Life is more than just skiing: The philosophy of Angel Collinson

Following two years of extraordinary success in the world of big-mountain skiing, that statement from Angel Collinson is surprising, to say the least. The 25-year-old Utah-native is at the top of the sport. Notice how the word “female” is absent from the previous sentence. In an industry that has always been primarily male driven, especially in the big-mountain realm, Collinson is pioneering a shift in the skiing paradigm, blending gender lines to the point where there isn’t “women’s skiing,” or “men’s skiing,” there’s just “skiing.”

In 2014, Collinson opened TGR’s Almost Ablaze. Her segment set the tone for the entire flick, which won Film of the Year at the International Freeskiing Film Festival (iF3) and was the first female segment to open a TGR film in the company’s 17-year existence.

Collinson wasn’t done. This past fall, she closed TGR’s Paradise Waits with one of the rowdiest Alaska segments to date. For her performance, Collinson took home Best Female Freeride Performance at iF3 and became the first female to win Best Line at the Powder Video Awards. To top it off, gargantuan support from her peers earned her the title of Skier of the Year – Riders’ Choice in this very magazine.

And despite the deluge of media accolades, headlines declaring her ascension to the big-mountain throne, praise from fans old and new and sponsorship attention, don’t expect Collinson’s ego to grow too big for her five-foot-four-inch frame. “She has a good head on her shoulders,” says skiing icon Sage Cattabriga-Alosa, who has spent a great deal of time with Collinson over the past two years. “She will be fine.”

The foundation of Collinson’s successful career and the molding of that “good head on her shoulders” begins and ends in Little Cottonwood Canyon.

[su_button url=”https://freeskier.com/stories/2015-skier-of-the-year-the-riders-and-readers-votes-are-in” target=”blank” style=”flat” background=”#0e5589″ size=”5″ radius=”5″]See the official 2015 Skier of the Year results[/su_button]

Family

The Collinson family—Angel, fellow pro skier and younger brother John, father Jim and mother Deb—calls the base of Snowbird Resort home. They always have. Angel and John grew up sharing a five by twelve-foot bunkroom in the resort’s employee housing. Jim served as the assistant director of snow safety and Deb taught her children, plus a few other offspring of Little Cottonwood Canyon resort personnel, at a nearby homeschool.

From the time they were born, the youngest of the Collinson clan were completely immersed in the mountains—it was their norm. “Growing up in employee housing meant that the mountain environment was home,” explains Deb. “It wasn’t like you were traveling somewhere to go skiing, it’s just what you did.”

“It’s the way that my life has always been,” Angel says of her existence among the peaks.

During the warmer months, the family lived primarily out of their renovated 1979 Ford van, which they used to gallivant across the American west in search of new adventures. “They used to call us the ‘Swiss Family Collinson,’ because we’d go into the van and disappear,” describes Deb. “We were vagabonds, we were hermits in a sense—really dirtbagging it. We were always making it work, whatever it took.”

When Angel was 6, the family embarked on a summer road trip. They started in Baja, went through San Diego and to Mt. Shasta in northern California. Both Angel and John, despite their young age, held up well trekking around the 14,180-foot peak. “We were like, ‘Okay,’ and we kept going, we went to Mt. McKinley,” explains Deb. “It was the first time they were camping up high. There was no glacier travel, but we were going on long hikes all day long. We began to realize that they had such a sense of achievement, like, ‘wow, cool, we actually did that.’”

The search to regain that triumphant feeling played a part in the family’s continued journeys—and Angel’s drive to tackle bigger objectives further down the road. The other fuel for the travels of the Collinson family (besides the gas pumped into the van) was an intense go-getter attitude. This also spawned a philosophy that has helped Angel ascend the pro skier ranks. The use of the word “can’t” was frowned upon among the Collinson clan.

“[Saying] ‘I can’t,’ comes with an attitude. [It says] ‘I’m going to shut down, I don’t want to do whatever it is,’” Deb says. “Them being good kids, they wanted us to believe in them. We respected them and they respected us. We respected [them] too much to believe them when they said ‘I can’t.’”

That attitude holds true with Angel today. “My whole philosophy is really that we’re capable of a lot more than we think. And my favorite saying recently has been that, ‘whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right,’” she explains. “That just plays into the whole ‘can’t’ saying and growing up. We always had to say ‘I’ll try.’ If you didn’t think you could do it, instead of saying ‘I can’t,’ you had to say ‘I’ll try.’”

And with all of this—tight living quarters, faraway family expeditions, high-alpine ascents, rain soaked nights in the tent, winter tram laps at Snowbird and that “can-do” attitude—it was inevitable that Angel and John would form an unbreakable bond.

[su_button url=”https://freeskier.com/stories/autonomous-skier-the-evolution-of-sammy-carlson” target=”blank” style=”flat” background=”#0e5589″ size=”5″ radius=”5″]Also Read: “The Autonomous Skier: The Evolution of Sammy Carlson”[/su_button]

“It’s a really personal influence that we have on each other. It’s having the best skier buddy that you could ask for,” says Angel. “A lot of times it’s more [about having] both a mentor and a best friend. Somebody that gets what you’re doing, that gets the industry and also just gets you. You can bounce ideas off of them or just be a sounding board and have a person that’s always encouraging you. They’ll say, ‘don’t put up with that,’ or ‘I think you can do that better,’ and also help you to understand when you’re being too hard on yourself.”

Because of how close the two are—they’re also roommates residing in a house they built together at the mouth of Little Cottonwood Canyon—Collinson always has someone to turn to. With the recent accolades, it’s certainly a benefit to have someone by her side.

“We’ve seen all of each other’s ups and downs, and can give good advice to each other, whether that’s with technical skiing, professional relationships, personal relationships, how much candy to eat, whatever,” explains John. “She knows she can talk to me about anything, and with skiing I think I help her see the fun in everyday shredding—that it doesn’t always have to be about ‘training’ and this and that [strictly] for the professional side of [the sport].”

John’s reminder that skiing should always be about the fun isn’t just a passing remark, either. It’s something that Angel has had to come to terms with since her freeskiing star first appeared in the sky back in 2010.

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Skiing

The action in the closing segment from Paradise Waits begins with Collinson perched atop a jagged peak in Alaska’s Neacola Range. She drops in, making fluid turns from skier’s right to left across an exposed face, a cascade of slough barreling down behind her. She gracefully maneuvers a rock outcropping on the skier’s left, and is funneled into another rock band that she clears effortlessly and with serious speed. She swerves right, gaining velocity in the process, into and through a surging mass of slough—appearing un-phased at its attempt to knock her off her feet. A straight-line through chopped-up snow on the apron ends her run. The rest of the segment follows suit.

To sum it up, Collinson charges. Yet, her skiing is polished and smooth, as if the dichotomy between power and beauty converged simply to form her image. Her elegance on skis comes from Collinson’s omniscient way of looking at the mountain.

“She sees the big picture,” says Deb. “It’s not about hucking cliffs, it’s more about ‘what’s the line? How can I be fluid? How do I manage slough? Where do you land the helicopter?’”

“I remember asking her how comfortable she was with exposure on one of her first toe-in heli drops,” remembers Cattabriga-Alosa of their first time together in Alaska. “Her reply was something like, ‘well, I know to respect it, and I feel pretty confident with it.’ I was like, ‘OK, she’s got this.’”

From the instant she began filming with the TGR clan for the 2012 release, The Dream Factory, Collinson’s abilities in the mountains were a perfect fit. She was a lost jigsaw piece that completed the puzzle.

“A lot of people can ski really well… a lot of women can ski really well, but not a lot of women can be in a tent for twenty days and then when it’s go time, get in a chopper and be composed,” details Deb. “She’s a professional because she’s so comfortable in her skin. She has a huge heart, she cares about the people that she is with. She isn’t ego driven. She never ever wanted to be well known.”

Collinson’s abilities in Alaska have been well documented, yes, but on a technical level, her power and control comes from many years spent as a ski racer—a discipline that her father encouraged.

“I got into racing because my dad ski raced his whole childhood and got a college sponsorship with it. He was like, ‘it’s a really good way to get solid fundamentals, good technique and a really good foundation for being a good skier,” explains Collinson. “When I was 8 he had me try skiing for a day with the [race] team and I bawled. I really didn’t want to do it. I was pretty sure racing was not going to be what I wanted to do. But, as an 8-year-old you never really know what you want. So I [tried it] and I had a really cute coach and the rest was history.”

Watch: Angel Collinson’s 2015 Alaska highlights

For someone that was hesitant about participating in racing, Collinson achieved great success between the gates. She stuck with it through her teenage years and in 2009, at age 18, she was vying for a spot on the US Ski Team. She ranked high all season and was competing on par with many of the women already on the team, but didn’t end up making the final cut.

Around this time, the first chapter in Collinson’s career as a pro skier was penned. In 2010, Collinson, who was in the midst of her academic career at the University of Utah, made the switch to big-mountain competitions, specifically those sanctioned by the Freeskiing World Tour. This occurred thanks to a push from John, as well as her lifetime of experience skiing Snowbird—a mountain known for its burly lines, cliffs and a tendency to breed big-mountain skiers.

“I suggested she try it out because I knew what racing was like, and what I disliked about it. The freeskiing world was a complete 180 and it gave me a sense of completion in life that racing never did,” explains John. “I just felt like Angel needed to fall in love with something that wasn’t so stressful, and figured trying freeskiing might really do her good.”

“I pretty much decided to enter into the big-mountain competitions to keep me skiing, because I knew otherwise I wouldn’t ski and I’d spend all of my time in the library,” she explains. “It went really well right off the bat.”

Ever the go-getter—remember “can’t” isn’t in her vocabulary—Collinson made the 14-plus-hour drive from Utah to Revelstoke, British Columbia. She drove a two-wheel drive sedan by herself to that first competition, where she knew almost no one. Leaning on the family values instilled in her, she counted on the more seasoned competitors for guidance.

“I had an acquaintance and I crashed on his hotel room floor, but really just relied on the community for help because I didn’t know what I was doing or what the judging criteria was or how it all worked,” explains Collinson. “I asked a lot of questions and everyone was super helpful. Immediately I was like, ‘yeah this sport is awesome,’ because everyone was just so nice.”

She would go on to take third on the infamous “Mac Daddy Face” on Mt. McKenzie, sitting only behind established competitors Jess McMillan and Jacqui Edgerly; she took home The North Face Young Gun award, too.

In the weeks following the Revelstoke contest, Collinson would place well at stops in Crested Butte and Kirkwood, setting her up for the final competition of the season back home at Snowbird. The rest of the field proved no match for Collinson, who knew the terrain like the back of her hand—she won the event, beating out names like Crystal Wright, McKenna Peterson, Edgerly and Pip Hunt. The win secured her the overall Freeskiing World Tour title, as a rookie.

“Winning the Freeskiing World Tour that first year was really gratifying because I felt like all the time that I put into skiing my whole life, the entire life of ski racing wasn’t just wasted,” she explains. “I felt like my whole life up to that point was actually leading up to something.”

Collinson carried that momentum into 2011, her sophomore year on tour, taking second in El Colorado, Chile, first in Las Leñas, Argentina and first in Crested Butte. But tragedy soon dampened the mood of her strong start.

At the Kirkwood tour stop, Ryan Hawks, Collinson’s boyfriend and fellow competitor, threw a backflip off a sizeable cliff in The Cirque, a permanently roped-off area only used for freeride competitions. He exploded upon impact, suffering severe injuries that required him to be evacuated to the Reno hospital.

Instead of breaking down as many people would in the face of a similar event, Collinson remained focused, went through with her run the following day and won. Immediately following the event, she raced to the hospital where she remained with Hawks until he succumbed to his injuries, early the next morning. She would go on to defend her overall title in Snowbird, a week later.

In Hawks’ passing, Collinson chose to take the best parts of him with her, both in her everyday life and in her skiing. “It changed my skiing in the sense that I really realized how important it is that we enjoy it. It’s something that so many of us live for and that’s what makes it worthwhile.”

Collinson attributes Hawks’ influence as one of the reasons she has gotten to where she is today. “I feel like a big part of why I’ve [made it] here is because of my attitude, the way that I look at life and the way that I treat people. He had a huge impact on that,” she explains. “I think of him all the time, especially when I need an attitude adjustment. It could be a pow day and I’m like, ‘I don’t want to go skiing,’ or whatever it is. That’s when I think of him and I’m like, ‘yeah this is not something that he would think is that great.’”

Collinson’s good spirit would be rewarded. Soon after, while standing in line for the tram on a Snowbird pow day, she was invited to film in Alaska with Cattabriga-Alosa, Seth Morrison and Dana Flahr for The Dream Factory. She’s appeared in each TGR film since, working her way up to being, arguably, the production company’s marquee athlete.

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Philosophy and Life

Success in skiing doesn’t necessarily translate to success in life. For Collinson, life is a much bigger picture than skis, boots, bindings and poles. Skiing doesn’t define her. And yet, her success in skiing has weighed heavily on her mind, and has been something she’s had to come to grips with.

“I struggled last year, when I won Best Female Performance. I felt like it was pretty quick out of the gate [after I started] filming and all of a sudden I was like, ‘what’s next?’” she explains. “And I had these series of events where my car got stolen with, like, $30,000 worth of equipment inside and it was this whole sort of snowball where I just had a mini ‘come to Jesus’ moment, where I said ‘what do I want from life? Who am I? What is life all about?’”

“There’s so much in life that is really interesting and for me it doesn’t all just lie in skiing or being a pro skier,” says Collinson. “Skiing allows me to live a well-rounded, holistic life, where I can do all of these other things, and that’s the real blessing for me.”

Collinson is smart. When she began her big-mountain career, she was reaping the benefits of a full academic scholarship at the University of Utah. Her goal was to get into environmental policy—something synonymous with her life since the beginning. That dream isn’t retreating into the shadows of her pro skiing career, however. Her skiing is the catalyst that sparks involvement in organizations like Protect Our Winters, and Collinson still wants to finish out her degree with a double major in Philosophy and Environmental Studies.

“I definitely want to finish it because it’ll help to [provide opportunities] and it’s good to see things through,” says Collinson. “In the future I would like to go into environmental work and I think a lot of doors open in that field from skiing. It’s interesting to use it as a back door approach to get into what I always wanted to do with school.”

Equally intriguing as her environmental goals is her fascination with philosophy and how that pervades her everyday life. According to Deb, she’s influenced by Don Miguel Ruiz’s book, The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom. Those four guidelines are: Be impeccable with your word, don’t take anything personally, don’t make assumptions and, most importantly for Collinson, always do your best.

“Reading and practicing those agreements—saying ‘all I can do is bring my best to whatever it is I’m doing,’” explains Deb, “she followed that within herself and began realizing her own patterns to be able to know that you can’t control what other people think. Now into her twenties she’s gotten comfortable with Angel.”

Collinson also draws inspiration from Hawks’ philosophies. “I’d always favored a sunny disposition and positive outlook but he really made me realize that we have the choice to look at things as good or bad.”

“I just had a mini ‘come to Jesus’ moment, where I said ‘what do I want from life? Who am I? What is life all about?'”

Her tendency to look at the glass half full is supplemented with her incorporation of humor into everything she does. “[Humor] is like a drug, but a very healthy one. It’s my main tool,” she says. “You can talk about more serious things if you involve a little bit of humor. It also really works well with group dynamics. I think it’s one of my strongest traits. It helps a lot of things in life become more enjoyable.”

And so, during arguably the most pivotal moment of Collinson’s career—when she was coming to grips with her sudden thrust into skiing’s spotlight, when her car was stolen, her belongings hijacked—she began to ask life’s grand questions. And back home, in Little Cottonwood Canyon, she found herself.

“I took two weeks off and pretended that I didn’t ski for a living,” she details. “I baked cookies and went skiing for fun with my family, I didn’t try to drop cliffs or anything. It was a good learning experience and a practice and mentality that I’ll have with me for the rest of my life… It’s about doing it for you and when you’re having fun that’s when all of the best things happen anyway.”

What is certain is that Collinson will continue to live life her way, continue to laugh, continue to bring a positive, trying attitude to everything she does. Whether it’s on a pair of skis, in a classroom or just walking out the door of her house at the beginning of a new day.

Collinson’s approach to the world, built through the adventures, relationships, triumphs, hardships and revelations she’s endured throughout her 25 years, will culminate in further prosperity.

“There will always be more successes, it’s sort of a never ending false summit,” she says.

Note: This article appears in FREESKIER magazine Volume 18.5. The issue is available via iTunes Newsstand. Subscribe to FREESKIER magazine.