LEFT TO RIGHT A cold winter day on Lake Michigan with the Chavarriaga Posada family in 2002. Photo: Chavarriaga Posada Family Archive They say you never forget your first powder ski experience. Chavarriaga making memories in the Tetons circa 2021. Photo: Jr Rodriguez Do you remember the first time you tried backcountry skiing? I do, vividly. It was just three years ago. Skiing stuck with me because it was the first activity I tried where I wasn’t immediately afraid. Something about the silence and the way the sun reflected off the freshly fallen flakes brought me right back to my childhood, wandering through verdant rainforests in the mountains of Colombia. It gave me permission to feel that joy again. The second time I tried backcountry skiing was during the spring of my first full season on skis, and everything changed. My nerves were at an all-time high, and an impos-ter syndrome sunk into my brain. I didn’t feel like I belonged in the ski world because I didn’t see anyone here who looked like me. To me, skiing and snowboarding were activities that my wealthy childhood classmates did over Christmas break, traveling to resorts in the Mountain West or the Swiss Alps. But something magical happened that day. I shared the snow with new friends who spoke Spanish. My two worlds collided as we skinned up the slope. I couldn’t believe I could speak my language and share my culture while skiing. Suddenly, all of my deficits were turned into strengths. I may not have grown up skiing, but I did grow up centering community and communicating well with others. It turns out these traits make me a pretty good ski partner. What I may have lacked in one culture, I more than made up for in the other. “Where did you grow up skiing?” my friend Iván asked me. “I didn’t,” I responded with a secret sense of pride. My friend Dani sang Marc Anthony at the top of her lungs, fill-ing the slope with more joy than I knew was possible. My friend JR took photos of us all skiing together. I remember looking at those photos and seeing myself as a skier for the first time in my life. That day changed everything for me. After that, I continued showing up. I asked questions, practiced packing my backpack and dialed in my nutrition, layering and technical ski skills. My immigrant grit helped me get back up every time I fell down. I spent most of my free time on the snow with mentors that I actively sought out. Eventually I began to keep up with my friends. I knew that I would never be as good of a skier as those who learned when they were toddlers. I also knew that no part of me fit in with those skiers who had spent decades on the slopes. I couldn’t even pretend. I existed so far outside of the box of what I’ve seen a traditional skier look like that I decided to make a new, much larger box. My drastic differ-ences once isolated me in snow sports, but they also gave me the freedom to never have to conform. My goals are differ-ent: I don’t aim to be the best, I aim to be the first. The first in my community to have access and share it with others; the first to expand narratives on who belongs in skiing; the first to be represented as a skier in mainstream culture; the first to reject assimilation and be Latina AF on the snow. When I ski, I experience childhood joy. I remember the 6-year-old version of myself looking up at the sky with so much wonder. I make her proud. My ancestors too, doing things that they couldn’t imagine in their wildest dreams. I make my future family proud by being the first of us to be in this space. I created access for myself so that I can invite others to come with me, taking the fear and stigma I endured those first days in Michigan out of being new at something. I culminated my first season of skiing by summiting one of the high peaks in the Tetons: Buck Mountain. It was the hardest thing I had ever done. I didn’t even have time to cry because I was pushing myself so hard. Now when I drive into Grand Teton National Park, my eyes linger on that special mountain. I didn’t think it was possible for someone like me to achieve this because I had never seen myself represented in the world of ski mountaineering. Suddenly, I had become that representation. Now, I am here. 070 The Ski Journal
The Ski Journal Volume 17, Issue 3: Page 70
