Grit or Gift: Ingrid Backstrom

If you don’t know who Ingrid Backstrom is, you are either not a skier or have just crawled out of a monk’s cave where you’ve been meditating for the last 20 years. (We hope it was one with beer.) 

Backstrom is perhaps the single most influential female skier in modern times. She has appeared in 20-some ski films over the past two decades, podiumed in 12 big mountain competitions, and bagged first ski descents in Greenland, Baffin Island, and China. She’s known for her trademark style (which matches her personality)—aggressive yet graceful, fearless yet smart, confident yet modest. More importantly, however, with every backflip and cliff drop, she has stomped out a space for women where there was none before.