For our fourth interview of the Frame of Mind Series, we spoke with Solitude Ambassador Harrison Hogan Holley. Harrison is hands-down one of the nicest guys you’ll find on the mountain and is very much responsible for helping the Spread Stoke crew fall in love with Solitude Mountain Resort. Born and raised in Park City, Utah, Harrison grew up competing in freestyle moguls on the Park City Freestyle Team. He then started competing on the Freeskiing World Tour and continues to compete on the Freeride World Tour this season. Between competitions and work, he also spends all season making us drool with his pow shots on Instagram.

Harrison Hogan Holley at Solitude, Utah | Photographer: Eric Dyer

Spread Stoke: Where is your hometown?

Harrison: Park City, Utah.

SS: Who can you usually find yourself on a chairlift with?

Harrison: My good buddy Eric Dyer aka Derr, Benny Mikes, the Spread Stoke ladies or any other members of the Solitude MYST.

SS: Conditioning off the mountain is an essential element to performance on the mountain.  Do you have any training techniques (whether physical or mental) you would like to share?

Harrison: Hate on it as much as you want, but CrossFit has gotten me in the best shape of my life. I haven’t been to any other gym other than Alpenfit in Park City so maybe other gyms fit the “bro” mold that is associated with CrossFit’s negative image, but the coaches at Alpenfit are nothing short of amazing! They focus on knowledge and progress in life outside the gym, making you a better athlete in whatever discipline you enjoy. If you want to get in shape for skiing give it a shot, I swear by it.

SS: What’s been the most challenging aspect of being an athlete?

Harrison: The mental aspect of competitions is by far the most challenging aspect. Nerves can really take over when you are competing. I always say that the worst feeling in the world is standing on top of a comp venue waiting for your start and the best feeling ever is being at the bottom after stomping a good line. Focusing on skiing and having fun in comps always seems to help me ski better.

Harrison Hogan Holley at Solitude, Utah | Photographer: Eric Dyer

SS: Besides shredding the white wintry wave, what else do you enjoy doing?

Harrison: In the summer I love to mountain bike and whitewater raft. Mountain biking helps me keep in shape and there is nothing like rafting to help escape reality.

SS: What is your life motto?

Harrison: “Send it before you send it”. The phrase was created while on tour with my good buddies Connor Pelton and Connery Lundin. It basically means don’t let the present hold you back from the future or vice versa, live life to the fullest, do it all!

SS: What fuel goes into your body before and after a day on the hill?

Harrison: Before skiing: Coffee and a smoothie. After skiing: Beer and mostly pizza.

SS: What does skiing do for your soul?

Harrison: I love getting away from crowds by exploring the mountains which is often the case while skiing (especially since there are no crowds at Solitude), but I don’t see skiing as anything ‘spiritual’ like many people talk it up to be. I think it was a quote in an old TGR or Matchstick movie that said something like “everyone talks skiing up to be this spiritual cleanse, but I look at it more of a funny concept that we hike up a mountain just to go back down and if we are lucky we will have sh!t hit us in the face the whole way down”. I guess I always try to keep things light and comical while on the hill. I’m not very mature.

Harrison Hogan Holley at Grand Targhee, Wyoming | Photographer: Jasper Gibson

SS: Solitude, it’s all in the name.  What are some of your favorite attributes of Solitude and how is it unique from other Utah resorts?

Harrison: More powder per person. There is never the powder panic you get at other resorts where people freak out, push and shove, cram like sardines into trams or track an entire mountain out in an hour. The overall atmosphere is laid back and fun, which is exactly what skiing should be. You can ski untracked snow in Honeycomb days after a storm or get into some of the steepest most challenging inbounds terrain offered anywhere in the world.  If you disagree go hike Fantasy Ridge.

SS: What goes through your mind before, during and after executing or capturing a technical line or feature?

Harrison: Before: Nerves. During: Blackout and/or concentration, I usually can’t remember. After: Stoke! Or a need for redemption. Or, where are my skis?

SS: When you’re not on the hill or working out, what can we most likely find you doing?

Harrison: I bartend at Highwest, so come stop by and grab a delicious Old Fashioned from me and I’ll tell you how much better of a skier I am than you. Just kidding. But really, the Old Fashions are delicious!

SS: Let’s talk 2017 Goals: What can we expect from you for the rest of the year?

Harrison: #1: Stay healthy. #2: Ski often. #3: Defend my title at the PCMR Chinese Downhill.

SS: As athletes, you serve as role models in the outdoor industry.  Any advice, reflections or ideas on the types of things you would like see the outdoor industry strive for?

Harrison: Being from Utah, I would love to see the state recognize the value of its open spaces. This article by Black Diamond Founder, Peter Metcalf perfectly sums up my point.

Harrison Hogan Holley at Solitude, Utah | Photographer: Eric Dyer

SS: What’s bumpin’ in your earbuds?

Harrison: I like my beats like I like my cereal, crunchy.

SS: Spread Stoke’s values are: Do what you love, leave this world a better place than you found it, and spread stoke to those around you.  How do you demonstrate these values?

Harrison: On the mountain I always strive to be the person who brings the morale of the group up. That may be pumping a buddy up on a cool line or most often cracking terrible jokes. Everyone talks about not leaving a footprint on the world insinuating a footprint is a bad thing. I think everyone should strive to leave a footprint on the Earth, but have that footprint be an improvement in whatever you enjoy.

SS: Do you have any shout-outs to sponsors?

Harrison: Sego Ski Co., Soul Poles, Solitude Mountain Resort and Spread Stoke for putting this together. Looking at the list above, I guess anyone else that has a company that starts with an “S” please contact me for sponsorship.

We hope you enjoyed our Frame of Mind interview! Be sure to say “What’s up!” to Harrison on the hill this season and give him a follow on Instagram @harhoghol (seriously though, he ALWAYS gets the shot!).

Stay tuned for our next Frame of Mind interview. If you know someone who should be featured, let us know.

This December and January have truly been ones for the books. Epic pow conditions were abundant and while avalanche stability was less than great the skiing in bounds has been the best that I’ve seen in many moons.

In every ski bum’s life there comes a point in which you pack up what you have in the wheels you have and head west. Maybe you are joining friends, maybe leading the charge, maybe some are coming along to blaze the trail for the rest… Either way, it feels less like a conscious decision and more like the inevitable next step in life. “I just knew I had to be in the mountains”, is what I hear a lot. Your family may support it because they too see this unavoidable phase in your life. Chances are you owe it to your folks who put you in ski school at an early age, paid for lessons, gear and lift tickets, gas and food, and lodging to get the days in. Or, maybe because they made the same decision long before and they too see that inevitable move to the mountains and support the path. Either way, you are now on your own, doing minimum wage work, and dedicating all of your free time to the pursuit of powder.

There are also the lucky ones that grew up and never left the ski town, living their entire lives under the mountains they were born beneath, but the majority of “locals” traveled to their destination. Often times, coming from the east coast or a neighboring Mountain Time state to stay for a few months, years or seasons until they move on to follow a friend, a job, or a girl/guy to the next resort town down the I-15 or I-70. You hold a job (or two) for the winter season and a different gig for the summer season supporting the local tourist economy. This job gets you your season pass (screw health insurance, even babysitting jobs have the “free pass” benefit in this town!), but it requires all hands on deck for the Holidays. No returning home, no Turkey with the family, no presents under the familiar tree or ski socks in the embroidered stocking. You’re on duty. But that doesn’t mean you don’t have family and it doesn’t mean you don’t have holidays.

When I decided for the first time to chase powder instead of flying east to Buffalo, NY for the annual 4am Blackout Wednesday debauchery and way too hungover Thanksgiving feast, I found myself heading to Jackson, WY where the storms were lining up and the base was being set. I reached out through my powder Rolodex to find a couch or two for the week and got set up with the Mad Trees crew out of UVM. With 18″ coming down on the pass in the 13th hour of the drive from Mammoth (and another 4-8″ forecasted each night after), the stage was set.

5am wake up calls for 6am bootpacks and skins off the pass were standard so everyone could get to work by 9am. Pressure to make it back to open the demo shop pushed the tempo up and put the pressure on. I spent the days at Grand Targhee or on the Teton Pass with new groups to skin with and hitchhike with. At 3pm we would meet back up for another bootpack/skin off the pass to close out each day. Three intense days to kick off a big week leading up to Jackson Hole opener and a big storm on the horizon. 20″+ expected in the upper elevations Tuesday into Wednesday so we started planning an overnight hut trip (yes – in November) in Grand Teton National Park. The big storm came in warm and wet though, and shifted the plans as avalanche danger went off the charts. The intensity didn’t falter though as the crew built road gaps on the outskirts of town, ripping backflips under the lights of snowmobiles and stemming the appetite for powder with good times, friends, beers and a lot of karaoke (you can find them at The Virginian every Wednesday night). Ski tweaking at its finest.

Then, after a bluebird opener at Jackson Hole, we made 100lbs+ of food (including 2 20lb turkeys) to feed the 25 East Coasters and friends made along the way that chased a dream, followed a friend, made a decision, or just took that inevitable next step to head west. In the end, to head to a place with a job next to a big ass mountain with a shit ton of powder. A place where avalanches are real, where danger is tangible, where skill, knowledge, and balls are a must.

Thanksgiving with Mad Trees reminded me that a life of a ski bum and a holiday away from family doesn’t change the holiday at all. It just changes the family you surround yourself with. Ride on boys.

Mad Trees is a community of riders from the East Coast who are spread across the country for the epic pursuit of an epic mountain life. Follow them at @madtreesusa or madtrees.org as they shred Washington, Wyoming, Utah and Vermont.

It’s funny, once the ski season ends most people are talking about summer plans and how much they’re over the cold weather. However, for a few of us, we look at oncoming summer with a sense of dread. Sure, we love wearing flip flops and seeing girls in bikini’s for maybe a week, but we soon find ourselves getting intense winter withdrawals. Some people are lucky enough to travel south to Argentina and Chile and keep their season going almost indefinitely.

For those of us who are not lucky enough to make to the southern hemisphere, there are several ways to cope. One is curl up in the fetal position and cry until next season. Or you can look at all your old footage from last season and make something with it! Hey it may not be actual skiing, but it sure does help. Plus, flip flops and girls in bikinis doesn’t hurt either!

It’s 11:00 AM at the half-pipe in Park City Mountain Resort and the air is fraught with a particularly spiteful wind chill. The day is dark and gray, the sun unable to break free from beneath a heavy blanket of ominous clouds. But Olympic hopeful Kimmy Sharp doesn’t pay mind to that. Nor does she stress that she is almost halfway through her training window for the day – in a few hours she will run home just long enough to grab dinner and change for the dinner shift at Café Terigo, a local Park City restaurant. The patrons who came in near close last night do not weigh on her mind, nor does the fact that this grueling schedule will repeat for the next five days, for the next few months, barring competition and travel days.

Instead, the 24-year-old contender replays pivotal parts of the run she just performed,making mental notes of the points in need of cleaner execution. She skis toward her coach and breaks just long enough to acknowledge shared sentiments regarding her last trial. She turns her gaze toward the half-pipe, then to the lift. Then, as though pressing “play” were analogous to pushing “reset”, she clicks on her iPod to a tune by The Lumineers and skis off.

The short exchange between coach and athlete mirrors the fact that most things between the team can be left unsaid (which is not to suggest that it often does). It could be that the duo has forty seasons of ski experience between them, over half of which have been spent in competitive fashion. But the athlete-coach bond goes beyond mere know-how: Kimberly “Kim Kim” Sharp and her coach Jessica “Jigs” Sharp are twin sisters with their sights set on one inspiringly leviathan goal: qualify for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. If the road to hell is paved with good intentions then both athlete and coach understand that intent alone will not get them to Sochi; they exercise this understanding by training six days a week and waiting tables full time at Café Terigo, where they have worked since the age of 15, to fund the financial costs of such a dream.

The dream can be traced to the girls’ first day on skis at the age of two. Kimmy and Jessie joined the Park City Freestyle Team when they were nine-years-old and “fell in love with skiing even more.” By ten, they were competing in moguls and half-pipe. During their teen years, Jessie sustained multiple serious injuries that eventually ended her competition career. “Seeing her go through those hard times taught me to be grateful every day that I was able to be on the ski hill doing what I truly love,” reflects Kimmy on RallyMe, a crowdfunding site designed for athletes. After enduring major injuries to her right knee and shoulder, Kimmy made the decision to end her mogul skiing career in order to focus all of her attention on becoming a professional half-pipe skier. In a serendipitous case of the universe aligning with budding dreams, the Winter Olympics came in full force to Park City in 2002 for several ski and snowboard events.

The duo’s display of focus and determination does not mean they are one-dimensional. Despite their demanding timetable, Kimmy and Jessie enjoy preparing home cooked meals for family and friends, hiking with their husky mixes Kweli and Maya, painting, and surfing when their travels allow. It comes as no surprise, then, that their support system is equally as rich. It is not enough to say that Jessie and Kimmy are part of a tightly-knit family; in the Sharp household, lives and dreams are interwoven. Dad Timothy “Razor” Sharp is credited with teaching the girls to ski. The sisters recall mom Liz Sharp’s commitment to supporting their young ambition – driving or flying to competitions all over the country, even going so far as to helping the girls bargain with school to allow them absences for said events. Their older sister Katie is a kinesiologist for the Naval Medical Center and lends support from San Diego by way of fitness regimens and injury advice.

“Family,” as the Sharps understand it, is not confined to blood relations. Beyond the nuclear unit is a colorful cast of local advocates. For one, management at Terigo has always allowed the girls to take off during competition season, despite the fact that their leaves of absence coincide with the resort town’s peak dates for tourism – otherwise considered the best time of year to make money in the restaurant industry. Fortunately, Jessie interjects with signature Sharp gratitude, they are given shifts to earn “a couple bucks for the next trip” whenever they touch home for days at a time. Other supporters include former Park City Freestyle coaches Travis Perkins, Mick Berry, and Chris Marchetti, and longtime friends made on and off the ski hill.

Moral support, however, is one thing – gear, competition fees, and travel costs require a more tangible type. Aside from the recent endeavor at RallyMe, managing and waiting tables at Terigo must cover what a lack of sponsorships does not. Kimmy is thankful for sponsorships from local ski shop Cole Sport and neighboring Salt Lake City company Saga Outerwear, but unlike many athletes with visions of Olympic gold, she does not sport the Fortune 500.

One thing sure to adorn Team Sharp is a decal reading “Sarah.” As far as heroes go, Jessie and Kimmy would be quick to name Sarah Burke, the Canadian superpipe pioneer and six-time X Games gold medalist. Prior to her passing in 2012 following a training accident, Burke successfully lobbied the International Olympic Committee to have freesking events added to the program for the upcoming Games. Other shared heroes include Razor, who served as a Naval helicopter pilot during the Vietnam War, fallen freestyle skiers Shane McConkey and Jeret “Speedy” Peterson, and Martin Luther King, Jr. It is the lot of heroes you would expect from such shining examples of All-American grit.

Kimmy cites not only her successes and podium appearances, but also the downfalls and major injuries as testament to her commitment at being the best freeskier in the world. Triumphant demonstrations of this commitment include First Places at the Junior World Championships in 2007 and the Aspen Open in 2011, as well as dozens of podiums in North American Cups and World Cups. Kimmy and Jessie fledge beyond hoping for the honor to represent the U.S. on history’s most renowned global stage – they work for it. They will spend much of December in Colorado continuing to train and competing in the Dew Tour and the first of three U.S. Freeskiing Grand Prix, an Olympic qualifying event. January will present Grand Prix events in Northstar, California and a final U.S.-only event in their hometown. “If you do well there, you basically stamp your ticket to Russia,” Kimmy explained in an interview by the Park Record, a local newspaper. For the sisters, it is not about celebrity but about celebrating a sport that has shaped their lives.

Even on a day such as this one, one that does not have the instant allure of a bluebird day, one that follows a long night’s work and precedes the same, the girls are more than happy to wake up early to head to the hill – “just as we have our whole lives,” says Jessie, smiling. While we do not always have the luxury of knowing where a road ends, Kimmy and Jessie intend to find out just how far the road to Sochi will take them. They do it for each other and for their families, their hometown and their country, and to push their beloved sport for childhood ski heroes beyond the grave. They will do so one lift – and one shift – at a time, and they will do so together.

Take part in Kimmy’s story by spreading the word and donating to her RallyMe page: https://www.rallyme.com/rallies/304