Markus Eder Beyond Game Mode

Markus Eder knew there was ice in the landing, but he dropped in without hesitation. Lining up the edge of the nearly 80-foot cheese wedge-shaped serac, he set a left 360, opening his arms to slow the rotation as he came around. The impact was enormous and Eder backslapped hard before violently tomahawking. Then he stood up, dusted himself off and skied away. It was the middle of June in the high peaks around Zermatt, Switzerland, and Eder was putting the final touches on a nearly two-year-long project: his magnum opus, the 2021 Emmy-winning Legs of Steel/Red Bull short The Ultimate Run.

It had been the best two seasons of his life. The Covid-19 pandemic had forced most Europeans into some of the strictest lockdowns on the planet, meaning no travel and no resort skiing for much of the general public. Eder and his crew had finagled legal work permits that allowed them to begin shooting close to home, focusing on filming the urban and valley segments of the film near his home resort of Klausberg, located deep in Italy’s sleepy Ahrntal, a stone’s throw from the Austrian border. Despite the travel restrictions, it had turned into a once-in-a-lifetime winter, with heavy and stable snowfall all the way to the valley floor and no crowds—a rarity.

“I was skiing super well that year, nailing it on every spot that we went,” Eder says in his trademark German-accented English (the Ahrntal is part of German-speaking Italy). “Conditions were exceptionally good, I think it was the two best snow years Europe has seen in the 21st century.”

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