Profile

Julia Pickering

Snowboard Adventurer

Julia is an exploratory snowboard mountaineer and adventurer . She is the first female and second person ever to have climbed and snowboarded the 3 highest peaks in the Arctic Circle and is constantly looking for new adventures.

Last winter saw her explore the Arctic further when she headed out to Greenland for more epic unridden lines from alpine peaks in previously unvisited mountain ranges. In May 2012 Julia and her team of splitboarders and skiers successfully summited Mount Bear. At 14,831 ft (4,520 m) Mount Bear is one of the top 20 highest mountains in the US, nestled deep in the Wrangell-Saint Elias Mountains.Their successful summit marks the first snowboard ascent and descent of Mount Bear and a film on the expedition will be out September 2012.

Julia is hugely passionate about her sport and loves the challenge of splitboard ascents and winter camping.:

“I think my passion for sliding on snow developed from a very snowy trip to Aviemore when I was 6. We couldn’t leave there was so much snow! Cold snowy places in the Arctic and Alaska became an endless source of fascination for me as I began to read many books about these cold lonely wilderness areas.
My parents didn’t ski so I started ski lessons as soon as I was old enough to go on the annual school trips. It wasn’t until much later I decided to try snowboarding and I was hooked.” It wasn’t long before the desire for untracked powder kicked in. Off piste adventures in Europe and North America followed. But there was a desire to get still further away from the pistes and deeper into the mountains. The split snowboard was a natural progression, a way to get deeper into remote mountain ranges.
A new venture into trying snowkiting has opened her eyes to the possibilities of exploring further and faster than on foot alone without the need for mechanised support".

Aside from snowsports, Julia is an experienced outdoor professional and is an avid lover of mountain biking, trail running, trying to surf and rock climbing . She is also has 2 Siberian huskies who have proved to be the source of another way of sliding about on snow as Julia hooks into their harnesses whilst on skis, otherwise known as ski-joring.

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