Lara Hamilton is carving an unconventional path across sound and sport. An Australian-born artist now based in Colorado, she splits her time between producing electronic music and training for ski mountaineering’s Olympic debut at Milano Cortina 2026.
Photo credit: Lara Hamilton – Official
With a master’s degree in opera and a deep love for trail running, her creative identity is shaped by alpine peaks and performance stages alike.
Drawing inspiration from both her mountainous environment and her competitive mindset, Hamilton is developing a sonic language driven by movement. Whether spinning sets at après-ski events or composing melodies mid-run, her approach fuses athletic discipline with emotional storytelling.
In this conversation, Lara Hamilton opens up about her journey into skimo, the parallels between stage and sport, and how she’s shaping her musical output through mountains, moments, and motion.
EG: Skimo is still quite new to many people. If you had to describe the sport musically, what would it sound like?
Lara Hamilton: A sprint skimo race would begin with a slow, pulsing heart-rate rhythm. You’re on the start line, preparing to redline, before reaching the top of the course and sending it down the hill through to the finish. The gun goes off, the rhythm is driving, the tempo is high, and the tonality is uplifting and somewhat inspiring. The skimo sprint race can be broken into a few sections, but each section is a part of the whole – like how music has verses, chorus repeats, bridges, and all of that.
At the first “transition,” as we call it in skimo, we take the skis off as quickly as possible and secure them to our pack for the bootpack section. In the bootpack, the song is building – musical layers are being added – just like climbing stairs adds to the fatigue of the all-out sprint uphill. Removing the skis from the pack and re-securing them at the end of the bootpack, the song steadies but keeps a driving momentum for the final steep pitch of pure climbing. We reach the peak, rip our skins as fast as possible, and transition for the downhill. That’s the slight pause – right before the beat drops. We drop into the descent, and it’s a flowy, driving, upbeat kind of drop that fades out nicely as we cross the finish line, eagerly awaiting the flash of our lap time on the board to see if we’ve progressed to the next round.
EG: How did you first get into ski mountaineering, and what drew you to the sport over more ‘traditional’ skiing disciplines?
Lara Hamilton: I love anything that allows you to explore – basically, that takes you to places only accessible on foot and human-powered. It’s a beautiful thing to be able to summit a wild, high-altitude peak before or after work and catch a sunrise or sunset. It’s a different world up there, and it keeps reminding you of perspective. You’re tiny among giants, and Mother Nature is unpredictable.
I moved to the Mountain West in the U.S. for college in 2019 and started lightweight backcountry skiing during my later years at Boise State as a form of cross-training, alongside Nordic skiing. The coaches allowed me to continue snow sports as cross-training since I’ve done it my whole life and it’s an important part of who I am. I got some second-hand K2 skis, put a pair of Dynafit Low Tech 105s on them, grabbed some skins and medium-weight touring boots, and off I went – outside of lift hours. I only started training more seriously in the 2022/2023 winter season when I moved to the Gunnison Valley in Colorado. There’s quite a community there enjoying this sport, and it’s a great place to do it.
EG: As both a performer and an athlete, how do you handle nerves before going on stage or starting a competition? Do the experiences feel similar?
Lara Hamilton: I find sport a little harder to manage in terms of nerves, to be honest. In music, I somewhat know what to expect – I can rehearse and be very prepared. At the same time, I find it a very joyful and exciting experience to share my music and creations with others; it doesn’t really feel like pressure to me. In skimo racing, especially during an Olympic qualifying season, there is undoubtedly pressure – some of it internal, from our own drive to do well and be at our best, but also from wanting to represent our country as well as possible.
I think handling nerves – because they’re inevitable – really comes down to preparation: what you do in the weeks and days leading up to a performance or race. The routines, the plans, the time taken just to ‘be’ and soak in your surroundings. Race day can feel a bit like autopilot for me, whereas performance day – I’m usually just stoked.
EG: Do you ever find yourself using music as a mental tool during training?
Lara Hamilton: Absolutely. I don’t listen to music on every run, but when I do, it’s often intentional. I know it can aid performance, so if I have a particularly hard workout and I’m feeling tired, I’ll throw on an upbeat playlist to help get me in the zone to crush it. Generally, if I’m on a longer, slower run, I just like to soak up the mountains and the space around me. That’s a time to be present – so no music.
Lately, I’ve been creating melodies and lyrics in my head on runs. And because, for whatever reason, I haven’t seen many people on my long run routes here in the Australian mountains, I’ve just started singing out loud – haha – it’s so much fun! Can’t wait for the day someone comes around the corner while I’m singing enthusiastically.
“Music helps me express what I go through in sport”
EG: With ski mountaineering being a winter sport, how do you train for the Olympics during the off-season? What does summer prep look like for you?
Lara Hamilton: I’m a dual athlete, so I run trails professionally in the summer and autumn. I run year-round – probably still 5–6 hours a week during skimo season on top of that training. It’s my background, and it’s really helped develop my engine, so I plan to keep that going.
I’m currently preparing to open my season in June with a few trail races in the U.S., before heading to Europe for the World Cup, Golden Trail Series, and World Champs circuit. Right now, the best fit with skimo is vertical kilometer (VK) races and sub-ultra distances. I’m excited to explore longer distances in the next few years.
EG: As someone deeply rooted in the mountain scene, are there any summer festivals you’re excited about this year? Are you attending – or maybe even performing?
Lara Hamilton: This year, I won’t be attending many festivals, as it’s an Olympic prep season. I’m turning my focus more toward making mixes and music – outside of pretty solid training hours. I’ll likely fit in a few gigs here and there, especially since I can travel with my portable deck during trail running season.
I really enjoy playing the after-parties at major running events like the Golden Trail World Series. I’m hoping to do more of that this year, as I did last year. After a long season and big races, there’s often a party or some form of celebration – and it’s fun to share my music with friends in the global trail running scene.
EG: What’s something you’ve learned in sport that’s helped you creatively with music production? Has music taught you anything that’s helped you as an athlete?
Lara Hamilton: Persistence is the word that comes to mind first. It’s normal to face roadblocks, and you have to find ways to work through them so you can keep going – whether that’s in races, training, or external stress. When you’re persistent, you’re often consistent, and consistency leads to great things over time.
Creating music takes me a lot of time because I’ll find a million ways things don’t work before I find what does. But I really enjoy that process. They’re not failures in my eyes – just things that don’t work for me at that time, and that’s valuable to learn.
Music has also taught me about being present. When I’m creating, I get lost in it in a good way – time flies. But when my mind drifts during trail runs, that’s usually when I trip on a rock – so I practice being where my feet are. That kind of focus is essential on race day in both trail running and skimo.
EG: You travel a lot for training and races – has any place surprised you with its music scene or inspired your sound in an unexpected way?
Lara Hamilton: Yes – the Pyrenees region, actually! On a few drives with friends to and from World Cups, someone will have the radio or Spotify shuffle on, and I’ll whip out my phone to Shazam a song. Then I listen to the radio station associated with that song and start a new playlist.
On a drive from the Pyrenees to Toulouse in early February, I discovered a lot of new French and Spanish-influenced music. The fascinating thing about music is that no matter where you’re from, there’s a universal experience in the way it can resonate with us.
“When you’re persistent, you’re often consistent, and consistency leads to great things over time”
EG: You’ve mentioned sharing music with fellow athletes. Has music become a way to connect with others in the skimo world, or do you feel like you’re introducing something new to that space?
Lara Hamilton: I think it’s a personal thing. Some people love sharing music – it’s a way of identifying common ground and expanding your tastes. At the past World Cup, something was in the air – we shared so much music between competitors (who are also friends!).
Often during drives or training sessions, someone will say, “You’re on aux – I want to hear what you’re listening to!” Then we share back and forth. Like, “Have you heard this? I think you’ll like it.” It’s such a fun and simple way to connect with others.
EG: With the upcoming Olympic debut of ski mountaineering, what message do you hope people take away – not just about the sport, but about the kind of athlete/artist hybrid you represent?
Lara Hamilton: With ski mountaineering making its Olympic debut, I hope people see that being an athlete doesn’t have to mean being just one thing. For me, music and movement have always gone hand in hand. I write songs to process life – the wins, the injuries, the homesickness, the relationships that shaped me. I train better when I’m listening to music that stirs something in me. I race better when I’m connected to emotion.
Being both an athlete and an artist has never felt like a contradiction. They fuel each other. Music helps me express what I go through in sport. Sport gives me the clarity, depth, and perspective to create honest art. Writing music captures a moment I don’t want to lose. It’s like emotional time travel – I can go back to exactly how something felt and share that with others.
I hope people walk away with this: you can have many passions, and they can coexist – even strengthen each other. You don’t have to box yourself in. Let the creative energy move through you – whether it’s on the trails, on stage, or anywhere in between.
EG: What’s next for you musically this year? Any releases or performances we should keep an eye out for on your way to Milano Cortina?
Lara Hamilton: I have so many musical ideas, but I know it’s about taking it one thing at a time. I want to release more mixes inspired by the places I’m in – mostly the mountain environments where I skimo and run. I still find inspiration in the most unlikely places – like the Finnish sauna I’ve been going to at home. They do daily Aufguss sessions that integrate music, and it’s had a meaningful impact on me and some of the music I’m now exploring.
I also want to start releasing my own music. I’ve written a lot of lyrics and melodies – often while running or traveling. I’m working on ways to do this while on the move for trail running and skimo. I think it can be an enjoyable and exploratory process, not something stressful or overwhelming.
EG: Looking further ahead, what do you see for yourself after the Olympics?
Lara Hamilton: Over the next two years, I want to fully dive into my music career and finally bring to life an album I’ve been slowly building. Since moving from Australia to the U.S., songwriting became a way to process everything – from homesickness, Covid isolation, and navigating chronic illness to the joy of discovering new friendships, sports, and ways of living.
I’ve written songs through it all – training in the mountains, dealing with an ankylosing spondylitis diagnosis, missing my family during hard moments, and finding light in new experiences. Until recently, these songs have lived in notebooks, voice memos, and rough demos. I want to bring them into the world – to properly record and share them as a body of work that reflects the emotional journey of living in a constant state of change and finding myself creatively through it.
More than just a project, this album feels like a necessary expression of everything I’ve lived through, and I’m excited for the moment I can finally give it the time and commitment it deserves.
