Download a FREE media player to watch or listen "Couldn't enjoy my turns because I was thinking about the technique, and it was exhausting...." [HEAR AND READ]
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	"...but everything from ski racing...all the old conditioning, and the stress and the pressure, everything came back to me...." TRANSCRIPT
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	Action Clip Zell making a first descent in Alaska, from the Teton Gravity Films production, Harvest
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Snowboarding's Matriarch Rides On
Julie Zell has spent the past 10 years immersed in the sport of snowboarding — perhaps more so than any other American rider. She has pioneered big-mountain riding for women; has taken numerous extreme snowboarding titles, including King of the Hill (for three consecutive years, 1994-1996) and World Extreme Championships; and devotes time to coaching a women's-only snowboarding camp in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

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She is known as the burliest female rider of them all, taking sickly steep lines and making first descents in Alaska's Chugach mountains, as witnessed in Teton Gravity Research (TGR) films.

But what really sets Zell apart from her contemporaries is her broad level of interest in all things snowboarding. Before taking a break this year, she spent four seasons racing giant slalom on both the World Cup and ISF (International Snowboard Federation) circuits and last season started competing in the roller derby of riding — snowboard cross.

Unlike Zell, riders rarely compete in anything more than one area of specialty, i.e. halfpipe, big air, hardboot racing, snowboard cross. Perhaps it is this variety of experience that gives her the confidence to make such bold freeriding moves.

"The first time I saw it I said 'Hey, check that out. Snowboarding. That looks kind of like surfing, but more my element.' I understand the snow..." — Julie Zell

"What's different about Julie is that she's really competitive with herself," says Todd Jones of TGR. "She's not concerned with beating the next guy. She's more interested in challenging herself. I think she probably gets the same kind of fix when she's doing first descents in Alaska."

Whatever her motivation, Zell is perhaps the best female freerider, ever. She approaches consistent pitches of 50-55 degrees, littered with crevasses, with aplomb.

"You have to really analyze it and have the confidence to drop it," adds Jones. "I think she probably gets the same kind of fix there as she does in racing."

Growing up a race rat in Syracuse, New York, (her mother says Julie was in her first ski race at the age of 5) Zell attended two universities, the University of Alaska and Montana State University, on ski racing scholarships. When both schools cut back their ski programs, Zell returned to Syracuse and waited tables for about a year. Disgruntled, she set upon a search for a new life and a new lifestyle that involved no screaming coaches, no cold morning work-outs or icy courses. There was an ad in the paper. One-way ticket to Maui, $200. She took it.

"I got up every morning with my surfboard. I didn't have anyone to teach me how to surf, because I didn't know anybody. So it was kind of spooky for a while. Sometimes I would just go sit in my car and watch, because it was kind of intimidating to go out there. I finally got a hang of paddling – I won't say getting the hang of surfing, because I still don't know how many waves I actually caught."

"They were actually some of the scariest turns I've ever made..."

Before mastering this new sport, she moved to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, to ski and live with her brothers, local ski legends, Jimmy and Jeff Zell. She planned on returning to ski racing, but it didn't work out that way.

"I went skiing and hated it — didn't hate skiing, but, I don't know...too much pressure on myself. Couldn't enjoy my turns," says Zell. "It was exhausting."

It was the '89-'90 season and there were less than a dozen local snowboarders in Jackson at the time. "The first time I saw it I said 'Hey, check that out. Snowboarding. That looks kind of like surfing, but more my element. I understand the snow. I don't understand the ocean too much.'"

More her element, indeed. By the next season she was instructing and took her first run on a racing board.

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"They were actually some of the scariest turns I've ever made, but I really started digging it," says Zell of her first hardboot experience. She was racing by the next season.

It wasn't until she was training for the '98 Olympics that the ghosts from ski racing started creeping out of the closet, hell-bent on keeping her off the podium. "I really wanted to do well, and I knew that I had it in me, but everything from ski racing... all the old conditioning, and the stress and the pressure, everything came back to me. And I think I did a pretty good job of fighting it off, but I wasn't there, so obviously not good enough of a job."

This season, Zell competed in the Gravity Games, where she won the big mountain snowboarding event, and the X Games, where she took 6th in the Snowboarder X. She'll be heading to Verbier, France, for an extreme contest and hopes to also travel to Alaska to compete in the King of the Hill contest. She signed on with Nike last season and spent part of the early season off the snow, visiting Niketown locations on a "Road to the X Games" promotion tour that included a stop in La La Land.

"I got to go to Beverly Hills. Quite interesting. Small crowd, but very interested. I'd rather have a small interested crowd than a large, not interested crowd. I think they're slightly intrigued with us, but mostly people come because they want the free stuff."

Also in the works for Zell is a website, Overzellous.com, which she is launching soon. "I want it to be different. Random. Entertaining," says Zell. If it's anything like her riding, it'll more than likely be pretty impressive.

— Mary Catherine O'Connor, MountainZone.com Staff