Kjersti Buaas: A Life of Passion

Gabby Rainville

After 15 years of professional riding and countless accomplishments, Kjersti Buaas may be considered a legend—but that doesn’t mean she’s done yet. Kjersti continues to grow and progress, not only herself but women’s snowboarding, and to bring her signature style to the slopes every time she straps in. After competing in nearly every major competition, traveling the world for photos shoots, filming video parts, and even hosting her own snowboard events, Kjersti has taken away invaluable lessons about snowboarding, progression, life, and perhaps most importantly—staying true to herself.

Kjersti may be best known as a slopestyle rider, but the more you get to know her, it becomes clear that she’s not only a well-rounded rider, but a well-rounded human being. Kjersti’s competitive achievements are numerous, including four Olympic appearances, an Olympic bronze, and X Games medals in both slopestyle and halfpipe. Most recently at Nine Queens 2015 she took home first in Big Air, an award for Best Style, and stomped her first ever fronstside 1080. However, it’s not just the measurable successes that define her as a rider, but the style, creativity, and energy that she brings to the snow.

Kjersti’s on-snow passion is match by her exuberance for life off the hill. And when she’s not riding you can find Kjersti promoting environmental sustainability, gardening, camping, taking photos or filming, traveling, or working on her newest project PRSNT Performance. We caught up with Kjersti after she had returned out of the wilderness of Colorado, just having finished a winter camping and splitboarding trip with Zeal Optics.









So you were just off on a camping trip with Zeal Optics. How was that?

I just got back, it was incredible. I’ve never winter camped in a tent before, only in trailer. So we were in tents and even though it was quite cold during the night, we had both snow and rain, and we were quite wet, I had so much fun. In a situation that puts you out of your comfort zone and you are with people you don’t know so well, you get to challenge yourself, you know; you stay positive and have a good attitude and inspire each other, and help each other out. I think it was a really amazing opportunity to spend a lot of time outside, get to know new people, disconnect from my digital devices and experience the spring conditions up in the Colorado wilderness. I’ve never stayed that long in Colorado after the season. The snow wasn’t very good (laughs). One of the days it was very sticky, it was like riding on a carpet. But me and Kimmy Fasani kind of laughed because we ended up just staying on our skins most of the time, and we were skiing around with our skins on, so it was quite funny. It was faster having skins on than being on the snowboards.

Could you foresee yourself in the future spending more time in the backcountry and taking your skills more into natural terrain?

Yeah, I love riding all kinds of terrain. The challenge of figuring out how to maneuver my snowboard in powder, in the park or just on the groomers is what drives me. I believe it’s important for everybody to challenge themselves in many different ways in order to discover all the potential we have. So, for me, I would definitely like to spend more time in the backcountry.This is how I grew up riding because we don’t have a lot of good jumps where I’m from, and we had a really small hand dug halfpipe, and we didn’t really have rails. I just rode the whole mountain, that’s just what it was. But the past years it’s been like, you know, the parks are getting really good and we are blessed with perfect jumps and all that, so you end up just kind of riding that. And when I was riding pipe, like at my peak in the pipe, I started getting so focused on just doing that. I found my snowboarding a bit to repetitive. So, I was like I need to do something else, and that’s how I got into slopestyle. If it gets too repetitive, anything you do, then I think the human just gets bored. We need diversity, and we need to get our true potential out. We need to do different things and have balance in our lives. The last years I have started to enjoy riding more of the whole mountain again, like when I grew up. So, I think I’m going to re-assess how I setup my next season, do things a little differently for sure. I don’t know exactly what it’s going to be, but it’s going to involve riding different elements, and riding different kinds of terrain.

In the past have you been mainly focused on competitions and events. Have you have had much time to travel and explore outside of the park?

Yeah, I have had that opportunity for sure, through sponsors and friends, on photo shoots and film trips. I have definitely gotten to explore a lot. These days the snow industry is at a low, and companies are struggling more than ever. This is rippling down and effecting how the riders are being supported financially. This can mean that they don’t get to travel and explore much outside their local parks. I have never seen this many good riders without sponsors my whole career! Reminiscing back at all the trips I have been on and everything I have experienced I’m like, ‘Wow, I am really grateful.’ I must have been at the right place at the right time. I have always been working really creatively to ensure that I get to do what I truly love, because It’s not just going to fall into your lap. Behind any success there is always much more than we see on the surface. I have had to adjust and adapt, be creative and smart, so I can keep doing what I want and what I feel called to do. When we stay true to ourselves and our purpose we can accomplish anything we want.

What was the highlight of this whole past season for you?

Realizing that I have to truly follow what I want to do. Trusting that I’m doing what’s right for me, and once I started doing that, everything kind of clicked, and then I started having more fun. Becoming more aligned with what my heart and intuition is telling me. Learning new tricks and feeling more in sync with myself and what I do on snow.

It seems like it all started coming together for you, and Nine Queens was proof since you not only took first place in Big Air but also the Award for Best Style. How did that feel?

Nine Queens was definitely my favorite event by far this year, and maybe even one of my top favorite events of all time, because it provided such a platform for the women to progress and to ride together, to have a good time, and to elevate the sport as a community. So you know in a regular competition you just have two runs, and then maybe there’s wind or maybe things aren’t working out. But in a jam session format like at the Nine Queens it’s more room for everything to align. We also had 5 days to just ride the castle and do what we wanted to do, and I think that was a important factor of why we saw the best riding we’ve ever seen from women’s snowboarding.

How did it feel to land that 1080? What do you think allowed you to do it at Nine Queens?

To land my first 1080 was the best feeling ever. To be honest I was having a bit of a rough day because I had been riding a lot the days prior and my body and mind was tired. I was dealing with some fears about injuries from the past and my legs were giving out underneath me doing 360’s. I was not even thinking of doing a 1080, I was just trying to stay calm and focus on easier tricks. I knew I had some fears I needed to clear in order to get to move forward, so I had a pep talk with my good friend Chanelle. She asked me why I was focusing on what could go wrong over what had been going great and I knew she was on to something…I started focusing on the present moment, taking each run at my own pace. Slowly, I started feeling great on my board and the next thing I know I was trying 10’s. The last run of the finals I landed my first 1080 of my life and I could not believe I had done it. I had a mix of emotions rushing though my body, everything from a tingling body high and adrenaline to extreme happiness and relaxation.

Nine Queens provided a great environment for learning new tricks because the jump was built like a stepover, so there was not really any big compression.There was a big gap so there was for sure some scare to it, but at the same time when you landed, it was just very smooth. It was also incredibly good vibes and everyone was very supportive of each other. The people involved with the event, the staff and crew weren’t there trying to push you or force you to do something for them to look good or for TV; they were genuinely there to provide a platform for female skiers and snowboarders to get together and push their sport on their own premises. Even though we have common goals to push our sports, everyone also has individual goals. I felt like this event was in great support of you reaching your goals. Usually in a regular competition setting you may not even take the time to high five your friends at the top, because you are so focused on your own run and the energy can be pretty tense. But in this event, everyone on the top was screaming their lungs off for each other. One girl would drop in and throw something amazing and everyone would cheer, but then we didn’t know if the person landed because we couldn’t see the landing. So we had a radio and they would radio up, ‘Yeah, Jamie landed,’ and everyone was screaming out of their minds, celebrating so genuinely for each other. That’s one of the reasons I got attracted to snowboarding when I was a kid—a sport where community and friendships were so treasured. I believe that’s what inspired everybody to be their best.

We generally have seen a lot of progression this year in women’s snowboarding at Nine Queens as well as slopestyle events. Why do you think this year has been such a good year, and how do you think we’ll see it affect how women compete next year?

First of all, I think it’s important to have passion and drive in order to have longevity in something…that you’re inspired and want to do it, instead of your ego telling you that you have to do it. My advice is to use anything you see that you want to do—whether it’s a trick or a grab or a jib—as inspiration to elevate your own riding. For me it is amazing how different you will feel by going, ‘Oh, wow. That’s really possible’ over ‘Oh no, now she is doing that, I have to do it too.’

During Nine Queens when Jamie threw down a 1080 in the sunrise session, I got really inspired and I remember thinking: that is within reason very possible for me to do as well. I had been trying the same trick a couple of years ago, but had dislocated my shoulder badly and since then been scared of it. Now I was in a situation where I was thinking, ‘Hey, it’s time to do this trick again,’ because seeing Jamie do it there right in front of me, made it easier for me to really trust that I could do it. I think Jamie also inspired everyone else to be like, ‘Hey this is a great like jump for doing new tricks.’ So Spencer and Klaudia and Silvia and so many girls, Elena Koenz, so many girls just got so inspired by each other and booom we suddenly saw more progression in women’s snowboarding (jumping) in a couple of hours than we have the last years! We will probably see a lot more women doing technical tricks in competitions next year. Progression builds off what has been done with what we can visualize is possible. When one person does it, so many can follow—that really tells me that visualization can be a great tool.

I also believe that we will see great things not just on the competitive side. We see so many innovative movements, and initiatives—riders starting eco-friendly clothing companies, powerful documentaries driven by riders who are exploring the mountains, crazy jib’s and butter tricks on the flat ground before taking off jumps by 16 year olds, creative crews coming together, doing and sharing what they are truly passionate about. The snowboarding community is unique because of all this diversity and creativity—I see it as a responsibility to pass this forward to future generations.



You’ve been riding professionally and competing for so long and it still seems like you’re riding at the top of the game and learning new things. So what keeps you going?

It’s the creative part of it. Snowboarding is a vehicle for me to express myself physically, mentally and spiritually, because It provides for so much creativity and so much play. Those are the things that inspired me to get into snowboarding. I got a bit lost the past two years, especially leading up to the Olympics in Sochi. And then, this year a lot of things happened in my life, challenges that helped me find back to my true self again. I let go of attachments and expectations and I guess I am in love with snowboarding again. Because it’s not the money involved, or it’s not the fame, or all these things that you might think it is, or the external stuff. It’s just simple things—like riding down the mountain being present.





It seems like style has always been a big part of your riding and you bring it to everything you do on a snowboard. How would you describe your style personally?

I think my style is playful, and if I’m like ‘I’m going to try to have good style,’ it doesn’t really work. But once I let myself just play, no ego—then the style comes. So I feel like style is your expression, and your expression can be so different from day to day, like putting your clothes on; it’s your art and the more intention that goes into it, the more people will be attracted to your style. And in snowboarding there are so many opportunities, you don’t have to do the same grabs on a trick. Like in gymnastics you have to look a certain way to get judged with a highest score. But in snowboarding, if you find some unique way of doing something, that might not even have been seen before, then that’s what’s going to give you the best score. And that’s so attractive to me because it challenges me to just keep searching for new ways of expressing myself.

You’ve had a lot of experience in the snowboard industry, and I’ve heard you’re now making a film about your career?

I’ve always been very passionate about film, photography and editing and I have a film project in the making. During my high school years I took some media classes and the school let me borrow one of their old HI 8 cameras. I took it everywhere I went and filmed almost everything I saw, especially when I went on snowboard trips because there were so many exciting things happening all the time. I have always liked to tell stories with images so I was filming with that in mind; that one time in the future I would use this footage. I have more than 500 little mini DV tapes stored, full of gems from back in the day, and it would be a shame to just let these never be shown. My passion for filming has never died and I have continued filming as I travel the world, yet now things gets stored more conveniently on hard drives. I want to combine my passion for filming with my passion for snowboarding and embroider the story with things I have become passionate about along the way. Things like nutrition and health, the environment and maybe even the development of my spiritual side. Since we can’t really do anything without the support of others, I want the film to showcase this to the viewer by including the people who have been important influences for me and inspired me to do what I love.

When do you expect it to be released?

A Norwegian-speaking version of the film was released on ITUNES this year but the full English version is still in the making. I’ve said 2016, but I don’t know because once you start doing something like this, you realize that you need more time. I am not in any hurry to get this out there, so currently I am just letting all the pieces marinate to fine tune my vision for the film and keep collecting footage. I got some amazing shots at Nine Queens this year that I am stoked to include and as I evolve personally, the story of the film will too. Things tend to come together more organically when you give yourself time…



Do you ever get tired from all the traveling after all those years?

I really like traveling; it’s such a big part of the way I live my life and it has been for so long. It gives me a beginners mind, because it’s not predictable. When I don’t travel I start feeling antsy to get on the road again. Even though it can be tiring to travel, it’s such a privilege. When I feel tired and frustrated at crowded airport check-ins I try to remind myself how grateful I am that I get to travel.

Follow Kjersti at:

http://WWW.KJERSTIBUAAS.COM

Tweet: twitter.com/kjerstibuaas

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