“IT WAS MY MOM WHO SHOWED ME THE POW, AND I GUESS I FELL IN LOVE DEEPLY, NOT KNOWING IT WOULD BECOME MY LIFE ONE DAY. I USED TO SKIP TRAINING ON POWDER DAYS AND MY WOULD BE PISSED. I WAS LIKE, MOM, YOU SHOWED ME THIS!”—ARIANNA TRICOMI “This may be the real reason Arianna com-petes: She loves skiing and any day on snow is heaven for her. She also doesn’t mind taking the stairs.” Stairway to Heaven, Kicking Horse Mountain Resort, Golden, BC. Photo: Dom Daher RECENTLY, TRICOMI HAS LEARNED that her place atop the freeski world comes with its own set of responsibili-ties, moments that require her to be more than just a profes-sional skier. This was heart-wrenchingly made clear via an avalanche fatality she witnessed while skiing near Innsbruck. In an Instagram video, she recounted her experience as the second responder to an avalanche that buried a 15-year-old local skier. In addition to expressing the trauma of witnessing such an event, she also suggested that social media, and the pro skiers who use it, are at least partly to blame. “We have such a bigger responsibility toward kids with the social media we produce,” she said. “We show mostly only the beautiful side of things and the hype of skiing a line, but most of the time there is no explanation of why we chose to ski this line. Or why we chose not to.” Her voice breaking, she continued, “It’s really hard for me to share this here, but I can’t not say anything.” Tricomi understands that sometimes to make the change, you need to lead by example. As an athlete raised in a cradle of world-class skiing and mountaineering, she grew up sur-rounded by mountain guides, an elite group tasked with not only keeping clients safe in the alpine, but also with setting the standard for how to move and act in the mountains. Now in addition to holding down a full-time ski career, she is working to join the ranks of those guides. The 29-year-old has spent her last few summers improving her climbing, training to become an internationally certified (IFMGA/UIAGM) guide. “The approach of finding a line on a big wall, finding the easiest, more aesthetic way up, I love it,” she says. “You become a part of the history of climbing, imagining where the first mountaineers in 1915 with their old shoes and old ropes would have gone. When I’m a guide I’d like to bring girls out there to experience this aspect of finding lines in the vertical realm, too.” Arianna Tricomi 047
The Ski Journal Volume 15, Issue 3: Page 47
