For two decades, Brian Buerger has been helping kids get super powers. But those powers don’t come from some special formula or a radioactive bug bite – they come from skiing.
Freeride skiing, to be exact – a discipline that Buerger describes as combining skills and techniques from mogul, freestyle and alpine racing on off-piste snow (also known as wild or unmaintained snow).
“I have a passion for the sport and for giving back,” he said. “I always called it giving kids superpowers, because when you have good technique and you’re in shape, the things you can do on skis is absolutely incredible. There’s nothing like what you get out of flying down a hill at 60 mph but in control, absolute control.”
After 20 years of coaching freeride skiing, mostly with the Durango Winter Sports Club, Buerger is stepping down as the organization’s freeride program director. He said his experience at DWSC has been one of the greatest joys of his life because he has been able to introduce so many kids to the joy of skiing and watch them grow – not just in their skiing, but as human beings.
He has been teaching people how to ski since he was 18 years old – first as a ski instructor on his home mountain in southern Indiana, then at Copper Mountain when he moved to Colorado in 1995.
In between lessons, Buerger would hone his skills on the steeps of Arapaho Basin and Copper, where freeride as its own, unique sect of skiing was coming into its own. He, along with legions of like-minded skiers, were inspired by legends in the sport like Scott Schmidt and Shane McConkey.
“After two years of doing that, I went down to Fort Lewis to go to college, and then in the summers, I would go back to ski A-Basin,” he said.
After graduating from FLC, Buerger moved to Salt Lake City, enticed by the deep powder and tantalizing terrain of Alta and Snowbird – both of which became freeride meccas. And in 2005, he realized that he wanted to give back to the sport he loved, which in turn inspired him to found a competitive youth freeride skiing program at Alta. He said that his team, along with their sister program at Snowbird, were some of the first of their kind in the country.
“Alta and Snowbird exploded almost overnight into the freeride scene,” he said. “We set a really good foundation there. The enthusiasm, the talent, the idea of freeride was a really cool thing to be a part of there, because there’s just so much talent and so many kids that were fired up about it.”
Buerger coached in Utah for six years. But he knew he wanted to return to Durango, because he sensed a similar potential there, untapped in the San Juan Mountains. So he took what he learned from starting the Alta program and started Four Corners Freeride in 2011, based at Wolf Creek Ski Area. But it was slow to catch on at first, he said.
“When I came back in 2011, most people looked at me cross-eyed when I was trying to talk about freeride and what it entailed,” he said. “They really thought that it was recklessly taking kids off a cliff, regardless of landings.”
But, Buerger said, the point of freeride skiing is learning how to navigate cliff- and mogul-strewn terrain on any variety of snow – from powder to bulletproof ice – with good technique and in control. Kids are going to huck themselves off cliffs and try to perform backflips and 360s anyway, he said, so it is important to coach them on how to do it safely.
“I think our philosophy has always been to make good decisions,” he said. “I’ve always pushed these kids to think through all of these moves. We’re showing them how to do it safely, how to think through takeoffs and landings and spotting for other people, backing each other up.”
Over the years, Buerger’s team grew as more people in the community caught on to what he was doing. Freeride’s governing entity, the International Freeskiers & Snowboarders Association, which runs the Freeride World Tour, decided to include a junior competition category that encouraged people enroll.
“It was slow at first,” he said. “I think every year we doubled our numbers. I’ve seen it go from a trickle to a full on fire hose. And the enthusiasm down here is pretty awesome from everyone, regardless if they compete or not.”
In 2019, Buerger moved Four Corners Freeride to Purgatory, incorporating it with the Purgatory Ski Team, which originally offered only alpine ski racing and mogul competitions. Now known as Durango Winter Sports Club, it offers racing, moguls, freeride and snowboarding. In 2024 alone, he said, the freeride team had 65 kids and 13 coaches, compared with the first year’s seven athletes and one coach.
Buerger said the popularity and enthusiasm of DWSC’s program is a testament to the sport. Sure, Purgatory is not as steep as a mountain like Jackson Hole, he said, but the skiers who come out of his program consistently perform well.
“At the beginning, we were seven kids and me doing something that a lot of people told us wasn’t feasible,” he said. “I think we had a very independent, definitely scrappy punk-rock spirit, if you want. Purgatory is very different. It’s a special thing because it is so different.”
In addition to teaching kids how to ski well in complex terrain, Buerger said the program encourages them to receive avalanche safety education and emphasizes how to be a good addition to the community – mostly around being friendly and selfless. Skiing, he said, is an awesome opportunity to give back.
“I think it’s really cool when an older, more accomplished kid takes out one of the younger kids for a run, giving back and being focused on fun,” he said. “We push our kids. From making the biggest air and the tightest turns, but also taking time to throw that Texan in the jeans a high-five or picking up trash in the parking lot.”
Buerger and his wife, Gloria, will move to Basalt in November, though Buerger will help the next director and the coaches through the transition. The spirit of the program he created will live on and continue to thrive, he said. And that spirit, he said, is encapsulated by the team’s motto, R.A.W.R – Radical Awesomeness When Ripping.
“I love the unifying experience, the culture we’re trying to bring to the forefront with the freeride program,” he said. “Radical Awesomeness When Ripping – that means so much in so many different ways.”
sedmondson@durangoherald.com
