Listen "Staying balanced with Brody Leven"
Episode Synopsis
Welcome back to the Next Level Skiing podcast, brought to you by Wagner Skis. Brody Leven doesn't dabble. He's an all-in type of skier. When he decided he was done with park skiing, he moved from 100 days of high-flying park time every season to 100 days of climbing and skiing mountains. And now it's been 10 years since the Fischer Ski-sponsored athlete has ridden a chairlift. He's never eaten meat. During the pandemic, he started exercising outside every day. Now he's more than four years in without missing a single day. He's a lifelong vegetarian, a vehement climate advocate, and, as he says, "obsessed with ideas and doing things that are hard." Tune in and hear Brody talk about growing up skiing in Ohio, his pursuit of untracked sno,w and his evolution into one of the world's top ski mountaineers who considers his skiing outside the traditional definitions used by both pro skiers and ski mountaineers. Topics: 1:10: An after-school ski program in Ohio. 4:00: Moving to Salt Lake City in 2005 for the skiing 12:10: Going from 100 days in the park to 100 days in the backcountry. 14:20: Ten years without riding lifts. 15:40: Principled skiing. 24:00: Perfecting turns without ever skiing on a groomer. 28:30: Climbing and skiing peaks in Uganda, Romania and Georgia. 30:10: The "thief of credibility" in the culture of ski mountaineering. 36:00: The light and fast ethos in ski mountaineering. 41:00: Jumping into exercising outside every day 49:00: Tackling climate change is like coming to a mountain with lots of little steps. Quotes: "When you're back there, you're listening to what the mountains are telling you and what your intuition is telling you and the frequency with which you do it, you know, getting out there so regularly and, you know, kind of higher risk terrain, you develop that fluency, right? And you push yourself to a spot where you have an intuitive fluency." Jason Blevins "I'm not like a woo-woo person, I'm very logical. And so when I say the essence of skiing, I do not mean that in any sort of woo-woo way. I mean, literally, it's how you move around the mountain on skis." Brody Leven "There's this culture of doing cool things and being quiet about it but secretly hoping other people hype you up in the parking lots. And like that's, it's just so weird for me. It's uncomfortable for me. I don't know. So I hype it up myself because I get back and I'm proud of it that part of my job is letting people know what I've done." Brody Leven "In hindsight, I didn't know it at the time, but I think in hindsight, finding that consistency was some way of having control over such an otherwise out-of-our-control situation. And so much of my life seems to lack that control." Brody Leven Resources: brodyleven.com Wagner Custom Skis
More episodes of the podcast Next Level Skiing
A Ski For Every Skier with Pete Wagner
21/04/2025
Lou Dawson is Our Skintrack Artist
24/03/2025
Skiing Every Aspect with Mike Hattrup
17/03/2025
This is My Purpose with Aaron Blunck
26/02/2024
Reggie Crist is The Stoke Broker
20/02/2024
ZARZA We are Zarza, the prestigious firm behind major projects in information technology.