Pillow Popping with Parkin Costain

Welcome back to the Next Level Skiing podcast, brought to you by Wagner Skis.

26-year-old Parkin Costain grew up in Whitefish as a skiing prodigy. For the last decade, he has been pushing big-mountain skiing with a high-speed, swift-footed style in the heaviest, most technical terrain around. With bust-out performances (like stomping a ridiculous double backflip into Corbets at Kings and Queens) and jaw-dropping segments in Warren Miller and TGR, Parker's fluid, athletic style is helping to define today's big mountain skiing.

In this episode of Next Level Skiing, Parker discusses emulating Candide to get banned from his home hill in Whitefish, blending a life on a bike with his globe-trotting adventures on skis, knee-stabilization exercises, unwinding from a ski day, and his new film, "Flipbook."

Topics:

2:25 Booted from Whitefish. "It was always such a funny little feud we had going on."

6:00 Honing aerial tricks and bringing them into the backcountry / big mountain terrain

7:10 Being comfortable and confident at each step of learning

8:15 Growing up on mountain bikes, "I almost try to mountain bike like I ski."

9:20 Building trails with his dad, finding inspiration for ski lines

11:50 Early contest and emerging into a ski career

13:40 First time filming with Warren Miller and TGR

14:50 Navigating rocks at Big Sky for fast-twitch talents

16:00 Developing speed in technical terrain

18:00 Preventative maintenance in the gym with a Bosu ball, plyometrics, Adrenaline Performance program by Marcus Goguen

19:00 Working out in gyms since 12

21:04 Mixed success gap jumping with Jake Hopfinger

23:30 Spinning, rowing, and treadmill after skiing

24:07 Making Flipbook

26:30 Drones and social media enabling pro skiers without gatekeepers

29:19 "You're able to build a career out of it on your own if you put in the work."

34:59 "The gnarliest crash ever" on a pillow line in BC

34:40 Bouncing back from a scary crash

35:33 Controlling your speed with piles of snow and careful navigation

Quotes:

"I also feel like fortunate with the timing there because the event had started a few years prior to that, but it hadn't like fully exploded yet. So when Jake and I were getting to compete there, it was like so many eyes were on that that sponsors took notice."

"Big Sky's just made out of like literal daggers everywhere. You have to hone in on your abilities a little bit and understand the terrain and interpret it differently than you do at other resorts. There's plenty of insanely gnarly terrain you can get yourself into."

"I've never played video games. I was always outside."

"I did the full front flip, so my feet went back because if I had gone headfirst into that thing, it would have been so much worse. It would have been definitely the end of my life, actually. On camera, it looks gnarly, but in person, if you see what I actually fell through, it was the gnarliest thing I've ever experienced."

Resources:

Parkin Costain on Instagram

Wagner Custom Skis