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.”

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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