Jen on Julian
The first time I met Julian he had a full grizzly beard and eagerly showed me the scars from his knee surgery earlier that year. He appeared to be the epitome of a mountain man, raised in a tree house with parents who smoked weed and patrolled at the resorts. But come to find out, Julian didn't learn to ski until 8th grade: his mom skied occasionally, but his dad had never skied. Still, he managed to catch the skiing bug, confirming my belief that a hand in the sky directs the puzzle pieces as they fall into place. And the beard was a result of a bet.
When you see Julian ski, you know that it was what he was born to do. Julian approaches life with an eager awareness, excited by the obstacles that present themselves, much as he does on his skis. His body leaves a paintbrush stroke in the sky as he floats to the snow from the cliff-top 100 feet above. He possesses a calmness that is oddly energizing, but isn't afraid to let loose with his infamous twiskeys come nightfall. I am continually blown away by Julian's unsurpassable natural ability to do anything with ease whether it be inventing barrel rolls while wakesurfing or running an incredible company like Discrete. We can all say thanks, Julian, for being an inspiration to always strive for more.
Julian on Jen
Jen is an amazing individual/talent in many ways. Put her in a halfpipe, she has won the US open, won the World Championships, won a stop on the inaugural 2009 Dew tour, and she has podium’d the last three X-games! Put her in a room full of intellectuals, she’ll gauge the conversation appropriately then contribute. Put her in a Karaoke bar, well, watch out.
Jen is about being good at things. She was an all-state lacrosse player in High School, she switched gears to skiing moguls as a priority, she crushed it – then one day she tried out the ol halfpipe. The rest is history. To be honest, I skied with her on one of her training days last year for X-games 15 (she ended up getting silver medal), she’d drop in and boost these huge airs no sweat – I’d drop in (it being my 2nd day ever in a pipe) and couldn’t even get out of the pipe! The walls are 22 feet tall! What?! And here she is doing 900s 15 feet out of the pipe, ally-oop 7s, ally-oop 5s, it’s all good. I could not hang with her in her element whatsoever. Here’s the thing, whenever we’d be skiing pow at Alta, in MY element – I’d be like, “lets go off this jump, do this grab, then off this air”. Not only would she nail it, but she’d do it with no hesitation, then lead the charge on the next run, she’d be like, “ok, this time lets nail that jump, do this trick, then hit that”. Word. I have no doubt that if she felt like charging the big mountain, she’d dominate that arena as well. I just love that I can watch her shred the halfpipe, blow my mind, then I can shred pow with her, and not only NOT have to wait up for her, but know that she’ll challenge me. And I am always available to entertain her, by attempting to ski halfpipe with her
Jen travels quite a bit, she is really good with directions, she’s good at errands, she has put 60,000 miles on her Subaru in 2 years. She can put things together quickly, she bought so much stuff at IKEA for her new house, and assembled it all in a couple of days, read those tricky Ikea directions, made sense of those confusing directions, amazing. I actually got this really hard toy/puzzle/thing/logic tickler for Christmas – I tried to get it apart for days and days, and look who comes along and takes it apart, yep, you guessed it – Jen.
Bottom line, Jen is one of the best skiers in the world, she laughs, she gets pissed, she gets passionate, she’s determined, she’s focused. Jen has many accomplishments already in her admirable skiing career, but she’s just getting started. I can’t wait to see what comes next. I dig her humble personality and the way she goes about life/skiing with style.