Industry News
To kick off the upcoming winter season in style, pro skiers Lexi DuPont and Hedvig Wessel along with pro snowboarders Fanny Avril and Leanne Pelosi are hosting the first ever Sister Summit. The Sister Summit 2022 will bring together top female skiers and snowboarders from around the world for a week of riding and workshops to redefine together the standards of the sport. The all-female affair which is part peer-judged competition and part networking event provides a unique opportunity for female skiing and snowboarding, filling an often neglected gap in the winter sports world.
The idea behind the open format encourages participants to collaborate with each other. Unlike a traditional contest, at Sister Summit competitors will work to team up, helping each other to build and select lines in the backcountry. It’s an idea that inspired DuPont after volunteering as a digger during the Redbull Formation, an all-female freeride mountain bike progression session hosted in Southern Utah.
The invite-only event will bring together twenty hand-selected athletes. Ten skiers and ten snowboarders will gather at Mustang Powder Lodge in Revelstoke, BC. The event will be held from November 24 through December 1 and invitees have not been announced just yet. Dupont told Outside Magazine,
“I think this year we have to hand-select who’s going to come, because if we just open up registration at some time, it’s not going to be very fair. We want to incorporate more diversity but want to avoid tokenizing. We have ten invites out to women of color so far, hoping to create an event where all women feel welcome.”
The first edition of Sister Summit is about togetherhood, focusing on community and gathering around shared values. Encouraging participants to push their skills both on and off the hill. This includes female photographers, filmers, media professionals, and fans, all of who are encouraged to join the sisterhood by getting involved. A lineup of female CEOs, nutritionists, avalanche safety experts, and producers will round out as guest speakers during après events which are planning to be live-streamed.
The Sister Summit will bring together the top female skiers and snowboarders, videographers, photographers, creatives, business leaders, entrepreneurs, and wellness practitioners from diverse backgrounds around the world. To push the sport and the feminine frequency in the outdoors. Of course, skill building and progression will be a focus. But, the goal of the inaugural Sister Summit isn’t simply to ski and ride the most fearsome or challenging terrain. DuPont, Wessel, Avril, and Pelosi hope to grow and scale the event each year with more sponsor support, creating a safe, welcoming space where women can take giant leaps in their sports.
Via Sister Summit:
There is nothing more powerful than women uniting to intertwine their webs, working together towards a common goal.
The Sister Summit brings together the top female skiers, snowboarders and special guests of curated speakers to inspire, innovate, collaborate, challenge, diversify and change the feminine frequency in the backcountry and outdoor space.
The Sister Summit prides itself on community design, diversity in the outdoors, gathering around collective values, shared practices and pushing our sport. Through sport, talks, wellness, diet, arts and impact we will grow our mind body and soul to strengthen our community and become the best athletes we can be.
