Michelle talks about how she’s embraced her superwoman abilities to excel as an athlete and show women around the world that they can ski some of the craziest lines.
Michelle Parker is a professional freeskier. She takes helicopters, snowmobiles, or hikes up to steep snowy peaks and skis down them, launching off cliffs and gliding down nearly vertical slopes. She has been featured in dozens of ski films and when Michelle goes out and films on the peaks, she is often the only woman on these outings. The other athletes, the camera people, even the helicopter pilot are usually men. Regardless, Michelle has always been motivated by women in sports. In fact, it was her mom who put her on skis before she was two years old. On this show, Michelle talks about how she’s embraced her superwoman abilities to excel as an athlete and show women around the world that they can ski some of the craziest lines.
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Shelby Stanger: The presenting sponsor for this season of Wild Ideas Worth Living is Ford. Their 2021 Ford Bronco Sport is the SUV that'll get you to your outdoor adventures. It's an off-road SUV built for the thrill-seeker, the sightseer, and the day-tripper. This SUV has many available features to help you get to your destination. With enough ground clearance, off-roading capabilities, and purposeful design that includes easy to clean surfaces and plenty of interior space, this SUV is your gateway to the outdoors.The Ford Bronco Sport is equipped to help you get out there to the mountain ranges, the woodland trails, and to the coast. You can learn more about what the Bronco Sport has to offer at Ford.com or in our show notes.
Michelle Parker: A couple of years ago, I was in Alaska and I dropped in on two of the best lines of my ski career, I would say. In that moment, my mind and body were aligned and I had full confidence in what I was doing, and I honestly didn't have a strong sense of fear. I was totally present and I was totally aware of my surroundings, and once I was up there, I was like, "It's go time."
Shelby Stanger: Professional skier Michelle Parker is one of the industry's most versatile athletes. She's appeared in over a dozen ski films, and in 2013 she won best female performance at the Powder Video Awards and at the International Freeski Film Festival.
Shelby Stanger: Michelle is a freeskier, which is basically backcountry skiing, descending incredibly steep lines, and doing wild tricks. If you haven't seen a backcountry ski film before, they're adrenaline packed movies that capture the stomach dropping descents and tricks of pro skiers. When you watch Michelle on film, it's hard not to hold your breath as she launches from cliffs and glides down nearly vertical slopes.
Shelby Stanger: I'm Shelby Stanger, and this is Wild Ideas Worth Living. If you've ever seen a freeskiing film, you'll notice there's not a lot of women featured. It's just one more reason that Michelle stands out. As one of the most exceptional female freeskiers, Michelle's always been motivated by women in sports. In fact, it was her mom who put her on skis at a very young age. Now Michelle finds herself as a role model for the next generation of female skiers. But before she was an in demand athlete, she was a kid who started skiing pretty much as soon as she could walk.
Shelby Stanger: I was watching your Originate series last night and I was so inspired. And I heard your mom say, "If you walk, you ski." And so she started you on skis at 18 months, which is unbelievable. Talk to me about this, you started skiing before you even knew it.
Michelle Parker: Yeah, there was this thing amongst my mom and her friends where they would get their kids out and ski before they turned two. So that was just a thing. And obviously I don't remember it, but I feel pretty fortunate that I was basically born with skis on my feet in a really beautiful mountain town with the culture behind it was, for me and a lot of my friends, we were raised by the mountains and that was a pretty special and amazing way to grow up.
Shelby Stanger: So tell me about that. What's it like to grow up... I know you don't know any other way, but for those of us who haven't grown up in ski towns or ski families, what's that like? Did you guys just go skiing after school, at lunch, after breakfast? How does that work?
Michelle Parker: Yeah, totally. So my family migrated to California after my father was a professional tennis player and they traveled all over the world, competing in tennis, and then he became a coach. And then my mom just had this really strong pull to Lake Tahoe. And she knew that that's where she wanted to grow up. And she loved skiing. She came there for her first time, I think when she was like 16 or something like this more permanently. And so that was her goal. And actually what I think was the string that was pulled that allowed them to go out there was we lost my older brother. And I think it was just this huge, we need to start new as a family. And they moved to Tahoe the year before I was born. And my dad, he still coached tennis, but he became a realtor. And my mom knew that she wanted to be a dental hygienist, which is so random, but she picked up a job there and then they just started skiing.
Michelle Parker: And my mom is an incredibly passionate outdoor woman who also is addicted to skiing, maybe even more so than myself sometimes, which is beautiful. She skis every single day. And I think at the end of the year, it's like 130 days, which she skis, which is a huge inspiration in my life, for sure.
Shelby Stanger: That's awesome. Your parents sounds so cool. So did you go to one of those schools... I lived in Breckenridge for a year where you could ski at lunch or after school, or were you on a ski team?
Michelle Parker: Yeah, I was, from the age of three I joined the Mighty Mite program at Squaw, which is just basically... And this was just happenstance that my school allowed us to take PE independently. So from 12 o'clock on every single day for basically my entire life, the school bus would take us from our school straight to the mountain. And then my parents would pick me up at 4:30 at the big tree. And that is like, I mean, literally I was raised by my coaches, by the mountain, by the people there, by the culture there. So I feel really... That was like, yeah, an incredible privilege to have growing up.
Shelby Stanger: So every day from 12 to 4:30, you went skiing?
Michelle Parker: Yeah. And then the weekends were just all time. And a funny thing also, my dad used to write these notes to my school teachers on powder days that said, "Today, my daughter and I are going to study gravity and inertia." And then we'd go skiing on powder days.
Shelby Stanger: Your family just sounds great. And do you ski with them today?
Michelle Parker: I do, I ski with them quite often. And it's one of my favorite parts about still living close to them.
Shelby Stanger: That's awesome. And your brother passed away when you were young? Or before you were born?
Michelle Parker: Before I was born, yeah. His name was Michael and I'm named after him.
Shelby Stanger: Wow. That's so cool. I have a brother that died before I was born as well. And was he young, when h e passed away?
Michelle Parker: He was, I want to say two or three. Yeah. He was two years old I think, yeah.
Shelby Stanger: Oh, I'm sorry.
Michelle Parker: He's my guardian though. I feel his presence for sure.
Shelby Stanger: Oh, that's so cool. That's so interesting. I haven't met a lot of people who've also experienced that. So thanks for sharing that.
Michelle Parker: It's an interesting thing to not know your brother, but to feel his presence really heavily in your family.
Shelby Stanger: So you started as a ski racer, moved to freeskiing. How did you make that switch?
Michelle Parker: Yeah, I think that for me, skiing became something that I was so deeply in love with. It was my biggest passion in life and I really didn't want to take away from that. So the competing aspect of it was centered around competing against other people. And when I went out and freeskied with my friends, that was my passion. I didn't ever want to take away from that. So I essentially made the decision, when I'm filming, I'm competing against myself and no one else, we're all a team. And that was what drew me more to freeriding and freeskiing. And ultimately I started my freeriding in slopestyle and halfpipe, and then still felt that pole to ski powder and be out in the mountains with my friends and was able to navigate the industry at the time, which there was very few women participating and then eventually broke into the free ski world.
Shelby Stanger: Yeah, but there's probably no better place to have broken into freeskiing than Tahoe. That's such a epicenter for so many amazing skiers. Who was influencing you living there, and how did Tahoe influence your decision to kind of break into freeskiing?
Michelle Parker: Absolutely. It was a part of what I saw every single day when I was on the mountain, there was world-class skiers and some of the best in the world, like Shane McConkey was a huge influence for his personality, his humor, his skiing as well. And then there was JT Holmes, Ingrid Backstrom. It was such a part of our resort and our community that it seemed like a path that was maybe possible, but to be totally honest, when I was 15 and got my first sponsors, I didn't think that as a female, it was a possibility. There was such few females being represented by these brands and pushed out into media. So I kind of, I remember telling my dad, I'm going to take a year off of school. And at this point I already competed in X Games in the US Open and all of that. And then one year became two years. And then after two years it was a full fledged career.
Michelle Parker: And I was like, "Dad, I think this is my calling. I don't know if I'm going to go to school." And I always laugh because my parents never second-guessed me. They never questioned it. They never said, "Are you sure?" Or anything like that, they were like, "Okay, cool. Yeah. Do your thing." And that to me was ultimately the biggest support they could have shown me.
Shelby Stanger: So the first time you put on a pair of freeskis, how did you know or was it like landing a trick? How did you know, you're like, "I am never going back to downhill racing. I'm going to do these amazing tricks on freeskis." And I'm sorry, I'm totally not a skier-
Michelle Parker: No, this is great.
Shelby Stanger: So I'm sure I'm butchering all of this.
Michelle Parker: I actually, ironically I remember because I was a racer and racing is quite expensive. My parents dedicated a lot to get me to these races and to support me in this sport that was ultimately, I don't know, it was kind of above our pay grade, it was expensive. And I started getting sponsors for racing and that was going really well. And then I just felt that desire not to be under the regimen of having to train every day and go around gates. And I wanted to just have more freedom when I was in the mountains because that is what brought me the most joy. And my friend gave me a pair of twin tips. They were Align twin tips and he was like-
Shelby Stanger: Twin tips, I was right, that's how you say it.
Michelle Parker: Yeah. Totally.
Shelby Stanger: Okay.
Michelle Parker: And so that was kind of my introduction into using skis as having a different tool under my foot essentially. And that was ultimately, it just felt really free.
Shelby Stanger: So really quickly I'm a little confused. It sounds like you're doing mountaineering.
Michelle Parker: Yeah.
Shelby Stanger: Like I thought you were just taking snowmobiles up to the back country and skiing down.
Michelle Parker: That's what most people think because that's the easiest way to film a ski movie. But basically whenever I'm not filming, what I'm most passionate about, my means of accessing terrain is hiking it. And so our typical day in Jackson does consist of some element of ski mountaineering. When you put sharp stuff on your feet and you have ice axes and crampons and you're on the rocks and you're in these big mountains, that's like full on ski mountaineering for sure. And repelling in the middle of the line or whatever it may be. That's what draws me to the mountains the most. But when we're filming, yeah, the most easy way to film is via a helicopter or a snowmobile, which is great, but they're really efficient vehicles to get in the mountains. But it's not really... It's a different experience when you're hiking up that mountain.
Shelby Stanger: And it just is slower, which I imagine just there's some amazingness and the slowness of it.
Michelle Parker: Yeah, totally. Coming down to your interaction with nature and then being also so much more in tune with the snowpack and what the snowpack is doing as you gain elevation and different aspects. And I think that slowness is ultimately more safe, but it can also mean more exposure to bigger terrain because you're below stuff and above stuff. And yeah. So, ski mountaineering is like, it takes a different skillset than going out on a snowmobile or getting in a helicopter. There's a lot more to it. It's it takes a lot of experience to get to that space.
Shelby Stanger: Can you take listeners through an experience of what it's like to drop in at the top of a mountain in Alaska? And so take me from looking at a map to getting that radio call three, two, one, and then you're the first one to actually ski the line. So you're not following someone else's tracks to see if like an avalanche happened and did they survive.
Michelle Parker: There's actually so much that goes into it. So a lot of the places that I have continued to go back to like Haines, Alaska, this is where that line was skied. I've gone there since I was 20 years old. So I know the mountain range relatively well, and you start dropping GPS pins on the lines that you like to ski. And then also looking at maps, whether that's Google earth, like Fatmap, this app that's really convenient for traveling in the mountains. But basically, yeah, there's a lot of studying that goes into it before we even get to the location. I look into the snowpack two weeks before I arrive and start to study that so that I can have some anticipation of if it's going to be stable or not. And then we get there. And then there's the mindset of like, okay, we're in Alaska now we're skiing the biggest lines you'll ski and your entire season, it's on, it's game time.
Michelle Parker: So there's a lot of focus. And then we get into the mountains. We fly out there in a helicopter, say, we'll generally go scope to the zone that we want to do. And we'll land at the bottom. Take a photo of the line, study the line, talk about how you're going to ski it. There's a lot of intricacies in how you ski big mountain lines. For example, when it's really steep, you have what's called slough. So all the snow that's coming off your skis, every single turn, you can't really... You can't get smoked by your sloughs. You can't turn back into it. So you ski these lines left to right or at a diagonal. And then you have to understand where that snow is going to fall. So you're always staying on top of the ridge, on the spine and then you always have a plan B.
Michelle Parker: So you're discussing all this stuff. You're taking photos. You're like, okay, I know exactly where every single turn is going to be when I ski this face. And then I have a plan B. So if something did happen, what's my exit strategy to get to a safe location. And then you get in the helicopter again, your heart rate goes up, you fly to the top of the mountain. Oftentimes we scope the line really close in the heli too, the heli will hover right above your line. So you can kind of get a better judgment of how big the cliff might be, how big the face is. You get to the top, you hope that you have an understanding of how big the cliff is, which I've totally gone wrong. But anyways, you land at the top. And oftentimes there's not a really good spot for the helicopter to land.
Michelle Parker: they have to keep the power on. So they're hovering and it's this, it's pretty serious business. You don't want to mess the heli pilot up. You're a team, you're communicating when he's comfortable, you can get out, but there's blade spinning on top of you. And you might be on a knife edge ridge. You're all alone. You have to pull your skis out. And it's this balancing act. It's scary. Your life is in the heli pilots hands at that point. And then heli pilots really good, so he lands you perfectly and you get out and you're like, oh, okay. That was one adrenaline rush. And now I have to figure out how to put my skis on, on this knife edge ridge or whatever it is, which is a complicated task as well.
Michelle Parker: And so you're out and you are all alone. There's no one else around your camera crew's set up, you have a radio to communicate with them and you have to trust in your experience for the last 15 years of your life and spending all this time in Alaska that you know exactly what you're about to do. And you're confident in yourself. And I generally look at my photo again and remember that when you take a photo from the bottom of line, it looks so different than when you're on top. It's a totally different perspective. So when you're on top, it's like really blind rollover. You can't actually see your run.
Michelle Parker: That's very typical of Alaska. So that's where the memory comes in handy and having a picture memory would amazing. But basically I'm just like, "I know every single turn, I know that I'll see a little rock pepper on that face, and when I see that, that means I make a left hand turn, then the spine is going to drop in and I make three more turns. And I cross over to the other side of the spine, pushed all my slough to the right now I'm on the left hand spine."
Michelle Parker: And you just have to remember every single step of the way. And you can't stop. You're filming. Skiing lines with speed is way safer than dilly-dallying around because you're committed. You're going to beat your slough. You're out of there. And then yeah, hopefully you hit that exit air or whatever it may be. And you come out mach 10, and just like fire it up. But there is a lot that goes into it rather than what we just show in the ski video for sure.
Shelby Stanger: Before Michelle does a big ski drop, she studies the snowpack, the landscape, and the weather patterns over a decade of preparing for trips has made her an expert. And these days other athletes seek out Michelle's guidance in big mountain terrain . She's often the only woman on these outings, the other athletes, the camera people, even the helicopter pilot are usually men. Michelle is showing women around the world, they can ski some of the steepest craziest lines.
Shelby Stanger: In a lot of ski films I've seen in the past, there just hasn't been a lot of women. Did you have any female role models in the sport growing up?
Michelle Parker: Yeah, I think at that early stage, when I started skiing in the park, which was when I was 15, 14, it was really Kristi Leskinen and Sarah Burke were the two poster child, women that were getting a lot of play for park skiing at the time.
Shelby Stanger: So there weren't a lot of girls to train with, so what did you do? You just trained with guys?
Michelle Parker: Yeah. I skied with the guys, and I think from a pretty young age, I was teased a lot growing up and I ultimately, I remember there being this moment of my guy friends don't tease me, but all my girlfriends tease me and I was like, I'd come home in tears. Like, oh man. So I ended up cutting my hair really short and people called me Mac and my dad coached almost every sports team I was on, including baseball. And I just played on the guys' teams and they called me Mac so that the other team didn't know that I was a girl and we totally kicked butt. And I think for me at an early age that set this standard that I was no different than the guys when it came to athletic ability. And I truly believed that, but I think I also had this small part of me that was probably like, I have to prove my worth on this team as a female.
Michelle Parker: So that made me push myself ultimately and prove myself. And I still have that, which is something that is just, it must be ingrained in me from my childhood, which is an interesting thing. Because I don't think I should have to prove myself to anyone, but because that was such a big and important part of my upbringing, having those strong female role models that were strong and athletically driven, and had a beautiful voice to back that up, and that were gracious leaders and ultimately pioneers in women's sports. That was powerful for me. So I think that has been a part of my, I don't know. I guess my purpose in my career is to be a strong female role model for the younger generation.
Shelby Stanger: One of the best ways to see females on the mountain, absolutely ripping it are movies. And I think some of your parts in some of the biggest movies ever, they've been really transformative for the sport. I was watching one of your movie parts yesterday. It looks terrifying. There's so much that could go wrong. So what goes through your head at the top of mountain when you're about to drop in?
Michelle Parker: Yeah, this is something that I think as a professional adventure athlete, if you will, I have dealt with my entire life and I've kind of fine tuned it to figure out what works for me. And a lot of that comes with experience in those situations. And it takes a lot of mind control, and focus, and visualization, and a lot of practice and work to get to that position. And so, I don't know, a couple years ago I was in Alaska and I dropped in on two of the best lines of my ski career, I would say. And in that moment, my mind and body were aligned and I had full confidence in what I was doing. And I honestly didn't have a strong sense of fear. I was totally present and I was totally aware of my surroundings and I had studied the line and once I was up there, I was like, "It's go time."
Michelle Parker: Fear is a really interesting thing. I think there's a legitimate fear, like a fear of the snowpack not being super stable. That's a legitimate fear. And that's something that you have to manage with logic and your understanding of the snowpack. And then there's this other fear that I think is something that is just inside all of us that comes up and you have to suppress that, or recognize how to distinguish which one's a logical fear and which one is something you're creating in your own head. And I think having control over that and being able to separate that is a skillset that you learn when you're in the mountains, because ultimately one wrong decision can cost you your life. But it's really important. I will not drop in if I'm not a hundred percent confident in my ability to ski top down and safely, I have exit plans.
Michelle Parker: I have so much strategy that goes into it and so much practice that I'm a hundred percent confident. And then there's this really simple question too, that I'll ask myself to put myself in check and that is, am I doing this for myself? Or am I doing this for someone else? And if I'm doing it for someone else, then I pull out because that's not going to work out. I have to be present. I have to be doing it for myself. Not for the camera guy, not for the film part, not for the Instagram posts. I have to be doing that for myself.
Shelby Stanger: That's got to be hard. There's a lot of things I've done for the Gram or the shot, or to prove myself, or to be able to compete with the guys. Do you just keep asking yourself that question over and over until you get the right answer?
Michelle Parker: Yeah, I mean, too, take into consideration that I've been doing this professionally since I was 15. So there is definitely... I always say, when I'm in the mountains and I'm filming or taking photos, that's a red flag. We talk about red flags when we talk about entering into the mountains and how can you recognize avalanche problems? Red flags would be rapid warming or a ton of snowfall or shooting cracks or recent avalanches. Red flag for me is also a human factor of am I filming? That's a red flag because as much as I can say that, yeah, it's super easy for me to answer that question if I'm doing it for myself or not, there's Kodak courage involved.
Shelby Stanger: I've never heard the term Kodak courage, but I like that.
Michelle Parker: Yeah. Yeah. And that's something that's... It is hard to answer that question sometimes, but it's, hearing the drop in like, okay, Michelle's dropping in 10 seconds. When you hear three, two, one, I am going, and there's nothing stopping me. And I'm going to lace my line or go to plan B. But I am like, "It's on." And my mind is so present in that moment and confident.
Shelby Stanger: If you've ever seen a video of Michelle flying down a mountain, you can sense her confidence. She glides down nearly vertical slopes, catching air, landing softly. And it's seriously beautiful. When we come back, hear Michelle talk about how she came back from a severe injury early in her career and how that experience helped build her signature style.
Shelby Stanger: How does the saying go? April showers bring May flowers. While I love the benefits of rain. I definitely don't like being caught out in it. Luckily we have brands like Arc'teryx who make gear that we know stands up to the biggest downpour. My go-to is the Beta LT jacket. I love the minimal design that makes it extra lightweight while still keeping me nice and dry. This is the jacket you wear for any adventure. From hiking to running errands, to biking, the hood is even helmet compatible. They think of everything, and you know it'll stand up to the test of time and rain as it's made with Bluesign approved Gore-Tex. You can get the Beta LT jacket exclusively Rei.com or head to our show notes for the link.
Shelby Stanger: In a huge step for her career, Michelle landed a big deal with the ski production company, Matchstick Productions, but things took a scary turn on her first filming trip. She hit a rock and severely injured her knee. To make matters worse, her sponsors pulled out because it was unclear how long her recovery would take, but Michelle came back even stronger. And the following year she won best female performance of the year at the Powder Video Awards, which is a pretty big deal in the ski world.
Shelby Stanger: So back in 2009, you were filming, and you had a pretty terrible fall. I read you had like five knee surgeries.
Michelle Parker: Yeah. I'm on number five.
Shelby Stanger: Talk to me about this and how did you recover?
Michelle Parker: Yeah, the first injury I had was just ACL, which in retrospect was a really easy injury for me to wrap my head around and get through. The second injury I had, I landed on a rock that was ACL, meniscus, medial patellofemoral microfracture, cartilage damage, the whole gamut.
Shelby Stanger: That happened while you were filming, right?
Michelle Parker: Yep. With Matchstick, I'd landed on a rock. And that injury took me out for a year and a half, almost two years. I lost all my sponsors. I was like, "Oh, I'm going to have to sell my house." I couldn't pay my taxes, the whole nine yards. I was like, "I'm going to have to start over." But I kind of just attacked that injury head on and maintained this positive outlook the entire time.
Michelle Parker: I was young. I was like, "I've got my whole life ahead of me, if I can ski again, first and foremost, I'm really happy." There was doubts from my doctor that I wouldn't be able to ski again. And so I was full of tears when I got back on my skis, so grateful that my body healed and I was able to be there again and having it all taken away from you, losing everything, your sponsors and all of that kind of puts things into perspective. And I think I sat on that for a while and decided that this was ultimately something that brought me so much joy and that I loved so much that I was going to go for it again.
Michelle Parker: I'm going to start new, clean slate, let's go. And I was able to carry that positivity through that injury and come back. And I also came back with so much more love and appreciation for the sport, for the community, for the people I get to do it with, for the mountains, for the areas that I get to visit. And I feel really lucky that I have something to be so passionate about.
Shelby Stanger: Any advice for people who are going through an injury or just can't do their sport right now because of COVID?
Michelle Parker: Yeah, totally. It feels really vulnerable at times because what you define yourself as, for myself, I'm a professional skier gets... The rug gets taken out from under you and you kind of have to face maybe even some personal demons about who you really are or what can entertain you during that time. And for me, it's been important. Every injury I've had, I've totally dove into a different project, whether that was, for the first one, I went back to school and I started taking classes just for the sake of taking classes. The second injury I learned the ukulele. And that has been something that has carried me through tough times. The ukulele has such a high pitch, energetic sound to it. I'm like, you can't possibly play a sad song. So that was the perfect instrument to bring me through.
Michelle Parker: And then the next injury I had, I remodeled my house, which was questionable at best. I was on a ladder, painting really high and yeah, I'm pretty high energy. So I just need to occupy my time through injuries and know that there's a brighter future ahead. And if you dedicate your time and energy to healing, and you listen to your body, and you stay in a positive mindset, which is, there's so much to be said about how you get to that place, but therapy's a great way to go. And you push through.
Shelby Stanger: Well kudos to you for making it through. And I'm appreciate that you recommend therapy. Because so many people... When I was growing up therapy was looked on as really weak. Now it's like, it's the bravest thing you can do.
Michelle Parker: Totally. Even like, so I guess it was two and a half, three years ago, I found myself in my first ever stage of depression, I had overloaded my plate saying yes, too much. And I was really in a low place. I needed to say no to a lot of things and give myself some time and space to heal mentally. And that's when I got a therapist and now I feel like I'm in a really happy place. I don't have any depression or, I don't know. I feel like I'm in a good headspace, but I still go to therapy because for me it keeps me there. It's like fine tuning everything, figuring out what works. And ultimately I think that therapy is... I would recommend it to everyone. It's amazing to be able to get shit off your chest. Let's be real.
Shelby Stanger: How much a day do you spend skiing versus cross training or mental training?
Michelle Parker: Yeah. Well, I think it depends on the time of the year. So right now I'm here in Jackson Hole because I'm totally obsessed with the national park and these mountains are really, really big and it's a place where you can get out and ski mountaineer and have-
Shelby Stanger: It's so vertical there.
Michelle Parker: Yeah, totally. Basically my schedule right now is two days on, one day off, two days on, one day off. So on those two days on, I'm waking up at five in the morning, I'm out the door at six I'm in the mountains at 6:30 and we don't come down until 4:30, when it's getting really late. Because we're going for really big days. You're typically here hiking, more than 6,000 vertical feet a day. So for me, I prep in Tahoe, I do as many laps as I can there hiking. And then I come out here and I'm like, "Okay, now I'm going to get my butt kicked." And it also tests my ability, these mountains are so big that I can fine tune my big mountain skills. And yeah, for me, this place just opens up a lot of potential.
Shelby Stanger: It seems like Hawaii for big wave surfers.
Michelle Parker: Yeah, totally. And then on my down days like today I went and got some body work done because my body gets pretty wrecked doing what I do and that's important to maintain. And then I do meditate quite often these days and I'll talk to my therapist twice a month. And other than that, it is so much about visualization and mental preparation for a day, having all my gear in order, and knowing where I'm going to go, and wrapping my head around that yeah, confidence thing. And you know what, it's interesting. And I will bring this up because as a female, I think it's really important. It's not talked about that much, but women go through such a different cycle than men. And so fine tuning that for me over the past couple of years, my therapist introduced me to some pretty cool tools to understand at which time of the month I'm athletically performing my highest. And at which time of the month, I maybe should chill out a little bit more. And so keeping track of that and honoring that is really helpful.
Shelby Stanger: That's awesome. I just started reading about that too. And I had no idea that there's certain times of the month when I'm running, but I'm just naturally more dehydrated.
Michelle Parker: Yeah.
Shelby Stanger: Yeah. It's wild. I started playing around with that and now I can tell, like it has to do with your cycle.
Michelle Parker: It's really nice to answer that question. There's these super powers that we can change the way that we perceive the way our bodies work, because we are super women. We have a lot of things that happen because of nature that are beautiful and that can ultimately aid us in being better people.
Shelby Stanger: Michelle definitely has super powers, not just because she's a badass woman skiing down huge slopes in the back country. She's also using her platform as a professional athlete to talk about climate change. It's something she's experienced the effects of firsthand over the course of her career in the mountains.
Shelby Stanger: I watched a video you recently did with Arc'teryx where you talked about experiencing the recent California wildfires in Tahoe. In the video, you talk about how you made a commitment to climate change advocacy and activism. So what are the changes you're seeing as a mountain athlete? And tell me a little bit about what you're doing about it.
Michelle Parker: Tahoe has become kind of an epicenter of climate change and it breaks my heart. Right now as a perfect example. We didn't have snow from December, I think until yesterday there, it was like kind of a drought. We lost a lot of snowpack. It was 50 degrees in the middle of the winter. And then now we're having this hundred inch storm that's coming in, that's hitting the Sierras and I'm like, "Holy moly." Those extreme weather patterns are becoming more regular. And I've been noticing them for the last five years, especially living in Tahoe, we had three years, three or four years of complete drought. And man, the town morale was down. I was like, "Oh, do I have to move? Is it going to snow here again?" And they're predicting by 2100, that snow will not be in the mountains of Tahoe below 9,000 feet.
Michelle Parker: So our snow lines are getting heavier. That's changing the watershed and that's changing ultimately life on earth. And that's also opening up our forest to forest fires, which we experienced heavily this summer. You couldn't go outside, you couldn't breathe. It was really difficult to live amongst that smoke. And I think the smoke from the California wildfires ultimately traveled to New York. And so I think in one aspect it woke a lot of people up to climate change and that it is happening right now. So being so in tune with nature, because digging snow pits out there, assessing the snowpack, looking at the weather constantly, determining whether something is safe to ski or not because of ultimately nature and the snowpack, you're in tune with it and you see that kind of stuff. And when you notice it firsthand, I'm not a scientist and I'll never claim to have all that knowledge, but you got to stand up and fight for it. And so that's what motivated me ultimately to get involved with Protect Our Winters, which is a wonderful organization that, I think it was-
Shelby Stanger: Oh sweet, with Jeremy Jones.
Michelle Parker: Yeah, totally. And Jer has been a close friend and someone who I look up to for his athletic pursuits, but also just who he is as a human yeah. Protect Our Winters I think started out with back in the day, don't use plastic bags and that kind of stuff. And now they fine tuned their message and they've grown so much as a community and an organization. They know that ultimately it comes down to making policy change and talking to these policy makers. And so it's become political. And not that I love politics, but it is something that I am far more in tuned with now than ever before. I've been to DC and lobbied on behalf of Protect Our Winters and told personal stories about what I'm seeing in the mountains. And those personal stories are really powerful for congressmen and women and senators.
Michelle Parker: And you have that personal connection with them. They're human, they're people too. They'll listen to you. And then furthermore attending town, council meetings in Tahoe and speaking up on behalf of our community and advocating for certain representatives. And that's become a bigger part of my mission as well, I guess, because you can't go out there and play in these mountains and not protect them too. I believe in that.
Shelby Stanger: Any advice to people who want to do more for climate change, what can other people do? What do you recommend?
Michelle Parker: Yeah. Yeah. I think that using your voice can be scary, but ultimately very gratifying. I like to do stuff that has a ripple effect and Protect Our Winters has had a huge ripple effect on their athlete ambassador team for myself right now, for example, we have a Republican who is a staunch climate denier in office for my district, which includes Yosemite. And so the ripple effect of Protect Our Winters is now I know how to get involved politically. And you know what? It comes down to politics. It totally does. We need to change policy on a massive level to change climate change. And so get your hands dirty, go to ProtectOurWinters.org. There's a roadmap of how you can get involved, how you can volunteer, how you can use your voice, how you can get more people involved. That organization is a very, well studied now in how to do it in an appropriate way.
Michelle Parker: And they're talking to climate scientists, they're teaching us how to use our voice in a way that will have that ripple effect that will create a positive change. So I would say that's a great place to start. And then get involved with local organizations that are in your community. POW has a ton of chapters all over the country and all over the world now, which is really, really cool. But ultimately I think it's about using your voice and standing up for what you believe in, which is intimidating. And for me, I've gotten a lot of hate for it. And a lot of people have called me a hypocrite and all that kind of stuff, but you have to have a thick skin and, and know that what you're doing is for the betterment of humans, and for our planet.
Michelle Parker: And I think that there is no stronger thing to stand up for than that. Without our world, without the climate being stable, we'll have nothing. We won't have an economy. We won't have our sports that we love. We won't have all of that stuff. And we're all fighting for clean air and drinking water at the end of the day for every citizen on this planet. And that is something that should be a right to everyone.
Shelby Stanger: You're a really big role model. Any advice on getting started or breaking into the industry that for some people is still a little intimidating?
Michelle Parker: Yeah, totally. I think one of the unique things about my profession is that there's no roadmap of how you get from A to B. You kind of create that path on your own. And every athlete that I talk to has a different story about how they became a professional athlete. And that's really interesting. So there's not a formula. It's not like you do X, Y, and Z, and you get this. You kind of have to forge your own way, which is a part of this job that I really love. The world is my oyster. I can literally be a producer one day. I can be a photographer the next day I can be a writer. I can go down the mental health path. I can do whatever I want to do, which is cool.
Michelle Parker: So I think thinking of a creative way of how you approach these sports, if you want to get into it is a really cool way to go about it. There's a bunch of professional athletes now that just have a strong message or a strong brand within themselves that, our jobs too, have gotten so convoluted with what we do. I don't just go ski now. I do a lot of stuff. I host events. I am a producer-
Shelby Stanger: You do podcasts.
Michelle Parker: I'm a photographer. Yeah. You create your own content? There's so much to it. So I think that if you're really passionate about it and you keep doing what you do for fun and for the love of the sport, that good things will come to you.
Shelby Stanger: Michelle's passion, not only for freeskiing, but for optimizing her performance and using her platform for good, it all makes her a role model. She never lets the film crew, the expectations of fans, or the pressure to set an example, get in the way of her drive. She does it for a pure love of the sport. Michelle, thank you so much for coming on the show. I really loved talking to you. If you want to follow Michelle's amazing adventures. You can follow her on Instagram at my MyshellParker. That's M-Y-S-H-E-L-L-P-A-R-K-E-R. And head on over to Redbull.com to watch Michelle's series Originate, which I highly recommend.
Shelby Stanger: And of course go to ProtectOurWinters.org to join the fight against climate change with Michelle. Wild Ideas Worth Living is part of the REI Podcast Network. It's hosted and created by me, Shelby Stanger, written and edited by Annie Fassler and produced by Chelsea Davis. Our executive producers are Paolo Mottola and Joe Crosby, and our presenting sponsor this season is Ford. As always, we appreciate when you subscribe to the show, when you rate and review it wherever you listen, I read every single review and they mean a ton to me. Remember some of the best adventures often happen when you follow your wildest ideas.