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Interview: Julian Carr's Balls Interview: Julian Carr's Balls Are In The Air

From: brodyleven
Description:

Discrete Headwear owner and professional skier Julian Carr drinks a beer in Chile. Photo: Chris Bezamat

Sure, he’s on DVD covers, posters, and probably on top of whatever social media app you’re currently perusing, but Julian Carr does more than style his professional ski career. His business savvy is as on point as anyone else with 40-plus-hour workweeks; the difference lies in his ability to keep his 120-foot frontflips on point, too.

World record holder, Discrete Headwear proprietor, and professional skier Julian Carr has a couple of balls in the air — and not only when he’s dropping cliffs. This week, he’s managing incoming shipments, hiring sales reps, dispersing product to retailers, designing the 2013-’14 line, revamping website content, and handling international brokering. He fails to mention maintaining contact with his thousands of social media followers, fans from around the world, and his entire ski career. All of this after spending the last three weeks in Chile, competing at La Parva’s Eye of the Condor event, which he won (People’s Choice and Best Photo Portfolio).

Yesterday, I joined Julian for the second of his two time-trial trail runs of the day, on Salt Lake City’s Mount Olympus, bookending his long day at Discrete’s Salt Lake City headquarters.

BRODY: Rank your abilities: 1) Skiing off 100-foot cliffs; 2) Instagramming; 3) Dog-owning; 4) Business-operating.

JULIAN: 1) Decent; 2) Have a ways to go to catch @brodyleven; 3) Crush it; 4) Always learning.

BRODY: Why did you start Discrete Headwear?

JULIAN: Because I love creating stuff that people dig. I’m so appreciative of each of Discrete’s customers.

BRODY: With the optimism of a skier, I will now claim summer to be officially over. So, given summer’s recent end, how did you spend the miserable season-that-shall-not-be-named?

JULIAN: Europe in May, NYC, Vegas, Portland and Denver a couple times each, Bend, San Fran, Sonoma, South America. Portland has the best trail running and is home to my sister’s family and my mom. Vegas is the wildest. New York was a lot of working. Denver is where Icelantic, Spyder, and some new business relationships are based, so it rules. I raced $150,000 Audi R8’s in Sonoma’s Sears Point Raceway during the GoPro athlete retreat. That was so radical. Between trips I hang and hike and water ramp in Salt Lake. I work on Discrete wherever I roam, but have an incredible team holding down the fort when I’m away.

Julian Carr at Discrete HQ. Photo: Brody Leven

BRODY: Your social media following is more likened to a celebrity than a skier. How did that come to be and what does it mean to you?

JULIAN: My nose for action is always sniffing and it’s super fun to interact with everyone. Thanks y’all!

BRODY: Everyone knows you won two of the three awards at Eye of the Condor in La Parva. Last time I was there, I was living in a snow cave, hitchhiking to the mountain, and trying to find lift tickets. How are Condor athletes treated? Do you get discount lift tickets!?

JULIAN: Between the marketing department, Mike Reff, and the mountain host, Rodrigo Medina, they took care of us. We skied, slept, ate and were merry. Very merry. It was cool being there with some heavy hitters like Rachael Burks, Ingrid, Davenport, Adam Clark, Sherry McConkey, Kaylin Richardson, Parker Cook, Bezamat, Roderick, the Widsix crew, the Icelantic crew and local Chileans.

BRODY: I heard you got sponsored.

JULIAN: Icelantic, Spyder, GoPro, Discrete, Backcountry.com, Smith, POW gloves, Suunto, Panda Poles, MFD bindings.

BRODY: …speaking of bikinis, what is your ideal vacation?

JULIAN: My own bed.

Julian Carr goes big in the office. Photo by Brody Leven.

Carr obviously has an undying and atypical desire to succeed. And while we all hold different definitions of success, it’s hard to disagree with Julian’s tireless work ethic, vigorous drive to be the best skier/CEO/person he can be, and ambitious determination in both the mountains and the office.
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9 months ago
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Great Gondolas Of The Alps Par Great Gondolas Of The Alps Part 1 - Verbier

From: sethlightcap
Description:

Skiing in Europe is all about the gondola. Cable cars in the Alps deliver some of the finest ski terrain on earth. Verbier’s magic bubble lifts are no exception.

- Story and Photos by Seth Lightcap

It’s hard to say what’s more impressive about skiing in the Alps, the fact that amazing ski terrain lurks on every horizon or the fact that nearly every inch of that terrain can be accessed from a gondola?! The network of cable cars that ingeniously link the peaks and valleys of the Alps is downright unbelievable. Just about any vista worth seeing or skiing has a gondola positioned to drop you within striking distance of the top.

On a recent trip to the Alps I fell in love with several of these téléphériques. Their warm confines kept us out of the bitter cold until we were ready to shred and the terrain just outside the cable car doors blew our minds every run. In celebration of my beloved bubble lifts I’ve put together a three-part photo essay documenting some of the classic gondola accessed terrain in Verbier, Chamonix and St. Anton. The series starts off swingin’ for the fences detailing two of the most incredible ski lifts in the world - the Mont Gelé and Mont Fort cable cars in Verbier, Switzerland.

Who needs lift towers? Not the Mont-Gelé téléphérique. This ridiculous cable car rises about a 1000 feet along one continuous span of cable to the top of one of the sickest alpine pyramids known to the lift-accessed world. Every flank of the gorgeous Mont Gelé holds legit alpine lines many of which can be stretched into 2500 foot long runs. The beauty of shredding Mont Gelé is that the laps are relatively fast (you only have to take one other short gondola to return to the telépherique base station) and the terrain is diverse, steep and littered with lines that don’t require any traversing (a rarity in Verbier). You can strap-in right outside the top station and rip straight into an 800 foot long couloir.

You’re looking at the northwest side of Mont Gelé. An approximately eight minute ride in the téléphérique deposits you directly on top of the peak.

Here is the southwest side of Mont Gelé. The rolling benches are as rippable as they look - lots of wide open shoulders pouring into mini-headwalls and small cliffs. The snow on this sunny side will often cook quickly but it was so cold during our visit that the snow was winter fresh. Now re-focus your eyes on the ski tracks in the foreground of this shot on the lower right side.

The tracks you saw are from the apron of these couloirs. They are accessible with a short hike off the top of a 150-person gondola known as the Mont Fort ‘Jumbo’. The Jumbo is only the first stage in the Mont Fort gondola link-up however. You can see the top station of the second stage of the Mont Fort gondola in the upper right of this shot.

The second stage of the Mont Fort gondola rises off the glacier and drops off skiers at 10,853 feet - Verbier’s highest lift. The easiest way down is the mogul field at right. Hundreds of not-so-easy routes plummet off the peak in every direction including the improbable and exposed tracks that you can see in the dead center of the rocky headwall.

It’s possible to ski a 8,239 foot run of the top of Mont Fort. You can also hike out the ridge from the top of the gondola and access the infamous Bec de Rosses, the venue for the Verbier Extreme comp. And of course, if you happened to be hungry before you roll out to slay the Bec, you can can get an expresso and a sandwich at the top station.

We climbed the ridge above the Mont Fort gondola and dropped off the peak into the steep dog leg couloir you can see above Allison. This line began a tour that took us around the back of Verbier and down into a neighboring resort valley called Nendaz. From Nendaz, one lift and two gondolas put us back on the top of Mont Fort.

We owe all our good times on the Verbier gondolas to local ripper Julien Laurencon. It was an honor to explore his backyard with him. Next time we’re in Verbier he promised to show us more of the rad touring terrain behind Mont Fort that you can see to his left.

Our last day in Verbier we joined Julien at a small adjacent resort called Bruson. Using splitboards to tour out the ridge we dropped into a massive bowl that faced the gondola accessed terrain we had been shredding the previous days. Above Julien’s slash you can see the triangular Mont Gelé. The big peak to the right of Mont Gelé is the Bec de Rosses. The Verbier Extreme contest rides the opposite face of that peak.

So then what’s the Bec de Rosses contest face look like? Here’s the face as of Feb 7th. Pretty sharky at the moment.

Look out for ‘Great Gondolas of the Alps - Part Two: Chamonix’ dropping next week!
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1 year ago
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