Words: THOMAS KOHNSTAMM. Photos: COLTON JACOBS. 2024-02-08 07:33:22
An original Washingtonian, Sophia Rouches represents a strong cast of up-and-coming skiers at Mt. Baker Ski Area, WA. Late in the 2022 season, Sophia Rouches made up her mind to hit the infamous Mt. Baker road gap. For generations of locals, jumping over Highway 542 has represented a pinnacle accomplishment, a rite of passage and cause for top bragging rights rolled into one death-defying, camera-friendly stunt. “Dropping in 10,” she announced to her crew, then swallowed hard and thought: I guess this means I’m really doing it. When the count ended, she tucked down the narrow in-run between the trees for 10 more long seconds and launched over pavement. Rather than simply straight-airing it, Rouches laid out an arcing, heart-stopping backflip. As she rotated, the snowbank on the far side of the road came into view and passed comfortably under her skis. Unhappy that she didn’t quite stomp the landing, she hiked back up and did it again. At Baker, Rouches had worked her way up as a pro skier at a mountain better known for under the radar personal progression than access to the wider ski industry. With no initial connections, direct mentorship or even female ski partners, she gradually collected sponsorships with ski and outerwear brands like Outdoor Research and Faction, took trips to Japan and Alaska, and scored movie segments with The Approach and The Faction Collective—and now, with the road gap, she’d checked the box of indisputable Baker ski bravery. Shortly after flipping over Highway 542, a man came up to Sophia and explained that now that he’d seen a girl do it, he knew he could do it too. She brushed it off. These kinds of interactions are an occupational hazard in her line of work, especially as she can go way faster and way bigger than most guys. But the timing of the comment, right on the heels of this major feat, got her thinking that perhaps she’d been chasing the wrong goals. The expected goals, for other people’s approval. And while she would continue to hit the road gap again for both the challenge and the thrill, perhaps it was time to re-envision her intentions as a pro skier and help create the ski industry she would like to see. Rouches grew up in Fall City, WA, just a quick 30-minute drive from Snoqualmie Pass. She spent much of her childhood chasing her older brother and his friends around Alpental backcountry and the Summit Central terrain park. “Skiing with my brother taught me how to be the only girl skiing with guys. I became fluent in ‘bro culture’ real fast and learned how to show up in spaces where there were no other girls,” she says, “like knowing how to explain to a ski tech why I need 130-flex boots even though they don’t make them for women.” Beyond looking up to fellow Washington-raised skier Ingrid Backstrom, who was frequently the only female featured in Warren Miller movies, Rouches didn’t imagine a career for herself in skiing. “It was an after-school escape, a slice of freedom,” she says. Unlike many of her current peers, she didn’t come up in a structured racing or freeride program. “I never thought about competition,” she says. “Skiing was all about enjoying the mountains with my family and friends.” If anything, teenage Rouches seemed destined for a Division I soccer scholarship. But a period of disillusionment with the grind of competitive soccer combined with a senior-year ultimatum from her coach to stop skiing to avoid “unnecessary injury,” forced her toward a difficult crossroads. “We need change. Not just more types of skiers in movies, which has superficially improved. But behind the camera. And, ultimately, in the audience that consumes this content.”—Sophia Rouches A friend took her to visit Mt. Baker. The deep snow and expansive terrain struck Rouches as “the purest expression of Pacific Northwest skiing” and got her imagining a different, freer direction for her life. She soon walked away from soccer and applied to the Environmental Education program at nearby Western Washington University in Bellingham, WA. When not studying, she went all-in on skiing—still not with the explicit goal of becoming a pro, but to continue to chase the elation she got from engaging with the mountains, now just an hour and change up the road at Baker. After a quiet and sometimes lonely first couple of years on the hill, a professional ski career started to develop organically for Rouches. Micah Evangelista, Zack Giffin and a few other top Baker skiers saw what she was doing, and she got invited along on some photo shoots with Grant Gunderson and Gabe Rogel. She proved herself to them. Then did it again and again. As her ski career picked up momentum, Rouches incorrectly assumed she’d avoid some of the barriers faced by other women in the sport. “I had internalized this whole idea that if I worked hard, and excelled at things and took the right risks, I’d be taken seriously and wouldn’t be dismissed as weak or incompetent,” Rouches, now 27, explained from her Bellingham home. “But as things progressed, more and more of my self-worth came from being validated by the guys, and I subconsciously pushed so hard to be ‘different from the other girls’ without understanding how I could only ever be me—and that my goals were simply upholding the status quo.” Now, when she sees a scene from a film that focuses more on slo-mo of her hair blowing in the wind than her actual skiing, or when she’s sidelined during a shoot day like “some kind of prop,” or knocked down a peg moments after flipping over a very real, very cement highway, she realizes that it’s not her, but the wider industry that needs to progress. “We need change,” she said. “Not just more types of skiers in movies, which has superficially improved. But behind the camera. And, ultimately, in the audience that consumes this content.” She figures that this kind of change won’t come from trying to match male ski celebrity personalities with an equivalent female ego-driven revolution in skiing. “Skiing needs less ego,” she says. “I think the future is about solid role models, mentoring and welcoming in a new generation that naturally expands how we all think about the sport.” Rouches herself has been fortunate to now be mentored by Backstrom, her childhood idol. “People say, ‘Sophia’s so talented, she doesn’t need a mentor.’ But, unfortunately, it’s not just about being the best skier,” Backstrom says. “There’s lots to figure out in terms of navigating the industry. I’ll help her any way I can, and I know that she’ll do the same for the next generation.” For Rouches, much of her path forward is based around Mt. Baker. The area isn’t as connected to the broader ski industry as Salt Lake City, Denver or Tahoe. At Baker, independence runs from management all the way down—it’s one of the last sizable independently owned ski areas in North America. But it’s not just about its understated culture, steep and ungroomed inbounds skiing or the record-setting snowfall. Baker has a relatively lenient rope line policy that allows riders to head up the boot pack and explore backcountry at their own risk. “Patrol will tell you, ‘Hey we saw a bunch of slides today, are you sure you want to do this?’ But the choice is still yours,” Rouches said. “That lets you push your boundaries and progress in ways you can’t elsewhere. It’s fairly lawless, and there’s still a sense that you can define things on your terms.” “Sophia does things her way, but she also brings along others,” Backstrom says. “By nature of being out there filming, being a team player and often encouraging her friends to take the best lines, she is setting a positive example that will create more opportunities for all skiers.” To further balance the demands of the pro ski lifestyle, Rouches recently bought and runs Moondance Sea Kayak Adventures in Bellingham during the off season. Prior to getting into sea kayaking, she’d had a lot of experience with whitewater guiding and all of the adrenaline and partying that comes along with it. But in this different iteration of the sport, she rediscovered a quieter, more contemplative connection with the outdoors. And as a guide, she is there to serve others and help them to better understand the natural world. Learning to become a teacher and a mentor now reflects back into her evolving approach to the ski world. Rouches has also witnessed what is possible with her roles in the ski film series, The Approach, which features a diverse set of ski athletes collaborating to access new terrain and experiences. In the series, director and editor Anne Cleary empowers Rouches and the other athletes to have a say in how their footage is used, in order to show a more authentic representation of all that goes into getting the glory shots of perfect turns in untouched snow under cloudless skies. Cleary said, “All too often, brands have a pre-existing idea of the role they want female pros to play. They don’t ask the athlete what they would like to accomplish with a shoot. But Sophia’s own unique perspective on skiing is way more interesting and relevant—and makes for a better film.” The Approach series shows Rouches jumping the Baker road gap but also details the crew of skiers encouraging each other through their uncertainties and the unfortunate risk of “The Falcon,” Rouches’ 1990 converted campervan, running out of fuel due to a broken gas gauge. And all of this happens alongside the mentorship and companionship of Backstrom. “Sophia is so gifted and skis so beautifully,” Backstrom says. “But she still puts in the work, whether she’s out there building a jump, digging a pit to evaluate avy danger or backing up someone else so they can progress to their next level. She just loves skiing for all of the right reasons—and that really comes through.” Since The Approach first came out, it cracked open a new space in ski media with a subsequent increase in new female-led ski films. The audience is out there. They just needed to be shown what was possible. And, within that, the definitions of what makes a successful ski pro can continue to evolve. In Rouches’ world, it’s no longer just about conquering peak experiences, but setting an authentic, sustainable track for others to follow. “We still have a long way to go,” Rouches says. “But I’m trying to play the game well enough to support myself and leverage that to bring in others. Step-by-step we’ll update the game itself.”
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