Milton skier finds his peace 20 feet in the air. Now the sport will take him to France.

Even after an ACL tear robbed her of some of her aggression on the slopes, Milton's Colleen Woods Heikka still loves to strap on a pair of skis. Unlike her children, though, she prefers to remain in contact with the snow as much as humanly possible.

"I can't even imagine going 2 inches off the ground," she said with a laugh.

The next generation of Heikkas is a lot less Earth-bound. In fact, they live for the thrill of soaring through the air. All three of Colleen and Jukka's boys are into competitive snowsports. Eighth-grader Toby is a freestyle skier. Noa, a freshman at Milton Academy, is a snowboarder. And Leo, a high school senior, is so into freestyle skiing that ...

Well, consider that he's spent the last four years at Waterville Valley Academy -- a snowsports-focused boarding school in New Hampshire. (Think: IMG Academy in Florida, only much, much colder.) And consider that's he's headed off to college in Grenoble, France, and will compete on the European circuit while he's studying political science.

So, yes, this is more lifestyle than hobby.

"I played soccer and lacrosse growing up in Milton, but once I got into skiing, I knew that was it for me," said Heikka, 18, who was raised within walking distance of Blue Hills Ski Area. "So I gradually started doing less and less other sports and more just training for skiing. It's difficult to dabble (in snowsports) and compete at a high level."

Heikka, who is 5-11, can get 15 to 20 feet in the air on certain tricks.

What's that like?

"It's a weird mix of thrilling and calming because it's something that I've done so much," Heikka said. "A lot of that kind of (adrenaline) pump you would get from it (when you first start out), that's gone now. I'm still thrilled to be up there doing tricks, but it's also almost calming. I feel like there's less for me to worry about once I'm in the air. My brain just shuts off and my body takes over. It's muscle memory; we do these tricks so many times that it becomes second nature. Most of the stressing you're doing is before you even hit the jump. I find it almost relaxing at the same time it's thrilling."

Heikka's latest competition was a rewarding one. At a United States of America Snowboard and Freeski Association national event in Colorado in April, he won a silver medal in halfpipe, placed eighth in ski cross and was 12th in slopestyle. He finished No. 1 overall in the Junior Men's (17-18-year-old) category.

Heikka's main discipline is slopestyle, where athletes ski down a course littered with obstacles including rails, jumps and other terrain park features. Points, as Wikipedia notes, are awarded for "amplitude, originality and quality of tricks."

Ski cross is a bit of a free-for-all with four skiers competing at once in a timed race that also features jumps. "You can do a little bit of shoving – it's a contact sport – while you're racing down a track," Heikka said.

Ironically, Heikka didn't have much halfpipe experience before this season. He started training on the 13-foot halfpipe at Loon Mountain Ski Resort in New Hampshire, picked up a few tricks and dove right into the 22-foot halfpipe at the USASA event. "I was able to do it and I was able to pull out of bunch of tricks," he said. "It's a little bit of an underdog story because the East Coast doesn't have the facilities to train a lot of halfpipe athletes. All the kids who do halfpipe tend to be from Aspen (Colorado) or Copper Mountain (Colorado) because they have a full-size halfpipe."

Heikka is scheduled to graduate from Waterville Valley Academy at the end of this month. There's been no snow in New Hampshire for a while now, but one of the perks of attending WVA is its extensive dry-land training, which features trampoline work and a giant airbag (synthetic plastic sprayed with water) that allows year-round jumping.

"It definitely takes a little bit of time" to adjust to the air bag, Heikka said, "but I think it's one of the best ways to train. There's nothing like it. Other than actually being on snow, there's nothing quite as good."

WVA is small and insulated -- there are eight students in the Class of 2024 -- and fosters a sense of community which Heikka has grown to appreciate. "Everyone's really tight-knit," he said. "Even the people who aren't your best friends, you're still friendly with."

Heikka said he's gotten "significantly better" during his four years at WVA. "I can ski six days a week, and outside of that I'm also doing physical training every day," he said. "I think my fundamentals have gotten a lot better. And without those you can't build up your tricks."

Next stop: Europe.

Olympic dreams?

"Yeah, whatever's possible," Heikka said. "If I can keep competing and keep climbing the ranks, then hopefully."

This article originally appeared on The Patriot Ledger: Milton's Leo Heikka is a standout freestyle skier