MOUNTAIN LIFE - Blue Mountains | Fall 2018

74 ML BLUE FALL 2018 competing in slopestyle and eventually made the National team. It was pretty intense. A lot of the girls riding at the same level. A lot of my time was spent figuring out a strategy of where to get the most points. I went to Copper Mountain for a Grand Prix event and I dislocated my ulna in my wrist. They popped it back in and put me in a cast but because of all the ligaments it ended up being more complicated. I was in a cast for ten weeks straight but at four or five weeks I was okayed to snowboard again. I was kind of stressed after missing all that time. ML: But that’s not the injury that pushed you away from competition? KH: No, I went to an event in Pennsylvania; in hindsight, I shouldn’t have gone. I hadn’t been riding enough. The weather was really poor. The snow was making the speed inconsistent. I ended up overshooting a jump and I broke three or four ribs, had a concussion and a laceration in my spleen. I don’t really remember a lot of the fall. I just remember being on the ground in so much pain, then going in the ambulance. I needed a chest tube. That was a pretty traumatizing experience. Throughout it all though I knew that I still wanted to snowboard but I didn’t think that competition was for me anymore. ML: So, with competition off the table, what did you do next? KH: I spent two years living in Summit County, Colorado. That had always been my favourite place to snowboard. They get so many bluebird days. I went the season after the accident for a month and I just never left. I made some of my best friends. I was able to use that time to transition from being in competition mode and thinking about points to just unwinding and thinking about doing a trick because I wanted to. It was a return to self-motivation. It was the best thing I could have done for my snowboarding. I was just having fun again and I ended up progressing more than I had any other year. ML: When did you transition to coaching? KH: At the beginning of last season, I knew I was going to be staying in Ontario and snowboarding here. I still did a couple trips to Colorado because I’m so in love with that place. I decided one day, if I was going to be here anyway, I might as well see what coaching is all about. I’d coached maybe three weeks in my snowboard career at Camp of Champions. ABOVE Portrait of the Athlete. CLAIRE HIGGINSON. BELOW Kiersten Higginson at Grouse Mountain, BC. ILANNA BARKUSKY