It’s the 28th of January 2024, and pipe-skiing wunderkind Alex Ferreira stands ebullient atop the podium of the Aspen X Games SuperPipe, vibrating with the energy beamed his way by a raucous hometown crowd. Having slung two golds, two silvers, and two bronzes around his neck at previous X Games, it should be familiar territory. And yet, somehow, it all feels brand new.

Were you a judge this night, Ferreira’s winning run would be more than impressive (stay with me here non-judges): switch left double cork 1080 Japan, switch ouble cork 1620 safety, left cork 1080 tail, switch right double cork 1080 Japan, and left-side double cork 1620, collectively executed with enough precision and panache for a score of 95.33. But if you were family, friend, or a student of progressive freestyle with knowledge of his career arc and work ethic, you know how much more impressive Ferreira’s win is than what’s on paper, and how his signature pole twirl after the final landing is as much personal cri de coeur as salute to the crowd.

Alex Ferreira was back. After successive X Games gold in 2019 and 2020, the intervening years had borne, more than anything, disappointment and uncertainty for the superstar skier. Despite adding an Olympic bronze at Beijing in 2022 to the silver he’d pocketed at the 2018 Games in Pyeongchang, it had otherwise been an injury-plagued roller-coaster, with some in his circle, legitimately worried over his well-being, advising him to retire from pro skiing. Instead, he’d doubled down, dining out on the compounded adversity with a health regimen and routine of physical and psychological training that could challenge the mental fortitude of a Buddhist monk. And now it was paying off.

Indeed, it was already the best start to a season possible: two World Cup victories followed by an X Games win on home turf. “It’s the most beautiful feeling I think I’ve ever felt, the sweetest redemption I’ve ever tasted,” he said that night. “I’m fired up more than ever.”

Fired up, and more. What seemed a simple expression of joy in the moment proved understatement supreme: Ferreira ultimately went five-for-five in the 2023-24 World Cup, taking the coveted Crystal Globe as overall winner and adding a Dew Tour crown at Copper Mountain to his X Games win for a total of seven straight victories — the most dominant season in the history of men’s halfpipe.

Should anyone be surprised? After all, Ferreira’s titanic capacity for self-deliverance was honed early as a self-professed “worst in my ski club,” a kid who had to “work twice as hard to be half as good.” If anything, the 2023-24 season rubber-stamped an already widely held contention: Alex Ferreira was the most driven skier in freestyle.

Growing up in Aspen, the annual Winter X Games extravaganza was literally in Ferreira’s backyard. On one transformative afternoon, age 10, Ferreira and friends took a bus to watch the X Games men’s ski halfpipe practice. “We loved the way they skied, the way they dressed, even the way they talked,” he recalls. “And we wanted in on it.”

Though still rat-packing the park and every other part of Aspen’s mountains, from that moment the group became laser-focused on pipe. Naturally, the kid who’d eventually become a hometown hero had his own inspirations in those days — perennial pipe stars Simon Dumont, Tanner Hall, Candide Thovex, and Tucker Perkins among them.

Here, given the cinematic nature of Ferreira’s life, you can insert a time-lapse of long years of dedication and hard work. Harder, perhaps, for Ferreira, but no less fulfilling; he loved it and was all in. Along the way, when the universe posed its inevitable Should I stay or should I go? quandaries, Ferreira’s answer was always unshakably the former. Eventually, as with anyone who breaks through as a pro, there came an inflection point — the moment the slow burn of desire and training became a hot flame of achievement. 

“I was in Whistler for The North Face Park and Pipe Open Series [in 2013],” he recalls. “The start list had both heavy hitters and young guns who really wanted it. I scored over 90 on my first run and no one beat it. Then no one in the second run did either — including myself. So I got invited to X Games. It was a huge boost to my confidence and I really felt I was taking off.”

Of myriad podiums to follow, Ferreira holds three in clear thrall. Number one is the first time he won a platinum-level event — the World Cup finals in Tignes in 2017. “I was finally able to tell myself You’re no longer competing against the best in the world, you are one of the best — and anything can happen,” he tells me. Second is his Olympic silver in 2018. A friend had introduced him to the credo ‘Victory Lies in Preparation,’ inspiring him to hit the gym religiously, visualize runs in the sauna, and develop a winner’s mindset. “I was a pro athlete who wanted to take himself seriously, and it paid off,” he summarizes. Third is 2024’s X Games gold, and the long path back it required. After his 2020 X Games win, competition life had been up and down with injury; he’d done poorly at the 2021 event and skipped 2022 entirely as he fought to regain form for the Beijing Olympics. Returning to X Games in 2023 with a new routine, he was skiing well when he suffered two wince-worthy crashes in a less-than-perfect pipe. “I just wanted it too badly and had to learn from that,” he says of the crossroads where others urged him to walk away from the physical punishment before it was too late. “It was tough to deal with, but instead of quitting I thought, No, you are not gonna end on that note,” he tells me. “That’s why it was so huge for me to come back in 2024.”

Not just to win X Games, but to ascend the global SuperPipe throne. Though justifiably proud, the achievement is related with zero hint of boastfulness, naught but gratitude in the telling. Such humility isn’t new. Despite a hyper-competitive nature cultivated to reach this acme, Ferreira’s words consistently betray a far deeper interest in outdoing himself than others. Every competition, every run, is about Alex besting Alex, a psychological position that allows him to remain polite, deferential, and conscientious at all times, never failing to praise a venue, event organizers, fellow athletes, spectators, coaches, and the larger team around him, acknowledging the support of family, friends, and partners in any enterprise he undertakes. Hell, he even thanked me for posing thoughtful questions.

And while Ferreira fans are treated to his forward-facing magnanimity in public appearances and media soundbites, they’re also apprised of behind-the-scenes struggles to maintain positivity in the face of fame, injury and the constant need to innovate through slick short films like Stay Up, about getting back on the horse after the X Games crashes and how he loves skiing too much to give up now. 

Stay Up is no outlier testimonial. Film crews — whether outsiders or local production company Vital Films — shadow the skier’s every move, documenting the Ferreira story as it unfolds. And though Tanner Hall’s Like a Lion established a tradition of self-directed video externalization in the progressive freestyle milieu, Ferreira’s efforts are less self-promotion than a way to keep himself honest and fully engaged in his own inner mission, a headspace reflected in the voiceover for I Am, where, over a frantic montage, Ferreira discusses his compressed road to the February 2022 Olympic Games after an early January crash damaged both a knee and ankle: Wake up, 7:30 sharp. Morning meditation. PT exercises. Eat breakfast—oatmeal, blueberries. Physical therapy; an hour. Hyperbaric chamber; an hour. NovoTHOR bed; 30 minutes. Drive to the gym; stretch 20 minutes. Bike; 20 minutes. Workout; 45 minutes. Hot tub; 20 minutes. Drive home; sauna with visualization, every run, over and over again. Heat. Ice. Heat. Ice. Heat. Ice… Go to sleep; do it all again.

Clearly, this is a vocation in which one needs all the self-supervision one can manufacture. But if Alex spends an ungodly amount of time relentlessly turning up the heat on his own pressure-cooker, he also counters it with a uniquely creative steam valve: letting it all hang out, man, in the guise of bad-boy alter-ego Hotdog Hans.

Say you were a young, wide-eyed skier hanging around the Aspen halfpipe and a shit-talking 80-something in jeans with the ski-style of a hungover cowboy pulls up, growls something to the effect of Watch this, punk, and proceeds to throw a lockdown 1620. There would be wows, disbelief and WTFs aplenty to share with friends before realizing something wasn’t quite right and trying to figure out what was really going on. Such is the innocent punking envisioned by Ferreira and friend Kyler Sciarrone when they created Hotdog Hans—Alex made up as a cantankerous, hard-done-by ski bum and former freestyle boss with an ever-evolving scofflaw backstory rife with drinking, womanizing, and plenty of police-cruiser backseats. A man compelled to say and do almost everything in the now-mostly-unacceptable old way. 

Just out to have fun, little did they know the resulting film, Hotdog Hans, would evolve into a viral YouTube series, with five numbered episodes and a pair of intermezzos involving golf and pickleball. (I won’t spoil it for readers by revealing any plotlines.)

Propelled by the perpetual human need for an irascible but good-hearted hero — and how well Ferreira pulls it off — the series is now a global hit. “Hans has more fans than [me]—what’s going on here?” says Alex in Inside the Mind of Alex Ferreira. Even in Aspen, where a novelty gag by a local should wear off fastest, more folks seem to know Hans than Alex, who thinks he has a handle on why: “Basically, when I’m Hans, I’m in the character of a celebrity that everyone loves — kids, parents, grandparents.”

He also believes Hans strikes a chord because he represents something else people are quick to buy into. Hope. “It was easier to be a ski bum back in the day, while [today] it’s tough with the way skiing has gone and the price of everything,” says Ferreira. “So I look at Hans and think, Good, that still exists, and hope it resonates with people.”

There’s also smart writing, slick production and marketing savvy at play. While Hotdog Hans is a standout example of the disguise-prank subgenre (à la Kyrie Irving’s Uncle Drew), choices made early with the character have given the franchise plenty of life. From impeccable makeup and prosthetic work by Colorado’s BaPoFX to the Morgan Freeman parody narration by voice-artist Jason Stephens; from the perfect ’70s jeans poached from producer Cael Jones’ garbage to an old Columbia jacket (Ferreira’s sponsor) scoured from the Internet; and from guest appearances by the likes of Jonny Moseley and Lance Armstrong to the gravelly New England accent inspired by Ferreira’s own grandfather. “He’s out of control and all over the place, with absolutely no filter,” he says with a clear admiration for the freedoms of age. “He’s from New Jersey, so I mixed up the accent a bit, moved it north to Boston.”

Less contrived is Hans’ skiing style — flailing arms and ragged, pistoning turns that could only be pulled off without injury by someone extremely fit. Those moves came naturally to Ferreira when they started filming. “Maybe it was from growing up with old Warren Miller movies and thinking that’s what skiing was like in the ’60s and picturing Hans in his prime,” he ponders.

The entire enterprise is highly professional, from idea sessions in the studio to filming and post-production. “My business partner [writer/director] Matt Hobbs is one-of-a-kind when it comes to packaging and marketing, and it’s an honor to create these pieces with him,” says Ferreira, who’d just returned from filming Hotdog Hans 5.

Everybody is down with Hotdog Hans. Indeed, the series took a quantum leap in conceptualization and production values with Hotdog Hans 3, on which Aspen resident Ben Silverman, an award-winning producer behind comedies like The Office and Jane the Virgin, came on board as an advisor and producer. Silverman’s son introduced him to Hotdog Hans before he’d ever met Alex, who happens to be a neighbor. “It was truly funny and inventive and my kind of angular comedy,” he says. “Having made a ton of hidden camera and character-driven comedy, you know when something works and actually makes you laugh.”

But if Hans got his attention, Alex — “a spectacular human being with unbelievable talent on and off the slopes” — floored him, and Silverman found it easy to get behind the character. “I love how dangerous and third-rail some of Hans’s language and attitude is,” he says. “So hyper-juxtaposed to Alex’s wholesome-life-at-home-with-mom-give-back-to-the-community personality.” 

Meaning, if Alex was actually anything like Hans it wouldn’t work. “And if the writing and performance wasn’t so raw and strongly comedic it wouldn’t work either,” Silverman assesses, giving due to Ferreira’s preternaturally strong acting, which is both convincing and consistent. According to Hobbs, once Alex transforms into Hans he never breaks character — he’s in there. “That’s exactly how I feel,” says Ferreira. “Once I’m in, there’s no coming out. It happens very naturally for me.”

He clearly enjoys playing Hans. Having nailed the character, does he have other acting aspirations? “Thanks for bringing this up,” he enthuses. “I speak about it with close friends and family. I’d like to get into more acting. I don’t know how I’d do because I’ve only played Hans, but it seems fun and at some point, I’d like to pursue it.”

Testament to his ability to bring it, Ferreira’s bad-boy avatar may, in fact, be too convincing. “Weirdly, that’s how many people see me now,” he chuckles. “As a ruffly old guy who messes with people. They might be talking to Alex, but they treat me like Hans.”

The conflation could be due to an undeniable synergy between the characters, who share an ethos of dusting themselves off after a beat-down to get back at it and find redemption, a wellspring of underdog motivation that bubbles to the surface at every opportunity. “A lot of people told me after last year to stop skiing, and man am I glad I didn’t listen,” Ferreira said after his 2024 X Games gold, sounding much like the post-script to Hotdog Hans 3: “No matter how far down they say you are, it’s never too far to come back.” 

Despite the complexities of his budding dual existence, Ferreira’s future plans are simple and, as usual, laser-focused: complete the Olympic trifecta by winning gold at the 2026 Winter Games in Cortina, Italy.

Spurring him on, naturally, will be a documentary covering his journey to the Games and what’s brought him to this point. “This is probably my final shot at the Olympics and I’d really like to end it by completing the medals trio with a gold,” he says. “So I’m putting all my blood, sweat and tears into the next 18 months.” 

Sounds about right, but what does Hotdog Hans have to say on the topic? Does he have any respect for Alex Ferreira yet?He’d probably still call him a scumbag,” says Ferreira. “Maybe when Alex has an Olympic gold, Hans will show some respect.”