During any normal year, these three women would be thousands of miles apart on their own kite adventures. This year, they were looking for winter wind a little closer to home. What happens when you combine three ladies with a shared passion for kiting, snow, and sharing the stoke with other women? The answers lie in this article!

Colleen Carroll

It was late summer in the Hood River Event Site parking lot when I heard a familiar accent from behind me say, “Is that Colleen?” I turned to see Jennie Milton with a folded kite under her arm, wet hair, bare feet, and a huge smile on her face. It took a second for my mind to catch up with what was happening in front of my eyes. My Australian friend whom I hadn’t seen in years was standing right here in front of me at my local spot. This had happened to us before, only in reverse.

Several years prior when I was on a tour of the east coast of Australia, I stopped by the Merimbula Classic, which just so happened to be Jennie’s stomping grounds. Talk about déjà vu!

We excitedly caught up and I asked Jennie what she had been up to. She told me about her new business of hosting women’s snowkiting retreats in Idaho and Montana. My jaw dropped - I wanted to be a part of that! I told her to call me if she ever needed an additional coach, and we parted ways.

To back things up a little bit, my true first passion was snowboarding. I started at about 12 years old and, for a time, nothing mattered more to me than the next powder day. I have had a few opportunities to snowkite over the years but they have been few and far between, and it had been several years since my last session. The ability to combine my two favourite sports offers freedom and a level of fun that isn’t easily matched. The experience adds another dimension to kiteboarding; riding over terrain. To be able to get uphill, downhill, or sideways powder turns is something that every kiteboarder needs to experience.

When Jennie called me back with a solid plan to get a group of ladies together for a weekend on the snow, I had zero hesitation. I was in!        

Sensi Graves       

Without the possibility of long-haul flights or international travel, there has been a growing emphasis on local exploration. This year, people have been getting out in their backyards. This snow kite trip to Island Park, Idaho was no different. Since being sponsored by Slingshot, I’ve been itching to get on my gear. With limited options, I started looking locally. When Jennie Milton asked if I would attend her women’s snowkite weekend along with Colleen Carroll, I jumped at the chance, as did Brandon Scheid (we told him he had to wear a wig).

Who IS Jennie Milton?!

My parents had a sports store in Canberra, Australia, by a lake and only two hours from a ski hill. We had the best of both worlds growing up and I started skiing, sailing, and skating at a very young age. I was only two when I first started skiing. I can hardly remember, but there are photos to prove it! The summer shop would turn into whatever was popular at the time; skate, surf, sailing, tennis, whatever.

Before the age of 15, I competed in figure skating, freestyle skiing, and windsurfing. It wasn’t all sports and play, though! Being the child of retailers and entrepreneurs, I had to go to the lake after school, hang out with the trailer of windsurfs, rent them out, and give lessons. I would jump on a windsurf in my school uniform and sail out, telling people, “Here, you do it!!”

At 18, I had the idea to open a store called Adrenalin Sports, which earned me the nickname Adrenajen. With a bit of help from my parents, I built a successful business. The shop kept me busy for a huge part of my life, but one day, I saw ski footage in Alaska and everything changed. I said, "I'm gonna do that one day!" The guys laughed it off, saying, “Yeah, sure, whatever!" I took it as a challenge.

When I was at an SAA tradeshow in Vegas, I tagged on a trip to Alaska to go heliskiing for my 30th birthday! It changed my life. All of a sudden, I was actually there doing the sports that I'd mostly only talked about. I was so inspired and afraid standing on top of a huge mountain ready to snowboard down, but with the help of the heli-ski guides, one in particular, I learned to conquer those fears.

After two weeks back in Australia, I felt unhappy. It felt like I was living my parents' life, and not my own. I hit rock bottom and decided to sell the store, my sports car, my house, and shipped off to the United States. I bought an RV and drove it to Alaska, where I spent the next 12 months figuring out life all over again. I learned to enjoy my own company, do what I love, ski mountains with no name, see polar bears in the wild, and experienced an incredible year of personal growth.

I went back to the heliski operator, Steve, that changed my life on my first trip there. He also happened to be a windsurfer. He introduced me to kiting, and we would play with his trainer kites in the snow on our snowboards and just figured it out on our own. We fell in love flying kites in Alaska, and then went to Maui together where I had kite lessons.

I had some scary moments while learning, and it took joining a women’s kiteboarding clinic in Australia to find my flow. I loved the progression of learning with a bunch of women. I wasn't on my own, we were all scared and nervous, but doing it together.

It’s been 17 years since then, in that time I became a snowkite instructor, joined the North American Snowkite Tour, and took 1st place against the whole field - even the men - in the final event of the tour. I’ve been on crazy expeditions and challenged myself in ways I never could have imagined, and with the love and support of people around me, I overcame a lot. It has become my passion to continue giving back to women so they can become confident kiters too.

Normally, I'm in Australia this time of year. Due to the pandemic travel restrictions, I found myself in Montana for the winter and took that opportunity to offer some coaching to women who wanted to learn to snowkite. After teaching hundreds of people how to snowkite in my years as an instructor, this was my first time putting on a women's clinic in Idaho.

Teaming up with Colleen and Sensi gave me the confidence to go ahead with the event, knowing I had experienced backup that not only provided amazing kite instruction but also brought positive energy to the group.

I had been super inspired by these two women, who were the ladies I follow the most in the kite world. I wasn't just impressed by their kiting abilities, winning competitions, etc, but inspired by their attitude to sport life and positivity. I loved that they were running women's clinics in La Ventana, and mentioned that I’d love to do something similar on snow. You can imagine how excited I was when they both said they would love to team up.

Putting on an event during the pandemic was the scary part, but we put a lot of time into a Covid plan, adapting to ensure we could put on the event safely. There were no more group houses or packing into an RV, we all had our own private King Suites to unwind like queens at the New Marriott Springhill Suites. Group meals were single-serve and eaten at a distance, and we all brought our own vehicles which were like our personal bubbles to eat lunch and warm up.

Sensi Graves

The drive to Idaho from Hood River, Oregon is more than ten hours. It is what you’d imagine the true American west to look like: vast expanses of open fields, craggy snow-capped peaks, and rolling hills. Patches of sagebrush line the highways and snarled tumbleweeds blow across the frozen roads. We left Hood River early Thursday morning and pulled into the tropical-sounding Island Park at 9:30 pm. Unfortunately not living up to its name, we arrived amidst snow flurries with temperatures so cold that the snow squeaked underfoot.

Jennie started our snow kite adventure weekend talking about the many different types of snow. The Eskimo have over 100 different words to describe the many formations and manifestations of snow. When you learn that, you start to notice all of the different types; snow that’s been wind-whipped, snow that accumulates in puffs and is light as air, and snow that creates shapes and looks like a river flowing. My new awareness around the multiple kinds of snow enabled me to approach our weekend with a new mindset and respect for the snow and I really started to notice what kind of snow we were dealing with... I’ll give you a hint, it was the awesome kind.

Colleen Carroll

When I first launched my kite, I had to pause to admire the stark contrast of its colours against the snowy white backdrop that stretched all the way to the mountains lining the horizon. After an easy dive of the kite, I was cutting fresh tracks across a mostly flat field. Just cruising around felt like I was off on an epic adventure, yet I had barely left the parking lot. I attempted a few freestyle tricks and after a few faces full of snow, came to the realisation that handle passes in mittens are a comical challenge. Fun, yes. Easy, no. I settled for exploring further and spent time chasing around my new friends.

The chatter in the group became increasingly energetic and cheery, a telltale sign of a good day. Before we knew it, the good day had all too quickly turned into a good weekend.

Sensi Graves

There’s no doubt that the quality of snow affects your experience while snowkiting. Tracked, packed, and hard snow is much harder on your knees, body, and back. Light, airy snow with just the slightest crust on it creates an unbelievable gliding experience that never gets old. With snow-kiting, even if an area gets tracked, you have the possibility of exploring further afield to find fresh tracks. And find fresh tracks, we did! The snow kite spot is just outside the minuscule town of Island Park and is a large, open patchwork of fields, divided by fence posts and dotted with small, undulating hills. It’s the perfect spot to dip your toes into a snow kite experience.

I appreciated this park and ride, beginner-friendly set-up because even though I’ve been kiteboarding for over a decade, I can count the number of snowkiting sessions I’ve had on two hands. Despite living in the Pacific Northwest, we don’t get to snow kite very often. We don’t have the open fields or landscape ideal to make sessions happen. And even though we had three great days of wind in Idaho with perfect snow and an easy location to kite, I have a newfound respect for the die-hard snowkiters. Snowkiting is intense.

Everything about it is hard. You’re wearing four layers, mittens, and a kite harness. It’s hard to pump up in the cold and even harder to attach your lines. You post-hole on every step you take; to lay out your lines, to pump up your kites, to launch. If you get stuck in a valley or the wind dies, you must trudge back to your base. It takes you much longer to get ready. After this weekend, I have a new level of respect and admiration for those people that get after snowkiting on the regular with Jennie at the top of my list.

The experience Jennie is curating in the fields isn’t just about learning to kite. We all know that kiteboarding is much more than a sport. It’s a mindset and a way of life. Each of the ten women present over the weekend dug deep into the wells of grit and determination to get their sessions in. No matter how stoked you are, whipping snow and zero visibility is a deterrent. Not backing down, these women gave each other encouragement and support and at the end of the day, we all bonded over our resilience, our learnings, and our wins.

One of the most apparent things that has been missing throughout COVID is connection. This weekend allowed a like-minded group of ladies to feed their souls, engage, and connect in a safe way, and kick-off 2021 in an epic way. It really doesn’t get much better than that.

By Colleen Carroll

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