Jen Jones
Primary Outdoor Sport: Snowboarding
Favorite Beverage: Lime La Croix
Sunrise or Sunset: Sunrise
Non-Outdoor Hobby: Fitness
Mountain Snack: Pocket Pizza
Favorite Season: Winter
Guilty Pleasure: Reality TV
Book Recommendation: The Art of Shralpinism
Three Words to Describe You: Passionate, Driven, & Energetic
“I was at a yardsale and saw a snowboard with bindings, boots, and the whole nine. I took it in the backyard and just started going down the hill. I had no clue what I was doing. That year, I had a bar regular ask me to live in Alta, Utah. He was kinda like, ‘Ok, you’ll have a free space to stay. Free food. You just work there and you get a ski pass. You’ll be there for the season. What do you think?’ I was in a transition in my life and I was like, ‘Let’s just do it.’ My mom thought I was crazy. I had to go home and book the one-way ticket to Salt Lake in front of her because she didn’t believe I was actually doing this.
I had no clue what I was doing. I didn’t really know how to snowboard. I just went for it and I lived that season with insane people, crazy talented. I got to watch them compete and that's where my love of freeriding came from actually.
When I got to Utah the first day, I’ll never forget this, this one lady looked at me and was like, ‘Alta is going to change your life.’ I kinda thought she was nuts at first. I was like, ‘What do you mean Alta is going to change my life?’ And, she couldn’t have been more correct. That is where everything changed. Snowboarding became a huge passion of mine.”
“I ended up spending a lot of days riding alone and figuring it out. I went an entire season on my heel side, not a toe side turn which was crazy. Some of the stuff I rode because I wanted to keep up with people and I was like super fast on my heels, but I wasn’t actually turning. People were like, ‘You know if you just make a turn it's going to be so much more fun.’ But, I was like, ‘Well, I can keep up with you anyways so whatever. Let’s just go down this gnarly fricken chute.’ I remember jumping off a rock on my heels to another heel and I side slipped down the chute. It was the dumbest thing. That was my first season, just trying to keep up with people that were way out of my league.”
“I ended up flying back home to Maryland at the end of the season. I was almost depressed because I wanted to go back to snowboarding. I just kept chasing it from then. I was like, ‘I want to live out west. I don’t want to be here anymore. I don’t want to be in Maryland.’ I tried some of the smaller hills around Maryland, but nothing was the same. So, I went back to Utah and I ended up moving to Tahoe for 7 years. I just stayed snowboarding one hundred plus days a year, two hundred days.
I wanted to snowboard as much as physically possible. I ended up starting to go in the summer time in New Zealand. I started a steak that I’m sitting at right now. I think I’m at 92 months consecutively on snow. Something like that. Where I’m just constantly every month trying to be on snow. In the summertime, I call it patch season because you’re just looking for the tiniest little patch of snow when it’s 90 degrees outside, but I say as long as you make ten turns, it counts.”
“When I lived in Alta, I lived with like 20 people. Some of them were like bigger names. Some are still on the Freeride Tour right now. I wanted to do that. I just wasn’t good enough. There was no way. But, I knew in my head, ‘I really want to compete.’
I told my old roommate, ‘I’m going to compete someday,’ and she kinda looked at me and was like, ‘Yeah, ok.’ Maybe she was thinking in her head, ‘make a turn’. But, I’m so passionate and driven when I want to do something, I just started doing every snowboard camp physically possible. I flew to Durango, Colorado and got with this girl Becca who started this snowboard camp called She Ride. That’s where I learned how to ride my first black diamond. I was so pumped. I’ve been back to that same place and I’m like, ‘Oh, this isn’t even steep. This is like mellow.’ But, at the time I was terrified and really, really pumped that I did it. Then I did a couple freeride camps at Kirkwood. I got with High Cascade, flew to New Zealand to try to keep progressing as much as I could.
I finally signed up for my first freeride comp. I did absolutely terrible. There were four girls there and I got fourth because I fell like twenty thousand times. But, it was cool because it was very steep. It was freeride. It’s a sick zone and I was stoked that I even rode it.”
“South America stands out to me. It was the first time I did my line and I felt comfortable. That's when I knew I don’t think these venues were that steep or that scary to me anymore. I could start focusing on my airs. That comp, I ended up doing four airs and landing all of them. That was huge to me because it kinda made me feel like, ‘Alright, I might have this. I might be able to actually do this and be able to progress and start thinking about bigger things like making the Challengers. If I can just stay on my feet, maybe I'll start podiuming these things.’ That was a huge turning point for sure.”
“I look for stuff that challenges my riding. I seem to be drawn more to couloirs and chutes. I actually really like them. I’m working my way to loving cliffs. I like rocks. Steeps with cliffs, ridges, I’ve never been a huge fan. But, I’m trying to work my way to love them. I like jumping off things so I feel like I should. I’m trying to put myself in more exposure so that’s kinda what I’m looking for right now. Something that gives me butterflies, that when I'm at the bottom I’m so stoked that I did that. Because, if I don’t do that then I’m kinda bummed. I’m like, ‘Oh, well I looked at it and I didn’t do it. But, now looking at it from the bottom and knowing I have the skillset to do that and I didn’t is such a bummer. So, I like that stoke, where you’re like, ‘Holy crap. I just pushed myself and did something I was really scared of, went out of my comfort and did that.’ So that’s what I’m looking for right now.
You’re bummed out if you know you can do something and you just don’t do it because fear got in the way. Now, you do it because you want to push yourself. You want to get out of your comfort zone. That’s how you progress in the sport of freeriding. It's like you get to choose your line. That's why I love it. It's basically a playground. And, you get to choose where you go. You can choose a harder line, bigger airs. That’s kinda what I’m looking for.”
“I've been dealing with the mental thing of people watching me. I didn’t really like judges judging you on your line. Just, in general, I would always get in my head. So, I was starting to sign up for every single comp possible. That's how I got into slaloms and stuff. Just so I could start getting comfortable competing. It was, ‘Oh shit, can I do this event?’ Then, it was, ‘Oh, people are going to watch me. They're going to watch me snowboard.’ So I’m freaking out there.
I had to get mentally able to compete and not be freaked out every time. You’re literally the only person on the mountain and all eyes are literally on you. Inn these four star events, it's being streamed. So everyone can see it. You have to get mentally there to be able to do that. That was a whole challenge within itself.”
“You're scared as shit at these venues all week and you're trying to decide where you’re going. Then, you do it and you get to your daily life. Not a lot can bother you or stress you out. You just handled something that if you went the wrong way it could end up really badly, but you didn’t do that. You conquered it. It allows you to know that you're stronger than you think.”
“I’m currently scoping the line I’m going to compete on next week. This whole comp is extremely important to me. Twelve years ago, I couldn’t even ride this venue. I remember being at the bottom of it and just watching the people I lived with complete there. But, that’s where I was like, ‘I want to be able to do this one day. I want to be good enough to be able to compete.’ I get to go back this week and do that at the same venue I watched. So, I’m really excited about that.”
