Level Up: Kim Grant

by Wagner Custom / Jan 24, 2025

Ski guiding and patrolling are not exactly professions that are rife with women. But in terms of what makes Kim Grant special, that’s only one snowflake on the iceberg. 

Grant, who has been ski patroller and ski guide for 26 years and splits her time between Colorado’s San Juans and Alaska’s Chugach Range, is so energetic, she’s downright effervescent. She draws people to her with her humor, joy, humility, and generosity, and is the most requested guide at Silverton, where she’s worked since its inception.

Kim Grant skins past some penguins
Kim Grant skins as some penguins look on.

As a guide in some of the world’s rowdiest terrain, Grant knows how to settle skier jitters like no other. She’s led countless skiers into their best day ever. She has strategies for helping skiers find their inner strengths and push themselves into the steepest and deepest. 

To find out just how she manages to help so many skiers be their best selves, our inimitable podcast host Jason Blevins caught up with her in January 2024. Here’s what she had to say.

Schedule a callBlevins: Tell us how you ended up on snow?
Grant: I grew up in upstate New York and my family was passionate about skiing. Every day after school, my mom would pick me and my brother up and drop us off at the local ski hill 10 minutes down the road. She’d pack us with raw hot dogs and hamburgers and tell us to figure out how to turn the grill on and cook dinner and do our homework. Then she’d be back at 8 o’clock to pick us up. That’s just what I thought everybody did.

Blevins: How’d you end up in Colorado? 
Grant: I was a teenager and rebellious, so I went to college in the Southeast at the University of Georgia, and realized I didn’t like it much. So I took winters off and skied in Colorado. I settled in Aspen to work and pay off debt, and I eventually transitioned my way to the San Juans. 

Kim and her goddaughter at Points North Heli Adventures
Kim and her goddaughter at Points North Heli Adventures. Photo: Mountain Woman Magazine

Blevins: Silverton has a notoriously fickle snowpack, and you’ve been there since the very beginning. How did trying to open up the mountain go?
Grant: As an old mentor would say, facets live here in the San Juans, and they just visit everywhere else. It’s the most notoriously dangerous snowpack anywhere in the world. It wasn’t easy to get this place started for sure. We paved the way to pioneering a new type of ski area that’s not like anything else. 

Blevins: When you’ve got folks who are jittery, which is a common feeling at Silverton, how do you work with them? How do you help them settle down? Silverton’s a stout spot.
Grant: For the most part I try to get people to breathe. I tell them to slow down and take breaths. Right out of the gate, I build a rapport of trust with them. I tell them they’re here to have fun but also challenge themselves. I’m not going to make anyone do something they can’t do, but I’m going to show them they can do more than they thought they could. Sometimes I tell them that the hiking is the hardest part.

Kim Grant just keeps smiling.
Kim just keeps smiling. Photo: Points North Heli Adventures

When we drop in, the biggest thing for everybody is that there’s so much going on, they’re wasting so much energy because they’re out of their element. They don’t have to start shredding runs right out of the gate, all they have to do is make a turn, then stop. Then make another turn, and stop. Until they’ve got their rhythm.

Breath is such a crucial element to have in the mountains. It contributes significantly to our performance, well-being, it brings us to a comfortable place. If you can breathe, you can relax. And if you can relax, you can start to have fun and you can do what you know you’re capable of doing.

Kim Grant guiding.
Kim and her clients. Photo: Mountain Woman Magazine

Blevins: You own a yoga studio. So tell me about how your yoga practice permeates into your guiding and skiing. 
Grant: I’m not a crazy yogi or anything. Part of the reason I started the yoga studio (MOVE) is because I know how badly I needed to stretch. Skiing is a sport that does not lend to increasing the flexibility of your muscles; it does the opposite. 

Breathing is a great way to bring oxygen to all of our muscles and get all the energy into our bodies. Having flexibility is important. I’m a tight tense person. It centers you and makes you focused and brings you to the present moment. That enhances your situational awareness and enhances your decision-making process because you’ve just slowed way down. If you’re not breathing, your sympathetic nervous system is freaking out and fear can take over. But if you stop and breathe, that activates your parasympathetic nervous system. Your brain says, I have this confidence and I can do what I set out to do. It promotes mental clarity and decision making. You can’t get scared if you’re breathing in a slow, deep way. 

Kim Grant's yoga studio in Silverton, Colorado
Kim Grant's yoga studio (MOVE) in Silverton, Colorado. Photo: MOVE

Blevins: How about stretches? Hamstrings seem to be the bane of skiers. 
Grant: I like to do a really slow forward fold and release out of it and come back out of it to halfway up. Every time I go to do a forward fold, I have to start with my knees totally bent. It helps relax your back and neck and gets your mind into breathing. I relate to people being afraid and stressed out in the mountains, but when I’m in the mountains, fear is not something that comes to me. But the place I do experience fear is on the river, whitewater kayaking. I’ve started introducing this breathing technique into my paddling. I cannot stress enough how amazing it is to actually breathe when you’re paddling through a rapid.

Blevins: One thing we ask everyone, is there a piece of advice that still informs your skiing or something that keeps you centered?
Grant: Look where you want to go. And don’t forget to breathe.

Blevins: I had a feeling you were going to come back to breath. 

Click here to listen to the full podcast.

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Intro by Kim Beekman, original interview by Jason Blevins for 'Next Level Skiing' poscast.

Kimberly Beekman is the former editor-in-chief of the late, great Skiing Magazine (RIP), and a longtime editor of SKI Magazine before that. She currently uses the title of “freelancer” as a beard to ski powder all over the world. She lives in Steamboat, Colorado, with her wonderful daughter and terrible cat. 

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