Update from the 2022 Girl On Fire Ski Racing Sponsorship Winner

Girl On Fire Maddy Dorn Guest Blog Post:

This past weekend I went to Keely’s Backcountry skiing camp! It was a full 3 days, full of a ton of fun, lots of great information about backcountry skiing and a lot of skiing and skinning! The camp was a perfect introduction to backcountry skiing! I am from Wisconsin and was completely new to backcountry skiing. When I was chosen to be the Girl on Fire last November, I knew I wanted to go to the backcountry camp. I was so excited as I received my Zero G skis from Blizzard, my jacket from Stio and the Freeride kit from Shred. I could not wait all ski season long! 

Finally March came and my family and I flew out to Idaho. We drove out to the little town of Stanley. The Sawtooth Mountains are absolutely beautiful and as we got our gear on, we looked up at the mountains around us that we were about to go skiing in. The first day we found some awesome corn skiing and we learned how to skin and transition from skinning to skiing and back to skinning. We learned about avalanche awareness and rescue too! At night we would learn various skills such as beacon trailhead checks, what gear is useful, and rescue equipment. The second day we built upon the skills that we learned the first day and found more awesome corn skiing up in the mountains. The temperatures were pretty warm all weekend so we had to figure out where we would have the best snow and how to get there before it got too punchy. The third day, I led the trailhead check before we left and checked that everyone’s beacons had enough battery, and were sending and receiving signal. I led the skin track up the first part of our skinning. It was pretty hard as I led, there was so many things to think about: is it a good pace? is this too steep? how are we going to get to our destination? It was pretty challenging but it taught me a lot about leading the skin track. As we got closer to where we wanted to go the guides let us try to figure it out. We had to figure out how to avoid a gully and how to get through some trees and find the best, easiest line up the mountain. Working together as a team we got to where we wanted to ski and even found some awesome corn snow! We took 2 runs up there and the snow stayed really great! We then traversed over back towards the truck and we practiced some avalanche rescue with our beacons and probes. Then after some practice, sadly our camp came to an end. The other girls and I during the camp became a great backcountry skiing team, we were able to come together and use the skills we learned to help us to successfully make it to the ridge and find a great run down. The camp was an awesome way to learn how to ski in the backcountry and how to do it safely while also having a ton of fun with all female guides and campers!

THANK YOU! Thank you to all my sponsors who helped me to go to the camp! Thank you Blizzard and Tecnica for the amazing Zero G equipment which was amazing in the backcountry!! Thank you to Shred for the Freeride kit! I love the googles, helmet and back protector, they all work awesome!! Thank you to Stio for the jacket too!! It works perfectly in the winter weather!! Another thank you to Sawtooth Mountain Guides for teaching us all about backcountry skiing!! It was such an amazing opportunity to be chosen to be this year’s Girl on Fire. THANK YOU!!!

Written by Maddy Dorn