10 MINUTES: With Sammy Carlson

Sammy Carlson has been skiing since he was four. He’s gone from small jumps in the family cabin’s driveway to sticking switch bio 1080s in big comps. Now the shaggy-haired 17-year-old balances the life of a high school student (attending classes in the fall and online classes in the winter) and that of a pro skier. When he isn’t traveling the world, he’s at home in Tigard, OR, which is where we caught up with him…

So, what keeps you busy during the of-season?
I’ll be working up at Windells, at Mt. Hood. I go up there for a couple sessions in June and July. I guess I’m called a “Coach in Training”, cause you have to be 18 to be a coach. I ski around and hang out with the campers and learn new tricks.

How’d you get into skiing?
I used to always ski around with my brother, and he would go off jumps when I was like 10. I kinda always liked that. Then this one day before a race I saw Eric Pollard up there at Meadows, jumping, and I was like ‘Wow’ and thought it was super cool. Once I saw it, then I saw a ski video, Second Generation by Level One, and that got me really into it.

It seems like 2005, when you competed in the Gravity Games and began to film, was your breakout year. What was that like?
Pretty good, I ended up fourth. I thought I should have done a little better, but I was really pumped just to get fourth with all those guys competing there.

It looks like you had a great season this year as well?
Yeah, I got second at the U.S. Open and then fourth in the Big Air.

What was your first X Games like?
It was awesome, it’s been like my dream to get into the X Games, so I was super pumped to make it in there. But I really wanted to podium there. I was skiing really good, I thought I had a really good chance, then the weather came in the day of the event, and they changed it to a Big Air. It was too slow, so I ended up getting seventh.

What is your best event?
Slopestyle, I think. I really like both Big Air and Slopestyle.

With all the traveling and comps, do you still get to ski for fun?
Yeah, this year I filmed a lot. After the X Games, me and Simon Dumont traveled around the world for like three months together.

How was your trip to Japan and China?
It was crazy. It was awesome. Probably the best experience I’ve ever had. Japan had really good pow skiing for a couple days, and the culture was really fun to check out.