Markus Eder

Skier

There are versatile skiers, and then there’s Markus Eder. The 27-year-old from South Tyrol, Italy, can seemingly master any realm of skiing he enters. As a park skier, Markus won Nine Knights in 2010, the SFR Freestyle Tour in 2011 and competed in the first Olympic ski slopestyle competition in Sochi, in 2014, placing 15th in qualifications. On the big-mountain competition scene, Markus took second place at the 2011 Red Bull Linecatcher, won the World Heli Challenge in 2012 and a Freeride World Tour (FWT) stop in 2013 and helped his team win the Swatch Skier’s Cup in 2011, 2013 and 2015. Most recently, he took second overall in the 2018 FWT. In the ski film world, Markus starred in five Matchstick Productions (MSP) films from 2014-2018, proving his prowess in powder and pillows and on steep Alaskan spine lines. And most recently, after attempting a first ski descent of the most difficult mountain in the Caucuses with fellow skiers Sam Anthamatten and Leo Slemett in the late spring of 2017, Markus has earned the distinction of full-blown ski mountaineer.

Markus has been called the embodiment of the video game skier—seeing and skiing the mountain the way you wish you could. At the Swatch Skier’s Cup in Chile in 2011, Markus used the wall of a steep couloir like a halfpipe, launching a rodeo 7 and landing back in the couloir. Following that contest, Markus experienced Alaska heli-skiing for the first time while filming with MSP. Two of his trip mates suffered season-ending injuries, leaving Markus with two private helicopters, guides and a film crew all to himself. He produced a break-out segment and was nominated for two marquee film awards. Since then, he’s starred in four more MSP films, including the 2017 flick, Drop Everything (which won Best Film at the International Freeski Film Festival), in which he throws stylish, corked-out 360s, double cork 1080s and caps off a technical pillow line with a high-speed flatspin. He pulled from experience in slopestyle contests to place second on the 2018 Freeride World Tour, while progressing his mountaineering skills on the side.

Markus grew up skiing at Klausberg, a small resort in South Tyrol, near the border of Austria and Italy. Born in Brunico, the trilingual skier now lives 20 minutes away in Ahrntal, a storybook area of rolling green hills, apple orchards and medieval castles, all set against the backdrop of the Zillertal Alps. He quit ski racing in favor of skiing the park; he became the lone skier in a group of jump-loving snowboarders. His dad, a passionate skier, spends summers raising cattle from a hut in a high mountain valley. His mother, like most locals in the area, is an avid uphill skier. Last winter, she ascended and then skied close to 30 3,000-meter peaks.