on rails but enough backbone to land confidently when a trick goes bigger than planned.

Bindings and boots in this style of skiing need to be equally tuned for repetition. Center-mounted setups put a premium on boot fit that allows both support and ankle mobility, while edges are often detuned at the tips and tails to avoid hang-ups on metal. Outerwear in his clips tends to come from core, rider-oriented brands and local shops that understand the reality of night skiing in the Midwest: lots of standing around between laps in cold, humid air, then explosive bursts of movement. For skiers looking to follow his path, the practical takeaway is straightforward. If your winter revolves around parks like Trollhaugen and occasional trips to mountains such as Alta, gear that supports constant rail laps and all-day park comfort will do more for your progression than equipment designed solely for high-speed big-mountain lines.

Why fans and progressing skiers care

Fans and progressing skiers care about Kian Barrett because he represents the everyday, hard-working core of freeskiing. He is not in the headlines for World Cup slopestyle podiums or X Games medals; instead, he is in the credits and rider lists of the edits that shape how park skiing actually looks and feels for most skiers. His long-running relationship with Trollhaugen, his role in Human Being episodes and his contributions to multi-resort Midwest and Utah projects all show a skier who has quietly built a substantial body of work, trick by trick and winter by winter.

For riders lapping small hills with rope tows or short chairs, Barrett’s trajectory offers a very concrete blueprint. Film your seasons, even when you are just starting out. Learn to make every line in your park interesting rather than chasing only the biggest features. Support your local park crew and the independent brands that support them. Use trips to places like Alta or Jackson Hole as opportunities to test the skills you honed on small terrain, not as escapes from it. Watching Kian Barrett’s edits through that lens turns them from simple highlight reels into a playbook for how a dedicated park skier can help define a scene and contribute meaningfully to freeski culture without ever needing a bib number to prove their worth.