Andy Hunter has just finished his third cup of coffee. Stuffing his mug into his pack, he yawns deeply and stretches with one fist reaching for the sky. Then, like falling out of bed, he launches off a small cliff, lands it soundly, makes one adjustment to avoid an enormous stump and vanishes into the trees like a French Roast-fueled rocket. Impressive? Sure.

But, to badly misquote another, if no one was there to see it, did it ever really happen?

Unlike the world of football and basketball where teenagers have agents and highlight reels to plead their cases, the professional skier’s resume usually starts out with his mouth. Folks call it “spraying”. And most speak of sprayers with great disdain. But the truth is, word of (one’s) mouth is what jumpstarts careers. In another language it’s called marketing; the most effective part of the sale.

Between Alta and Snowbird, Little Cottonwood Canyon has produced a stable full of great skiers. Jeff Evans, Gordy Peifer, and a guy remembered as “Johnny Utah”, are just a few of the local rippers who’ve gained some notoriety. But for every guy who makes it in the industry, there are five others standing in the wings, five others who remain in obscurity. And in a sport largely dominated by alpine skiers and snowboarders, telemarkers like Andy, are all but an afterthought. Andy knows this. But Andy just skis.

“Andy could probably get plenty of sponsorship,” says Dustin Robertson, a Snowbird veteran and fellow telemarker. “He’s one of the very best in the canyon, and definitely the most fluid of all of them. Really clean. Really smooth.”

Despite his ability, Andy isn’t jetted to the far corners of the world, being photographed with swanky duds and prominent ski logos. Instead he works as the head of maintenance at The Inn at Snowbird, where he’s been for three years. “Of course, I’d like to get paid to ski. But my problem is I don’t promote myself enough. I just keep doing my thing. And unfortunately you can’t. You gotta spray.”

When one of Andy’s few sponsors, Alf Wear along with Boeri and Adjustagrill, dragged him to an outdoor retail show, Andy was a complete failure. “I was supposed to go up to these people in these booths and just start mouthing off.” Andy says. “I felt like such a jerk. I was literally expected to stand around and tell stories about how rad I am. The whole thing was stupid.” So like a poet who creates and image by “showing”rather than “telling”, Andy figured he’d rather show what he was made of. He decided to try his hand at competition.

In 1998, he entered his first telemark free skiing competition, held at Brighton Ski Resort in Big Cottonwood Canyon. He was a little nervous, not at all sure what to expect. But he won the comp with little or no trouble at all. “There were a lot of good skiers there,” says Andy. “But a lot of them were trying to get tricky, trying to traverse back and forth so they could catch big air.”

Andy chose the very same line for his next run and produced similar results. His only serious competition, however, wrecked badly on his final run. And Andy walked away the victor.

As encouraging as causing a buzz in competitions, is finding oneself on the silver screen. Andy did just that when Warren Miller’s crew came to town in 1997. they were snooping around the lodge, trying to get an idea of which free-heeler currently ruled the roost. And not surprisingly, Andy’s name came up.

Andy and a few other rippers dragged the crew around Snowbird like contracted guides. They ripped every out-of-the-way chute and glad they could think of for ten days straight. And in the end, Andy received about three minutes of footage. “It was a lot more laid back than I thought it would be. I thought everyone would be all stuffy. But these were people I’d ski with anytime. Even the cameraman, Bill Heath. They were all cool.”

A year later, they once again called on Andy’s services. But he turned them down cold. “I went touring on Rogers Pass in British Columbia instead. We were planning on it and I couldn’t let my friends down. They were counting on my share of the cash,” he laughs.

“Besides, it was snowing like Hell up there. Canada was having a good year and we weren’t. I had to go. I couldn’t pass it up.” And such is the way of Andy Hunter. Competitions are fun. ski movies are a blast. But he’s all about the skiing.

“I think what makes Andy so good is that he’s always up there, no matter what the conditions” says Robertson. “I’ll see him up there on the worst possible day of the season and he’s like, “hey, I could either be sitting on my couch or sitting on a chairlift.””

If you want to see Andy in action, you can find him at upcoming competitions in Kirkwood, CA, Crested Butte and Arapaho Basin. And if in the next couple of years you happen to see him in the pages of a big time ski mag, you’ll know he got there by letting his actions speak for him. After all, Andy’s lips are sealed.