The following article was originally printed in the December 2024 Issue of Slush. To access the full article click here.

Iris: I’m practicing this whole storytelling thing. I just went on this North Face thing, and they had us tell stories about certain stuff. Like, a guy was climbing and put his hand in poop or something. People just have these little stories, which I feel like I have. I just need to think of them.

Norm: What story did you tell at The North Face thing?
Hitting the Heavy Metal rail.

The Cascade Rail?
Yeah, like being at that competition and having that be my first competition, then going back and hitting that rail and what that was like.

Was that the first time you had hit it? During the contest?
Yeah, it was my first street rail ever.

That was your first street spot ever?
[Laughs] Yeah. I was like, “Holy shit. This thing’s crazy.”

That’s nuts, hitting that as your first spot.
For sure. I was scared. I didn’t really think I would hit it. Sam Klein showed me some videos the night before of people hitting it. So, I was like, “Okay, it’s possible.”

Were you hitting big stuff in the park before that?
No [laughs]. That’s the biggest thing. But I just told them that story. But Sierra telling the story in Garage about getting sick made me realize we have tons of funny stuff that happens to us. I just got to figure it out. But this doesn’t have to be about any of those. I’ve just been figuring out how to tell things.

I feel like there’s a good balance of the deep stuff and the funny stuff, just in life. I know you, but I don’t know you too well. Do you tend to gravitate towards one of those sides more?
I don’t know. Sometimes I don’t talk. I’m just observing.

You go non-verbal.
Yeah.

Don’t go non-verbal during this interview.
[Laughs] Well, I don’t go non-verbal. I think I’m just analyzing the things around me a lot of the time. I’m like, “What’s going on?” or, “This person feels like this.” I’m definitely aware of how everyone is doing, I think.

Are you like that at spots? Do you overanalyze and get in your head?
I think at a spot I’m pretty locked in. I’m looking at the spot a lot. And sometimes if people or cars are coming, I always feel a little weird about that, just with making sure the timing is right. But I’m learning how to pick spots and find what spots I want to hit.

Are you finding your own spots?
Not really.

Have you been Google Earthing?
No. I should start. It’s on my list. I have a list of things I need to do.

Do you have a spot from this past year that you’re like, “Oh, this is the sickest”?
Kind of, yeah. There was the Buddha spot in Japan. I did a front board on it. It was just cool. There was this huge Buddha statue there. Even just pulling up to that was cool, let alone being able to snowboard there. It was crazy. There were monkeys walking around, and we were like, talking to them. They were responding. Egan was screaming before… and we all found different spots to hit.

In the same zone?
Yeah, all right in the same little area. And Egan was screaming like, “AHHH!” before every hit, and the monkeys were talking back. It was sick. Ted showed me how to find a lot of spots this year.

What do you mean?
He would show me where to go look. There was this concrete building with a spot to ride off and wallride down. He kept telling me to go look over there while he was doing something, and I kept walking over there, but I just couldn’t figure out what you’re supposed to snowboard on. Eventually, we did the spot, but at first, I had no idea.

How was it filming with the whole Bittersweet crew?
It was sick. I had never been out of the country besides Mexico and Canada. Our first trip, we went to Helsinki. I was in Baldface at the time, and they were texting in the morning. We were having this presentation about snow crystals, and they’re texting like, “We should go to Iceland.” Desiree and Ted saying that they booked their flights. And then twenty minutes later, they’re like, “Okay, we should go to Helsinki. We actually booked our flights; we’re going.” And I have flights to Minnesota in two days. I still have to drive back to Bozeman, Montana, and then fly to Minnesota.

So what’d you do?
I canceled the flights to Minnesota, booked the flights to Finland, drove to Montana, and flew. Egan and I decided to go to Stockholm first. It was a layover option, so we stayed for a night and went to that SNUS event that Maria, Ylfa, and Henna put on. We stayed up for like 40 hours. Egan got us a hostel but kind of messed up and didn’t get two beds, so we shared the top bunk of a twin-sized bed. We just partied and snowboarded, then flew to Helsinki and met Ted and Sierra. Freddy came and met us eventually.

Did you get sick?
Yeah. I think I got sick from the SNUS event. I was getting sick while flying. I was sleeping all over the airport floor. Egan would be like, “It’s time to go, c’mon.” I had white spots in my throat. It was rough. We all had different sicknesses.

Did you get everyone sick?
No, I don’t think so. Freddy came from the SNUS event and eventually got sick. Sierra seemed to have her own sickness, and then we all joined. We were like, “We’re done for.” My sickness kind of passed as a few days went on, which was good.

What was that, December?
Yeah, December 8th, maybe the 10th. It was before Christmas.

Clips before Christmas are nice, though.
Yeah, and we didn’t do bad. The light was kind of crazy in Finland. We had about three hours of daylight. And half the crew was sick, so it was pretty much me, Ted, and Egan going out. We got clips. It was fun. We saw a boat at the end of the trip, which I loved. The sun was setting at like 2 pm, and this big ferry was pulling out. I loved it.

How was it filming with Ted? Was he someone you appreciated before, or did you get to know him through that trip?
I think I got to know Ted mostly through the Soy Sauce Nation event at first because he would come to film that. I’d see him at the Bonezone. He was definitely around, but I didn’t know his snowboarding or his filming. I had watched Tangle because I liked Nirvana. I’d listened to her Bomb Hole. I think she’s sick.

That’s crazy. But okay, how was it though, the whole winter?
It was sick. It was a little difficult with the first trip—everyone got sick, and right before it felt... wrong, in a way. Desiree got hurt in Mammoth the day before we were going to go. And the trip wasn’t canceled, but it was like, “Okay, we’re still going, but Desiree’s not coming.” And Sierra didn’t really want to come. But I was excited. I had never jibbed outside the country, so I was like, “Let’s go; this is going to be awesome.” I looked up to Egan a lot. Sierra was so kind to me a long time ago at Hood. I love Sierra; she’s awesome to be around. It wasn’t a bad trip, but like, Desiree couldn’t come, and we all ended up getting sick. Sierra was calling it the ‘cursed trip.’ I kept wanting to make it good in my head, but in reality, it wasn’t the best trip ever.

I feel like that is kind of nice in a way, almost a baptism by fire. You’re starting at a low point for your first real snowboard trip.
Yeah, it’s just going to be better from here, hopefully.

Were the other trips better?
Yeah. We kind of messed around in Salt Lake a bit. Ted came to X Games and was our coach, which was awesome. It got us closer to Ted because we didn’t know him that well. I got to know him a little—we had a sauna at our house in Finland, so we talked in there. I learned about all the issues with his back. I started learning about him because I always felt that people didn’t really know about me. I needed to share some of my background for people to understand me, I guess. So, I had to get through that and eventually just open up and talk to them.

What do you mean by that? Do you think you’re perceived a certain way?
Kind of. I think I just feel like... I didn’t come from being coached in snowboarding, and I didn’t always think I’d do this. So, I’m just hyped, and I want them to know why.

What did you think you were going to do in life if you hadn’t found snowboarding?
Just figure out how to go to college, get a job, pay rent, and find friends to live with somewhere. Which isn’t bad, but this is sick. I was working at Pita Pit in high school, Ross Dress for Less, a hibachi restaurant called Wasabi, and cleaning houses. At one point, I had a boyfriend whose family owned a condo in Big Sky—Big Sky is like 45 minutes to an hour away from Bozeman, but that’s where we snowboard a lot—and my senior year, we just lived there, and I cleaned houses at this place called the Yellowstone Club. Super baller people live there. It was fine, but I was living a more normal life. Now I’m not working a regular job where you show up at eight and work until whenever.

Did you have a moment where you thought, “Oh, maybe I can make a career out of snowboarding”?
Yeah. That boyfriend went to Windell’s Academy, and I visited him there. That’s when I met Sierra and saw that girls snowboard, and I was like, “This is sick.” Never Summer eventually sponsored me. They wanted me to go to Take the Rake. At the time, I was working the cleaning job to pay for my car, so they were like, “How much is your car?” So they started paying me enough to cover that, and eventually, they started paying me a little more, so I quit the job and started going on the trips they wanted me to go on. At Take the Rake, I made an Instagram post that went kind of crazy, and from that, I got the invite to Red Bull Heavy Metal. So, it all just started happening...

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