[Q&A] 17-Year-Old Hannah Epsteyn Makes NST Ski History

Featured Image: Leslie Hittmeier | Skier: Hannah Epsteyn

At just 17 years old, Hannah Epsteyn made NST Ski history this year by being the youngest competitor, male or female, to ever land a coveted spot in the Alaska-based finals. Last year, she captured the industry's attention when she landed a massive double backflip in the Silver Belt freeride competition held at Sugar Bowl Resort. Her run earned her the top spot in the skier-judged comp, as well as an invite to the NST Ski Super Sessions event this year.

Held at her home resort, Epsteyn was set up for success at the NST qualifying event at Palisades Tahoe and impressed the judges with her composure and style in the less-than-fresh conditions. Her backflips and 360s earned her a ticket to the NST Ski finals in Alaska and a spot in the history books forever. The girl hasn't even graduated high school yet and she's already made a name for herself in the world of freeride skiing, so we caught up with the Reno-born freerider to get to know her more, how she came up in skiing and where she plans on taking her career after she grabs her diploma. Keep reading for the full Q&A below.

You just turned 18 and you’ve already made it onto one of the biggest stages in skiing—what has your journey looked like up until this point? When did you first learn how to ski?

I first started skiing when I was 18 months old. My dad grew up skiing with his dad, and he found it very important that my sister and I skied. I competed for the first time at Homewood when I was 11, and that is when I realized I had a passion for it. I ended up winning this U12 TGFS regional event, then switched to the Palisades team—I started out skiing at Mt. Rose. From there, I think it was COVID that bumped me up to the 12-14 age bracket, and ever since then, I’ve been competing. I was doing really well in comps, starting to make a name for myself, and sponsors were reaching out. I’ve been on Smith, Helly Hansen and Nordica for five years.

It seems like your dad is your biggest fan. Can you tell me more about your relationship with him and your collective relationship to skiing?

My dad has always been my biggest hype man. He’s always so proud of me, and he’s really inspired me to get to the level that I’m at today. He and my mom, my whole family, do so much to ensure that I make it to all of the competitions and have everything that I need. They’re at almost all of my competitions, sitting in the corral all day watching. I really appreciate all of the support that I get from them. I’m really lucky.

Speaking of support, I’m sure you miss a lot of school days during ski season. Is your school supportive of that? How do you manage your studies with skiing?

Oh my gosh, well, this year was actually a lot for me. I did more traveling than I ever have before, so my school stuff has been really interesting. I did online school because my ski career started right after COVID, so it was actually really good timing where I could be online and just train and compete without worrying about not actually being in person.

My junior year, I moved to Truckee High because I am from Reno, Nevada, and they don’t offer any ski programs or anything, but Truckee High does, and that’s closer to the mountains I ski at, so that was pretty perfect to spend my junior and senior years there. This year, they introduced the Special Interest Contract and it’s a program where your teachers sign off on you missing school and the school counts it as an excused absence. It’s a lot of communication with my teachers about when I’ll be gone. I have really great teachers who know what I’m doing and support me. I’m really good about communicating with them about when I’ll be gone, what I need when I’m going to be gone, and all of that.

Photos: Leslie Hittmeier (L) Chad Chomlack (R) | Skier: Hannah Epsteyn

You clearly thrive in a competitive environment. What is it about ski competitions that fires you up?

It’s taken me a minute to get to this point, but I’ve learned so much through my years of competing about what kind of run I’ll be happy with, what run will score me high. I’ve done all the research on judging techniques, different judging techniques in different areas. The thing that calms my nerves the most is skiing a line that I’m the most stoked on, regardless of how high it’ll score. If I have a cool trick I want to do, If it’s my kind of skiing and my kind of style, I’m happy with it. I’ve always struggled with nerves. I get pretty nervous before my competitions—especially at the beginning of the season when I’m not super used to the constant competing—but I have a super amazing coach who has been my coach the past five or six years. He knows me, he knows my habits at the top of the venue and definitely calms a lot of my nerves. And all my friends, whom I’ve been competing with, having them at the top makes it a lot easier.

Do you have a pre-comp ritual?

I always ski with music. Usually, my process once I get to the top [of the venue] is that I hang out with my friends for a second, then have a quiet moment where I just listen to music and go through my run in my head. Then I talk to my coach, he reminds me of everything I need to be careful about and beta from other athletes about the features I’m hitting. After that, I go back into hype mode, sit at the top of the gate, do this punching thing with my coach, get super hyped, and drop in.

When did you get the call about NST Super Sessions? What was going through your head when you got the invite?

I got the call in December. I watched the NST event last year and thought it was super cool, but I didn’t know anything about Super Sessions for qualifying, so I was SUPER fired up when I got that call. I didn’t know a lot about it, like who the other athletes were, but my best friend, Indy, also got the call, and she called me right after, so I was really stoked to be doing it with her. And once I learned more about the competition, I got a lot more fired up. Finding out who the other athletes were was really cool.

Who was on the other end of that call?

Michelle [Parker] texted me and then Mike Douglas called me. Pretty cool to get a call from Mike Douglas.

Super Sessions obviously went well for you. How much time did you have between the qualifier and the NST main event in Alaska?

Oh, let me check my calendar real quick [laughs]. My competition season has been so go, go, go that it’s all a blur at this point. I had two or three weeks but it’s actually really funny. I knew I was getting the call that week—I went to Super Sessions, then to Alaska for a junior national comp, and on the boys’ qualifier day, I missed a call from Mike. I was super nervous, but then he delivered the news, and I was super fired up because I was already in Alaska. I went home for about a week in between and then I was back up in Alaska for NST.

What did the days leading up to finals look like? How many days were you actually there before finals day?

I was in Alaska for a little over a week before finals day because it fell on the last day of the weather window. With the venue pivot and everything, it was kind of intense, but it was really fun. I got to hang out with Astrid, Manon and Ellie, and all the guys there were also super cool. I learned so much about visual inspection and bigger terrain because up until Sunday night [of the comp week] I was set on skiing Spine Cell, which is unlike anything I’ve ever skied before. I had a lot of conversations with Michelle and Sage [Cattabriga-Alosa] about sluff management, the holes, a lot of safety stuff I had to be aware of. But then we had some chill days, I got to bedazzle my goggles with Michelle after they canceled the first comp. On Monday we went to this sweet Nordic Spa and they had saunas and hot tubs and cold plunges, that was an awesome place.

It looks like Michelle Parker really took you under her wing. What did you learn from her that week?

She’s one of my biggest inspirations. I learned a lot about the ski industry and bigger comps like this because it is all very new to me and outside my element. She introduced me to everyone because she’s been skiing with most of the NST athletes for quite a while now and she was here last year so she gave me a rundown of what to expect.

The original finals venue looked absolutely insane—were you intimidated to get on that face? Excited?

I had a lot of different feelings on it. This was super big terrain that I’m not very accustomed to. I think I prepared myself really well, but I definitely had concerns about the slides and the holes. I was pretty nervous the morning of the competition, and I was dropping first for the women, which was also super nerve-wracking. I remember being on the face of the warmup lap and thinking, “okay, I’ll get the warmup lap done, I’ll see how I feel, if I need to adjust my lines.” It was super scary once we figured out our warm-up face slid, and then I was thinking, “I really hope that they pivot from this," because it’s super new to me, and safety was one of my biggest concerns.

Once we got back, I was bummed because I was really excited to ski a face that big, and I really liked the lines that I picked out. It was a mixture of relief and a little disappointment but they definitely made the right call. Once we got to see the new venue, I was stoked on that because I don’t have a freestyle background, but I definitely do have a bag of tricks. I was excited that the new face would fit my skiing abilities.

What was the vibe like at the finish corral?

The vibes were high! The crew out there was so amazing and it was really cool how isolated it was, there was nobody else there just the media team, skiers and guides. Michelle was down there with the mic, Addy [Rafford] was down there doing all the social media stuff. The first heat of boys were all down there, the vibes were great. Everyone was stoked.

Would you compete in NST again, given the opportunity?

100 percent! It’s crazy that I was able to do that when I was 17 and I’d be really stoked to get another opportunity at redemption. It was such a cool experience.

It’s crazy to think that you are still in high school! What’s next for you?

I’ll be going to the University of Utah next year, which I’m really excited about. They have an awesome freeride community and I do plan to pursue my skiing career. I’m new to adult comps and how it all works. I think my plan right now is to just try to make it to the Freeride World Tour challengers through the adult comps. If I could make it on the tour for the following year, that would be so awesome.

I love competition but I’m also super interested in filming. I haven’t had a ton of opportunities for film skiing but if something came up, I would totally be stoked to do that. I grew up watching ski movies and it’s one of my dreams. Aside from competition and the freeride world tour, one of my long-term goals is to film with the big production companies. I’m just ready for whatever comes next. I’m super grateful for all of the opportunities I had this year and I was really grateful to be a part of NST, I’m stoked to see what comes next.