The first time I heard about the O’Neill Extreme, I was in Verbier, Switzerland competing on the IFSA Freeride World Tour. It was my first time to Europe and I found myself standing on top of what I thought at the time was a massive peak. The name of peak was Mount Gele. It was the first run of the competition and my stomach was so wound up. There were three starts for competitors to choose from. There was a half hour to the start and I looked around to see where the other girls were starting. To my surprise, there were no other girls around. I looked over at start 3 and saw all of the other girls gathered there. This made me nervous. What made me really nervous was that the only other competitors at my start were the Frenchies. The “frenchies” are the French men who dominate the tour. Alarm bells went off in my head. My heart was racing and I needed a way to calm my nerves before I had to compete. I decided to ask one of the frenchies what he thought about line, hoping a little local knowledge would calm my nerves. I walked up to Gurlain and asked if he would give me some advice about my line. He said, “If you ski that you will die.” Awesome!

I collected myself, telling myself that I could ski the line I had chosen. My inner pep talks usually include, “You got it. You live in Jackson and ski some of the most challenging terrain in the lower 48. You can do it.” I skied the line. It was the most difficult line I had skied at the time. The line included an over hanging snow field above heavy exposure and funneled down into mandatory 25 foot air. The air happened to drop into a much smaller chute/straight line than I had expected, but I stuck it and proved to myself that I could ski in the Alps with Europeans.

The competition ended and my line skied into second place, but it also developed a love for competing in the Alps. After the competition, all the talk was about the Verbier O’Neill Extreme. The O’Neill Extreme is an invite only competition that includes some of the biggest names in the ski industry. Jeremy Jones, Schroeder Baker, and Jen Ashton to name a few of the competitors that have had the honor to compete in this competition. The O’Neill not only features the best riders,
the competition takes place on one of the most challenging faces I have ever seen, the Bec de Rosses. Since learning about the O’Neill extreme, it has been one of my goals to compete on the Bec de Rosses.
Two years passed before I finally received my invitation. In September of 2007, I received an email while I was in Argentina. The email stated that because of my results last season, IFSA World Tour Champion and US Freeskiing National Champion, I was invited to compete on the Freeride World Tour. The FWT included four stops; Mammoth, Russia, France, and the finals would be at the O’Neill Extreme. I couldn’t believe it, not only was I invited to compete in the O’Neill Extreme, but I was also going to Russia.