What Olympic Skier Alex Hall Can’t Live Without

These are crucial. Ski boots look waterproof, but they’re not. So much water seeps in through the cracks, and my feet usually get pretty wet, especially after a long day of skiing. I try to use the same boots all year long. For your equipment to last, you have to dry it out really well. I religiously throw my boot dryers in my boots every night to dry them. I probably haven’t done a ski trip without boot dryers in ten years. If you don’t dry them, the fabric liner of your boots tends to start ripping. It’s crucial for keeping your equipment intact. I always, always bring these.

These are funny. It’s just as simple as, my mom bought them once when I was 16 and I liked them and I’ve never used anything since. I started buying new ones myself every couple of years. They’re so durable. I’ll use the same couple pairs of socks throughout the whole season. I get a lot of days out of them. I’ll travel with seven pairs and then I rotate through one a day for a week, and then I’ll wash them all. Most people actually like skiing in thin socks because of the way the ski boots fit, but I like using ski boots that are a little big so they’re a little more comfortable. These socks are thicker and fill up the volume in my boot, which makes them super-comfy. I like to try and get as many different colors as I can so I know which ones I’m going through. It’s funny, even with them all being the same, I still have my favorite ones, like certain colors or something.

It’s a very specific thing. I do a lot of film-related trips where we’re shooting video for sponsors and trying to get action-based footage. We do a thing we call street skiing, where you ski in cities and slide down handrails, kind of like skateboarding but on skis. The thing with skiing is you need a hill. If you’re sliding down a handrail there can be a hill nearby to get speed for it, but a lot of times, the in-run is a flat parking lot or something so there’s no way to actually get speed to get onto the rail or go off the jump or whatever it might be that you’re trying to do. The winch, which is about as big as a backpack and has a remote that someone else is running, pulls you in along the flat ground and slowly accelerates. You can get up to like 40 miles an hour or something. You hold onto the winch as your friend tows you in and then you get the speed to jump onto a rail.

I love slides. I kind of hate shoes for some reason. I think my feet get too hot or something. Being tall I have pretty bad circulation in my feet, so they’re either way too cold or way too hot. They’re never the right temperature. I almost never use shoes, honestly, so I’m either in my slides or my ski boots. I travel in them. I very rarely bring normal shoes. I’ll bring one pair of workout shoes, so I can go to the gym, but that’s about it. When you’re in ski boots all day they’re like a foot clamp, so it’s nice when I take my boots off to have nothing on my feet. At the Olympics, you get a bunch of shoes and gear when you get there, so all I had was a hoodie and sweats, and the only footwear I brought was slides. I didn’t even bring any normal shoes. I’ll use the same pair for a couple years. I’m long overdue for some new ones because the tread on the bottom is completely worn out. When I walk into a gas station and it’s wet outside, I’ll almost eat shit every time because they’re so slick. They get really comfortable the more you use them.

One of my good friends,Kysen Hall, started his own brand, which is super-cool. We used to compete against each other and ski together a lot. I like supporting my friend and showing off his brand when I’m skiing or traveling or doing whatever. I’m usually too lazy to really take care of my hair or do anything in the morning, so I’ll just throw on this beanie. I actually get a ton of compliments on this beanie. People always love it.

I bring this, too, when I go on filming trips. A lot of snow shovels are made up of a wood handle that’s attached to a metal frame, and whenever shovels are built out of two pieces, they tend to break really easily at the hinging point. But this shovel is indestructible, since it’s made out of a solid piece of polyurethane. I’ve literally never, ever broken one before. It’s a great tool. If I’m shoveling in a city to try and build a jump to slide down a rail, or if I’m in the back country and building a jump off a cliff to land in the powder, I always bring the shovel with me. It’s a very nice size. It’s not too big and fits in my ski bag with my skis. I bring it pretty much anywhere I go. And they last forever.

I bought it in Europe and it’s lasted me eight years. It has all the different plugs for anywhere you could possibly go in the world. It never leaves my backpack even if I’m traveling in the U.S., because sometimes I’ll go on a trip somewhere at the last second. I’m always on the road. I live in Salt Lake but last ski season, which for us is usually from September until May, I was home for four days.

I always wanna stay as hydrated as I can. I hate buying water bottles and plastic bottles, so I always travel with this one. One thing I do that’s pretty funny is I wrap duct tape or gorilla tape around the bottom because you never know when you’re gonna need tape, so I always have a little roll of tape on my water bottle. I actually learned that from my dad. It’s useful for if I have to fix a rip in my pants. Or when we compete we’re usually in a starting bib, and sometimes the shoulder is super-uncomfortable, so I’ll tape the shoulder down so it doesn’t pop up in my face.

I’m half-Italian — my mom is Italian — so a partner that spoke to my roots and my heritage was always something that I was really looking for, and it was super-cool to get to partner with Rao’s. I really align with the brand’s values and identity and the way it showcases itself. Rao’s is all about the simple is the best, and that’s how my mom cooked and the cooking that I grew up with but also how I operate in life. I’ve always been a simple guy, never tried to do too much, just enjoying the things that I’m doing currently and the things I’m working on. And I’ve always eaten their sauce, even before the partnership, so that was pretty sweet. My favorite is the simple marinara sauce. I’m big into throwing that on top of pasta, and then I always gotta find some good Parmesan cheese, which in my opinion is a little hard to come by in the U.S. That’s a simple go-to meal that I run with.