Nikolai Schirmer was living his dream. The only problem: it was hard to sleep through all the coughing. In 2016, 25-year-old Niko was living in the Chamonix Sud apartments—basement-level affordable housing affectionately dubbed “the Scandinavian ghetto.” The 100-year-old crumbling buildings were known for collecting and holding air pollution. Some minor version of the black lung was largely deemed by its residents as an acceptable tradeoff for cheap living with quick access to the Aiguille Du Midi and the greater Chamonix Valley.

The two-time European Skier of the Year, now a theater-packing director and the face of Norwegian freeskiing, didn’t always want to go pro. Despite his law degree and his deep intellectual curiosity, the ski bum life was his pinnacle ambition. A stoic at heart, even then, he was confident and equanimous about uncertainty. He had everything he needed: a cheap apartment, a party scene, his childhood hero Jacob Wester down the hall and, most importantly, big mountains out the door. He didn’t know where it would lead.

“My goal through high school was just to be a ski bum,” he said. “I wanted to surf around the world and ski with no ambition. I just wanted that experience. A lot of people put emphasis on having a goal and working toward that, but to me, it’s been more like pulling at the strings that appear, and when you get to a fork in the road, even if you don’t know what’s at either end, just following whatever feels like more fun.”

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