My mission is to become the best and most influential woman freeskier on my college campus. After dodging threats from my parents and listening to horror stories of death from skiing accidents, I finally said to heck with it all one day after work and bought myself some gear. I received a lot of misguided information from one of my girlfriends claiming to be ski gear expert and bought some men’s 27.5 boots which I rocked my whole first season – all amazing 50+ days. Needless to say after my first season my best guy friend helped me find the right boots which were 25.5 and women’s.

Why skiing? As odd as it sounds in Southern California, most of my friends skied and skiing seemed more natural – going sideways down the mountain never appealed to me (plus twin tips are just sick!). It’s bitter-sweet being one of the only younger ladies on the mountain on skis. I love it when I get to hook up with my girls in Mammoth although I’m envious they’ve been at it since they could barely walk. It’s kind of cool being the anomaly on my home mountain (which is ALL snowboarders and mostly male) having the skier groms looking up to you, even if I’m only hitting the baby jumps and barely venturing into the park to check out the wide 6″ off the ground 3 ft long boxes. You have to start somewhere right?

I want to make up for lost time when the snow was 3 feet deep outside my house and my parents said NO SNOWBOARDING AND NO SKIING while all of my other friends in middle school and high school were becoming park rats. In the past three seasons, I’ve been avid about getting up at 5am to get on the mountain before class and I’m always showing up late sweaty in my gear with hair sticking out in all directions and bruises and snowburn in various places. I know that I’ve come so far already in the short time by keeping a pretty fearless attitude and riding with guys who were talented and wouldn’t wait for me if I was going to be taking a long time getting down the mountain, but I still have a long way to go and many more softball size bruises on my booty before I can be considered as “best and most influential woman freeskier on campus”.

I still travel to my home mountain, and my parents are slowly becoming more accepting of my wild adventures all over California as the president and co-founder of the ski & snowboard team on my campus; before 2 years ago, ski & snowboard competition just didn’t exist at Cal Poly Pomona). I try to promote the team to everyone I meet, especially girls. I had never competed before last year, and I loved it. I love pushing the sport, and testing my limits as a skier. I want to share this with other girls and show them that just because you haven’t been doing something since you were 2 doesn’t mean you can’t have fun with it (and get GOOD) later in life. This season when I’m out with my team I would like to hit small cliff drop in powder or a medium sized jump in the park and bust a 360 or even a 180 with a safety and land and have everyone go, wow, that girl can ride.