{"id":43987,"date":"2019-02-19T08:23:25","date_gmt":"2019-02-19T16:23:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/?p=43987"},"modified":"2025-11-20T19:10:22","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T03:10:22","slug":"elyse-saugstad-is-having-her-best-year-yet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/snowsports\/elyse-saugstad-is-having-her-best-year-yet","title":{"rendered":"Elyse Saugstad is Having Her Best Year Yet"},"content":{"rendered":"

S<\/span>even years ago today, Elyse Saugstad nearly died. The massive avalanche<\/span><\/a> that ripped on the out-of-bounds backside of Stevens Pass ski area, in Washington, killed three other people. Saugstad was among the four skiers swept away by the slide, but she miraculously ended up on the surface, while those killed were buried some six feet down. Just her face and pink mittens stuck out of the snow, barely visible to rescuers. Cementlike avalanche debris entombed the rest of her body.<\/span><\/p>\n

Saugstad was wearing an avalanche airbag backpack, which is designed to help keep skiers afloat in case of a slide. After the avalanche, she appeared on TV and told newspaper reporters that her backpack saved her life. The sales of airbag backpacks reportedly <\/span>spiked<\/span><\/a> for a period after that.<\/span><\/p>\n

I was there the day of the avalanche, Feb. 19, 2012, skiing with a group that included Saugstad and around a dozen others, many of whom worked in the ski industry. After the mountain let loose, after the death of three of our friends, Saugstad crashed at my house in Seattle for days, recovering, grieving, crying. We sat vigil around my kitchen table, trying to figure out what happened and how to process it. I wasn\u2019t sure I\u2019d ever ski in the backcountry again, but Saugstad\u2014already a well-known pro big-mountain skier at the time\u2014had to get back into the field for her job.<\/span><\/p>\n

I remember her fierceness even then, in the aftermath of tragedy. A bold determination, an unfettered strength of character. She was in mourning, certainly, and she would change her entire approach to navigating avalanche terrain and group dynamics after that, but she wasn\u2019t going to let this\u2014or anything, for that matter\u2014stop her from from what she loved to do: ski.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a professional skier and I wanted to keep working,\u201d she told me. \u201cI thought that the longer I stayed away from mountains, the more likely I would be to develop a fear. The other reason I started skiing again is because the people who were the most supportive were my mountain friends, my ski buddies. When I look in hindsight, I\u2019m surprised that I was so intent on skiing because of all of the weight of what was going on, but that was the way I dealt with it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Elyse

Saugstad is known for being one of the hardest working athletes in the ski industry. (Photo Credit: Tal Roberts)<\/p><\/div>\n

S<\/span>augstad grew up a hardy third-generation Alaskan in the town of Girdwood, near the slopes of Alyeska ski resort. Her dad worked construction; her mom was an electrician. When she was 7, she entered her first ski race, where she beat out all the other competition. She became an elite ski racer and figure skater in her teens, but by the time she reached college, she had burned out on both.<\/p>\n

She studied international relations at the University of Nevada in Reno and planned to attend law school. After graduating college in 2002, she moved to Squaw Valley, California, to be closer to the mountains and friends and study for the law school entrance exam. That winter, she worked as a waitress by night, skied during the day and started dating pro freeskier Cody Townsend, a Salomon-sponsored athlete. (The two married in 2011.)<\/span><\/p>\n

At a Salomon sales meeting in Utah in 2004, Saugstad tagged along with Townsend. While out skiing, Salomon\u2019s head of marketing spotted Saugstad charging down the hill with her signature fluid, high-speed style and said, \u201cWho is that?\u201d Saugstad joined Salomon\u2019s team not long after. Law school would have to wait.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI decided if I\u2019m going to try to be a pro skier, I\u2019m going to prove myself by competing,\u201d she said. So in 2007, Saugstad entered the Freeskiing World Tour, a big-mountain competition circuit in the U.S., where she placed second overall her rookie season. In 2008, she won the overall title on the European-centric Freeride World Tour. That year, she shot her first film segment while heli-skiing in Haines, Alaska, with Rage Films.<\/span><\/p>\n

But big-time film segments from major ski movie companies like Teton Gravity Research (TGR) and Matchstick Productions (MSP) were hard to come by, according to Saugstad, and at that time, creating your own clips using a GoPro camera and uploading it to YouTube was barely a thing. \u201cI was hoping the big ski films would make room for another woman, since there weren\u2019t many other ways to put your name out there,\u201d Saugstad said. \u201cBut basically, I was told, \u2018We\u2019ve already got our female, we\u2019re good.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In the winter of 2012\/2013, TGR debuted an open-source contest called The Co-Lab, where users submitted videos for a grand prize of $100,000 and the chance to appear in the company\u2019s annual ski movie. Saugstad had a bunch of footage saved up and thought, why not? \u201cI figured if I enter it, who cares if I don\u2019t win? I\u2019d just enter and ultimately, I could get my content out there, which is all I wanted,\u201d she said. She ended up ranking in the top five\u2014the highest placing woman\u2014and her self-produced video earned her a Best Female Performance at the annual Powder Awards that year. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was younger, coming from that time period when the only way to really make it as a pro skier was to get in one of the big movies, because there were so few outlets to get your skiing out in the world to share with people, that became a real focus point,\u201d she said. \u201cBut after a while, things started to change. I got to a point, where I was like, I don\u2019t really need to work with them. How good a skier I was wasn\u2019t defined by whether or not I was included in one of the big two production companies. When I finally didn\u2019t care anymore, I got a phone call from both.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Last winter, Saugstad starred in both TGR\u2019s <\/span>Far Out<\/span><\/i><\/a> and MSP\u2019s <\/span>All In<\/span><\/i>\u2014rarely have top skiers garnered appearances in both films in the same year. For her segment in <\/span>All In<\/span><\/i>, she won another Best Female Performance at the Powder Awards. <\/span><\/p>\n