Words and photos: Mary T. Walsh

Around this time a year ago, I was sitting in a Red Cross in Santa Ana, smack dab in the center of Orange County, California. It was one of the first times I had left my house since mid-March. Nurses moved quickly between socially distanced donors while a whirring machine, attached to my arm via a long, thin tube, drew my blood, separated out the plasma in a centrifuge the size of a small record player, and then siphoned red blood cells back into my bloodstream. Mid-draw, my watch vibrated with a calendar update: IT’S TITS! starts today.

Since 2018, IT’S TITS!, the female-focused brainchild of Krush Kulesza, Jess Kimura, and Barrett Christy, has brought together much of the snowboarding community every spring, first at Boreal, CA and then at Timberline, OR. Each year, the Snowboy Productions-built transition course inspires female and non-binary snowboarders to migrate to the meticulously raked bumps and berms to reunite with old friends, meet new ones, and session the flowy course all in the name of raising money for Boarding 4 Breast Cancer. Since its first year, when the entire contingent of riders was undeterred from riding in an all-out monsoon, IT’S TITS! has cemented itself as an essential annual experience. That relentless, passion-fueled vibe apparent in the event’s first edition has been the case for the attending riders, media, diggers, and industry ever since.



The 2020 event, like most other things during that time, was cancelled. Understandable, of course, but salt on the ever-expanding global wound to miss out on the connection and creativity during such an isolating time. As May 2021 rolled around, with much more hopeful circumstances than a year earlier, heading back up to Mount Hood for the third edition of IT’S TITS! felt like things had sort of come full circle, picking up where we had all left off two years before and reuniting in an even bigger way. Unloading at the top of Timberline’s Stomin’ Norman chair, you arrived at the top of the Snowboy set up to a few dozen familiar, masked faces—the excitement was undeniable.


For this third year of IT’S TITS!, Krush, Blake Geis, Laura Rogoski, and the rest of the digger crew pulled out all the stops. An upper triple boob section kicked off the course, with a multitude of options expanding from there. A double-take off bump jump on rider’s left could be sent up-and-over or hipped, and was a rider favorite. Lower down in the set up was a hallmark of IT’S TITS!, a rideable B4BC ribbon that was the setting for slashes, doubles, triples, miller flips, handplants, and more. The very bottom of the course featured a new take on another event favorite, a large bowl with hip entries on both sides and a loveseat in the middle. In short, there were tons of options for lines, tricks, and hits.



As soon as the park opened on the first day, the riders began to find lines, taking advantage of the sunny, blue skies in anticipation of a storm that was set to roll in later in the week. Feature by feature, the invited crew dissected the set up. Ellie Weiler and Isabella Gomez, two upstarts from the Rockies and the PNW, respectively, were smooth and powerful careening through the course. The Jamies—Jamie Vincent and Jamie Deister—were lapping fast, airing and slashing the whole way down. Jill Perkins, Katie Kennedy, and Stefi Luxton were sending the top hip alongside Jess Kimura and Kaleah Opal. Kelsey Boyer is a turning queen and was flowing through the course, leaving clouds of spray in her wake. Madison Blackley planted the middle of the ribbon. Maggie Leon learned Miller flips, doing them on the top bumps as if she had them in the bag all season. Laura Rogoski was blasting methods straight into the sky off the hip. Ari Morrone, Micah Anderson, Fancy Rutherford, Kristin Jessen, Kailey Bogart, Hannah Peterson, Egan Wint, Jess Goucher, Erika Vikander, Randa Shahin Larkin, Lexi Roland, Jackie Flanagan and more were carving, buttering, and airing everything in sight.


The forecast hadn’t looked very favorable going into the second day of the event—anyone that has spent time at Mount Hood in May knows that Mother Nature can be reluctant to turn winter off. As the lifts started to turn on day two, a cloud shrouded the peak of the volcano—a sign of a coming storm. But the weather held off; menacing clouds receded temporarily and provided another full day for the riders to session the berms and boobs, and they all took full advantage. Nirvana Ortanez and Christine Savage went doubles on a butter pad in the center of the set up. Abby Ronca, Brantley Mullins, and Rachel Leadholm rolled through, too. Nora Beck was, per usual, sending everything in front of her. Melissa Riitano, Jenna Kuklinski, and Savannah Golden took to the ribbon. As clouds began to roll in toward the end of the day, a session erupted at the bottom bowl. Lily Calabrese brought a heavy tweak to the proceedings. Mary Rand and Summer Fenton kicked out lofty methods on opposite sides of the bowl. Jill Perkins, Maddy Monte, Ruby Peyton, Kaleah Opal, and Laura Rogoski also sent it overhead. Stefi Luxton joined the party with her signature, effortless style. Christine Savage greased the loveseat with a nose butter, while Marissa Krawczak, Katie Kennedy, Taylor Elliott, and Nirvana Ortanez put down plants.

Just as it was time to grab rakes and prep the course for the next day, the clouds suddenly socked everything in. The timing couldn’t have been better as the crew had gotten a full day in, though it was such a quick change of atmosphere that Summer Fenton was forced to unstrap when preparing to drop into the hip because all of a sudden, she couldn’t see anything in front of her.



That evening, the riders headed down to the High Cascade campus, just a short drive from the base of the mountain, for the first-ever PITCH Sessions panel discussion in partnership with IT’S TITS! and B4BC. Barrett Christy, Tim Zimmerman, Nirvana Ortanez, Jenna Kuklinski, Marsha Hovey, and Jess Kimura (with yours truly as moderator), hosted a conversation about navigating the snowboard industry as a rider. For two hours, the crew congregated in BOB, High Cascade’s indoor concrete skatepark, enjoyed Fruit Smash beverages from New Belgium Brewing Co. and Liquid Death Mountain Water, and had an open conversation about pursuing riding professionally and making connections within the industry to help in doing so. In addition, the crew raised an additional $800 dollars for B4BC during the evening event. (Big thanks to HCSC, Wy’East Academy, Snowboy Productions, B4BC, Fat Tire/New Belgium, Liquid Death, Yeti, Sun Bum, Roxy, Mervin MFG, and One Ball Jay for the support to make the PITCH Sessions happen!)


The wintery conditions continued into day 3, when snowfall and low visibility closed the course. So, the riders rested up, stretched, ordered Gator Taters at Charlies, the ubiquitous Government Camp watering hole, and got ready for the weekend, when the park would be open to the public (with a $20 donation to B4BC to get access) and the forecast was looking prime. Over the weekend, the high-energy boarding continued, wrapping up only when it was time to shut things down on Sunday afternoon.




Every year since its inception, IT’S TITS! has provided something integral to snowboarding, and to women’s snowboarding in particular: an opportunity for the community to ride together on hill, come together off hill, and embolden the current groundswell of female and nonbinary riders. This year’s event was no different, but was even more pronounced, as the ranks of rising riders grow every season and the amount that everyone builds off the snowboarding of one another continues to increase exponentially. What Krush, Jess, Barrett, and crew have created—and big thanks to Maggie, Kristin, and the B4BC crew for what they also imbue into IT’S TITS!—is an event that snowboarding truly needs. A platform to showcase the momentum in women’s riding, a rare chance to bring together female filmers and photogs (big shout to Gill Montgomery, Ashley Rosemeyer, Sammy Deleo, Shannon Evans, and more!), and a nucleus for ideas to form that move the community forward. IT’S TITS! is a staple of winter. It is a symposium of snowboarding, and I, likely along with everyone else who dropped into the set up, am already looking forward to next year.