10 MINUTES: With Chris Collins

Chris Collins grew up killing it at Anthony Lakes, a small resort about a 45-minute drive from his home in Eastern Oregon’s Baker City. After dropping out of McMinnville’s Linfield College and following his brother Matt to Alta’s Peruvian Lodge, the Collins’, Sage Cattabriga-Alosa, whom Collins met skiing at Mount Bachelor, and Chris Minneci, burst on to the scene in 2001 with the help of the backcountry kickers they built with filmmaker Kris Ostness. This will be the first year the four won’t be living together in Sandy, Utah since those early days, but they’ll continue pushing each other in the Wasatch this winter. Collins was pulling weeds in Salt Lake when we interrupted his summer job to ask a few questions… – John Davies

How did you get from Baker City to TGR and sponsored skidom?

My brother matt was going to school in Bozeman and he dropped out and went to work at Alta’s Peruvian Lodge. I was thinking about moving to Jackson or Whistler, but after visiting him and experiencing the long winters, moving out there just made sense. I met Kris Ostness and he was hitting a jump up on Baldy’s shoulder. He asked if I wanted to come out and build a jump on Grizzly Gulch. It was the same year that Candide (Thovex) threw a D-spin over Chad’s. We actually built that with Ostness. Through those guys, we ran in to TGR that way.

Collins airing Alta.

The CARDIAC RIDGE CLIP was one of the closest-calls I’ve seen. Were you pretty humbled by that run, especially after what happened to your friend MARC-ANDRE BELLIVEAU

It was an eye opener for me. That season I had been doing a lot of backcountry. We had such a good year in Utah that you could go ski a lot of stuff that was normally not that skiable. I guess it was just because the avalanche conditions weren’t that stable. It made me realize that falling like that can happen anywhere.

CLICK HERE FOR COLLIN'S ACCOUNT OF THE RUN

I saw a sequence of your triple backflip in Skiing, are you steering away from the cork spins?

I only did one of those last year. That was in January; the only other time I even did a double was off a different line in Ivory Lakes in my TGR segment. I wanted to do a double line and throw a backflip. The rest of the year I was doing off axis seven’s and trying to spin both ways.

Have you stayed close with your Utah crew–Sage, your brother Matt, and Chris Minecci, as all of your pro careers go different directions?

Yeah it’s pretty funny. We’ve all lived together up until this year. I was just at Sage and Sarah’s wedding this last weekend. This is the first year we won’t all be living together. I’m living with my girlfriend who just bought a house.

You guys will still be on the hill together right?

Absolutely, we’ll definitely still be riding together this winter. We do a lot in the summer also–dirt biking, mountain bike riding.