Age: 23 | Vitals: 5’6”, 125 lbs. | Years skiing: 21 | Current Residence: Crested Butte, CO
Background:
I grew up splitting my time between New York and Stowe, Vermont, my dedicated parents driving the five hours north every weekend just so I could ski. Although I was plopped on skis at the age of two, I kept things recreational until I was ten and started racing for the Mount Mansfield Ski Club. In order to keep up with the competition and to keep skiing as much as possible, I began attending the local ski academy, the Mount Mansfield Winter Academy in 8th grade. I was lucky enough to live in Stowe during the winter and ski six days a week throughout high school until I graduated in 2009.
I made the decision to move west to Colorado for college and hung up my race skis after a season in the Rockies. I recently graduated from Colorado College and spent any spare moment I can exploring in the mountains while I was there. After finding the mountains in Summit County too crowded, I started to focus my attention on the backcountry and ski areas on the Western Slope of Colorado. Over the years, Crested Butte became my favorite Colorado town and mountain, so decided to make the move there after graduation.
It has been hard to completely break my racer habits, and I still find myself having a blast ripping groomers. I like to ski pretty much all terrain and ski pretty aggressively. I am always up for a good hike or bootpack, especially if it involves fresh snow. Trees and moguls are fun, but not my favorite, and though I didn’t grow up dropping big cliffs, I have been working my way up to bigger jumps.
Over the last few years I completed my Avalanche I and II, Crevasse Rescue, and WFR certifications. My love of skiing, adventures, and climbing peaks has pushed me to try and ski twelve months a year, and has taken me to Utah, New Mexico, Wyoming, Washington, British Columbia, Japan, and New Zealand in search of powder. When I can’t strap planks on my feet, I love mountain biking, climbing, backpacking, ridge walking, and extreme botanzing in the beautiful and wild west.
Good read, pretty interesting. Can’t wait to ski at Niseko =)
While researching skis for my daughter (U-16 racer who just “retired” to free ski), I was looking for a Quiver Of One to replace her 10 pairs of Fischer RC4s in our garage. I stumbled upon your review of the Solomon Lumen. Other “reviews” were pretty lame, while yours was very detailed and well considered. When a former racer says what this ski can do, I’ll take your word over some gaper who took two runs on the ski (and no bio provided to show the reviewer’s credentials). So I bought the Lumens today and look forward to getting Hailey on them when the snow falls. Just wanted to let you know that you and the Blister team are very much appreciated!
Hi Julia,
You have been fun to learn about and have helped my wife and I on great ski choices based on your reviews.
The last information exchange we had was really the Moment Bella’s design change going from RCR – Mustache like Bibby – to full rocker . You recommended the Sheeva.which would have been a good choice and my wife demoed them and liked them.
She demoed some SEGO UpPro’s 110 waist and immediately fell in love. I bet you would like these as well given your background. This is the Lindsey Dyer Unicorn skis. So she bought the 110’s and the Up Pro 92 – different front side playful ski. I was won over by many of their models and am waiting for delivery on their 120 waisted partial swallow tail big mountain directional charger . Full reverse camber matching sidecut radius. Prospect 120.
Thanks for your reviews….the old Bella was so well reviewed…the Sierra looks nice in a narrower waisted ski. The new Bella maybe terrific as well especially in pow. The Sego Up Pro 110 made my wife feel better and ski better….it’s definitely a ski for charger women