Scot Schmidt is a legend in Freeskiing. He is the original pro freeskier and became a household name in skiing after the release of the 1987 ski film, 'Blizzard of Ahhhs'. Mike Douglas pays him a visit to see what he's been up to.
Almost 30 years ago, Scot did a promo day @ Alpine Meadows. I took my 8 yr old son with me. We got to ski with Scot for a few runs. He was on a 215 prototype GS ski he was testing. It was amazing. It was unforgettable. You could really see his racing style as you 'tried' to keep up. Scot was so nice to the kids. He signed posters after. I still have the picture of my kid standing at the table while our ski hero signed his poster. From that day on... we called ourselves the 'Schmidiots'! That was a father/son experience we talk about to this very day. Thanks, Scot, for being a class act and an inspiration.
Grew up skiing on a 200 foot hill in Wisconsin in the 80s and Scot Schmidt was a total legend in his own day. Nobody like him except Ingemar Stenmark who I saw taking a practice run somewhere in Colorado. Makes sense after all these years hearing Scot say he emulated Stenmark, two of the smoothest ever.
I like that he didn't have any gimmicks. No crazy attention getting clothes or hair styles. No fancy tricks or parachutes. He didn't need any of that- all he had to do was ski. And you really need to ski on some old 215 cm skinny skis to appreciate how good he was.
I'm 58 still living the sport. I meet a lot of guys even older than me who can rip in our own way. the modern equipment has made it possible to ski faster and more in control than I did in university with Fischer Racing Super cut comps. Mind you we skied on ice Sunday nights after the weekend crowds got finished scraping the snow off with the mountain.
@@martinfroelich7193You are correct on the new skis helping. I was a hold out on changing, I did in 2001 and never looked back. Ripping deep pow or trash snow is much easier, especially when you have condition specific skis which I do. I am 59 and my friends are all a bit older and we are still hitting the trees and steeps 50 days a year. Take care
Scott Gibson I am 71 years old and think I am skiing better on the “new gear” than when I was 51 years old and tying to ski Alta on a pair of 203 cm GS Race Skis. My Nordica Enforcer 100 are my daily drivers and the Volkl 100 eights come out when we get 8 + inches which happens a lot. To be honest the fact that I get to ski this type of terrain and snow conditions 5 days a week for 3 months helps a lot since I retired and became an old ski bum.
Without Scot we'd have no Squallywood or Schmidiots. The Palisades became like a pilgrimage to Mecca. The "extreme" thing didn't really start with Schmidt, but the marketing & hype was definitely due to his exploits. Amazingly, he always kept his ego in check & is pretty humble about his influence, unlike many of his imitators - most of whom are dead.
Scot was a huge influence why I became a ski instructor and the head of a ski school in Utah. Scot, Glenn Plake, and Mike Hatrup are legends of the sport.
Everything you say resonated. In the 80's my buds and I saw some Warren Miller movies and it was, "Move over Erickson, we want to be Scot Schmidt." Scotty was the guy who opened my eyes to what could be done with skis. We all learned the Scot Schmidt crossed ski big air look. I was 16 and now I'm 56. Three compression fractures, two back surgeries, two popped mcls, and no regrets :) LOVE hearing he's living slope side and has a home mountain, good for him, he deserves it. Can't believe this vid is 9 years old and I hadn't seen it yet.
Awesome video. Scot Schmidt really is a legend. I happily still ride my yellow ski pants with black patches on the knees….. I don't think I will ever ski without them....
Class act. A-1. Scot Schmidt was my first hero and was most certainly a 'fork in the road' for me, as a young skier. I have always greatly appreciated his modesty in interviews too. Thanks for making this video and big up thanks to SC.
wow ☺squaw valley a great memory for me was in1978 staying in the olympic village for 5 spring series SL/GS races . i remember going up kt-22 chair for some warm up runs and found a nice cornice and really nice open powder bowl just et er rip. i can see how scott became a legendary skier as the mountain was challenging ⛷
I modeled my skiing style after Scot Schmidt & Bill Johnson. Loved both guys growing up, skiing Mt Hood in the 70's & 80's as a kid. Started skiing freestyle with my dad, then got into Downhill racing, ending up Extreme skiing! Loved all of it, but had a thing for speed & steeps ;-) Bill & Scot had a huge influence on me. Never got to meet Bill before he passed away, but did talk to him online. Just the correspondence was really cool. Would love to meet Scot some day & let him know the influence he had on me. Scot had the best Extreme skiing style of them all!
Great to see Scot still skiing like he did in the 80's. Watching those old videos now (still have a stack of VHS tapes) where no one has a helmet it's good to see he survived as well!
My favorite skiier of all time. I watched Groove so many times that I would see him skiing when I closed my eyes. It helped me develop my style of skiing and people always comment on the beauty of my form. I owe that to Scott, 100%.
Again great video, I too grew up watching Scott and always admired how strong and perfect his turns were. Scot you are a legend and its great to see you still ripping it. Thanks
Like so many young passionate skiers, Scot was my hero. I was a lucky one in running across him in Ischgl Austria and skiing the better part of a season with him. He changed my life. My biased opinion, you can find more flamboyant skiers, ones that go bigger, spin more, but IMHO no one can turn like Scot; the epitome of style.
Ahh Ischgl! I worked there the 97/98 season...I got pretty good at peeling potatoes and washing dishes...not to mention being up on the mountain every day. Great memories.
Stefan Hoglund What a coincidence. We'll have to reminisce. I ran into Scot and the film crew by coincidence but after I survived an avalanche they said "you're a lucky guy, you come with us" I didn't need to be asked twice. Well, they really didn't ask but I accepted as if they did :)
moved to Reno to ski the palisades and I did! I went to med school in Reno and my brother followed and he met his wife in Reno and my other brother moved west. Scot has probably heard it before many times, but I am so thankful for what he did because he changed my life for the better.
I knew about scot in the mid 1980s. He influenced my skiing tremendously in alaska. It led to a ski descent of denali from the summit. In the late 1980s me and my freinds all wore north face gear because scot did and it was the best.
Thank you for this! What a great update... Scott was the one guy I always tried to emulate when I was a kid bombing down the slopes at Squaw in the 80's. Even down to the Vuarnet cateye glasses.😂 I still have a K2 poster in my garage with Scott and Glen on it I got from the REI ski shop I worked at during the good old days when we still skied on 205's! 🤯
I can remember when Scott came too Valdez in 91 for the world extreme championships with a lot of great skiers .it was so much fun ,great guy Scott is I’ll have too make it up there too watch him ski again in Montana ....
It really would be a dream come true for me as well - everything you said I too experienced - no one had the style of Scott when in flight, the way he would tuck his knees up into his chest with his legs flaring to one side, very compact, hands and shoulders square to the fall line - looked just like a downhill skier pre-jumping a big drop while keeping the tuck....he really changed my life as well. After first seeing him in an early Warren Miller film - pre Geoff Stump days, I put off college, packed my car and headed to Lake Louise Canada where I spent the next ten years tending bar at night and skiing four days a week......never reached Scott Schmidt status but I did become a solid skier running laps on the summit T bar up and down all day long - big GS turns on Outer limits next run big airplane turns down the near forty degree headwall......now just turning fifty , these are some of the best memories of my life - great years, I so wish I could go for another lap or two!
man.. i'm at least 8 months away from my next skiing trip and now you guys have to feed me with this? I want to go skiing right now! But I can't! You assholes! Seriously though, nice episode!
To me, Scot Schmidt is one of those rare skiers whom you can freeze frame at any point in any turn, and his body position is invariably one a classic Greek sculptor would struggle to do justice to. There's almost never a flourish or pose, nothing is done for effect. One would struggle to isolate any move which could be dispensed with, or replaced with a better move. Every part of his body is always flowing, in the changing context of the moment, from one ideal place to another. Outside of racers like Stenmark, nobody else in skiing I can think of came close, with the possible exception of Jerry Warren from Snowbird, who was once Ski Magazine's go-to guy for freeze-frame sequences. There, too, you could pick at random any shot from a motor-drive sequence, blow it up and make a stunning poster. But Jerry was not skiing chutes in those shoots, or dropping off cliffs, and racers, too, operate within a more controlled and predictable environment and set of objectives. Scot must have unbelievable control over his emotions for his body language to consistently portray such phenomenal calm. Modern skiers like Candide Thovex also have this in spades, but I haven't seen any with the minimalism of Schmidt; they're all just a bit showy. The best of them look as though they're skiing to have fun; Scot looks as though he's skiing to *ski.*
This is is so inspiring on such a deep level, this kind of courage to be and ride your passion is love in action. I loved his words of over coming his fears to do what he loved. I was inspired to always do what I love, because in the end it you, you have to face in the mirror of your courage or fear. Love this. Thanks for sharing a slice of true life. :)
Scot is the Kelly Slater, Michael Jordan, Tony Hawk, Tiger Woods, James Stewart and Bob Dylan of the ski world. He, like the names mentioned, changed the style, the culture and revolutionized the sport. No skier will ever make a greater impact. What is even more fascinating, Scot did this without winning anything. His influence was solely on his humble smooth skiing ability. Best turns in the game.
For me, his humility is almost as impressive as his skiing, almost. I was fortunate to grow up skiing Alyeska, back home in good old AK. Brendan Pettyjohn out
like I've been saying for the last 30 years. Study the greats. "World Cup Ski Technique", "Skiing, an Art, a Technique" by Georges Joubert. If you cannot break down the physiology of skiing in words, you're just another bucket head with FAT skis basically "Faking being a Scot Schmidt wanna be" What makes Scot, not just another Hucker? Still has "HIS" ACL, and he's not dead like many I've met and shredded with in the last 40+ years of thrashin in the hills. Ride on Scot, and say hi to Teri. BTW Wasatch Pow goin' off right now. Fuck work, Live2Ski, Ski2Die.
Ok, Scot Schmidt is a legend and this clip is sick, but let’s get one thing straight. “Living in a cabin” at the private Yellowstone Club is far from living in a cabin still living the ski bum life that he used to. At least have some transparency about one of the most exclusive ski clubs and terrain in the world.
