2 Eagle County athletes qualify for 2026 FIS Freeride Junior World Championships
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Julie Brown and Kaleb Gibbs might be elite freeride snowboarders, but both Vail Mountain students have a lot of other irons in the fire, too.
“There’s times when Kaleb has chosen basketball over snowboarding,” Rangers basketball coach Andrew Saad said. “And it’s like, ‘dude, I mean you’ve got something big going on.'”
Gibbs drilled a 3-pointer to put Vail Mountain on the board against Battle Mountain on Tuesday night. Next week, he and Brown will represent the U.S. at the FIS Freeride Junior World Championships in Kappl, Austria, where they’ll join 66 other riders from 13 countries on the iconic Quellspitze face.
“I was definitely shocked to say the least,” Brown said when asked about her reaction to making the team. The 17-year-old arrived in Kirkwood last April at the top of the North American standings after winning back-to-back International Freeskiers & Snowboarders Association (IFSA) events in Breckenridge and Copper earlier in the season. But a fifth-place finish in California slid her down to third in the overall. Originally, only the top-2 athletes in the IFSA cup standings earned junior worlds nominations, but when the quotas expanded, Brown was offered a spot.
Gibbs will be making his second-straight junior worlds appearance after finishing ninth last year.
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“It didn’t do the best,” the junior said. “I fell on my run, so I’m hoping to do better this year.”
Finding their own line
Brown’s family has been in the valley since the 60s. Her grandparents, Bill and Sally Hanlin, started Wild Bill’s Emporium. Her father was a freeride telemark skier in the 80s and 90s. Brown said she feels a certain connectedness to her dad whenever she carves up a good line.
“He’s a double-amputee so I don’t get to ski with him anymore,” she said. “When I can come home and talk to him at dinner about cliffs I’ve hit and ski areas I’ve gone to and share those stories — it’s really special.”
Brown got into snowboarding during the 2018 Olympics; shortly after, a friend encouraged her to try IFSA competitions.
“I’d been kind of looking to get into competing and it seemed like something I’d enjoy,” she said. “Just being out in the natural world and experiencing new groups of people.”
Even when she’s not snowboarding, there’s a good chance Brown is outside exploring. Her hobbies include taking younger Vail Mountain School students on hut trips and competing on the school’s telemark team. She’s also spends summers backcountry canoeing. Brown recently completed a self-supported, 350-mile trip through Hudson Bay from York Factory, Manitoba. Her and seven other girls her age got within 100 miles of the Arctic Circle during the 24-day adventure.
Since joining Ski and Snowboard Club Vail to work under Kevin Sundheim four years ago, Brown said her confidence riding steep, technical lines has improved considerably. Internationally, she looks up to Canadian freerider Natalie Allport, but in some ways, her biggest role models are her own competitors.
“They’re always pushing me to bigger and better things,” she said.
Gibbs’ focused weekly regimen includes a wide-range of activities as well. On Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays, he snowboards in the morning and attends afternoon classes at Vail Mountain School. When the bell rings, he pulls out his books to study before evening basketball practice. After two hours in the gym, he heads home to eat and finish homework.
“And then, just repeat,” he said.
Gibbs admires French snowboarder Arthur Longo’s style.
“He goes huge off everything he does,” Gibbs said. “So, I definitely try to emulate how I ride off that for sure.”
Brown and Gibbs both have ambitions to continue riding through college and possibly on the Freeride World Tour.
“But in the end, I just want to keep snowboarding and keep letting it be a fun thing,” said Brown, who would like to coach someday as well, inspiring younger girls to get into the sport. “I didn’t see a lot of girls my age doing that when I first started out.”
Gibbs hopes to study business or economics and join the freeride team at the University of Colorado.
“I want to maybe go to law school,” he added.
When it comes to world juniors, Gibbs believes the podium is possible.
“Last year was like a trial year for me,” he said. “It was my first year, I didn’t expect too much going into it. But this year, I have more preparation, I know what’s happening, I know the venue.”
Competition in Kappl
The 14th edition of the freeride junior worlds event returns to Kappl for the second year in a row. The event will take place in a weather window between Jan. 19-22. Sitting at 2,690 meters, the Quellspitze face’s 350-meter vertical drop features 60-degree gradients, blind takeoffs and varied terrain. Gibbs and Brown have studied past competitions on the Austrian slope, scouting cliffs and analyzing athletes’ lines.
“We study those lines and try to base what we’re going to do off what we think the judges will like to see and then what we think we can do personally as well,” said Gibbs, who sees three main sections to the course.
After a large entry cliff, riders will maneuver through an open powder section. About halfway down the run, they engage with a rocky chute known as the “halfpipe.”
“That’s definitely one of the most important hits in the venue,” Gibbs said. “People who usually win or get on the podium usually have a good entrance into that.”
Sixty-eight riders from 13 nations qualified across four categories (ski men, ski women, snowboard men, snowboard women) from Region 1 and Region 2 based on results from last winter.
Seventeen men will compete in the snowboard final, which promises to include a fresh storyline as three-time champion Kea Chretien moved up to the FWT Challenger series this winter. Alongside Gibbs are Palisades Tahoe riders Cass Jones, Sloan Hanepen and Kai Cortez as well as Tristan Bumann (Olympic Valley) and Kaden Klassen (Mammoth).
The 10-woman field features defending champion Amelie Martin as well as the 2024 champion, Teagan Rilee Turner of Crested Butte. In addition to Turner and Brown, Willow Newton (Palisades Tahoe) will also represent the U.S.
Inadequate snow in Vail’s steeper tree runs and chutes has forced Gibbs and Brown to prepare for junior worlds at Copper Mountain. The main focus has been developing air awareness. Unlike traditional freestyle events like big air, slopestyle or mogul skiing, where aerial packages hinge on perfectly-timed spins and flips off standardized jumps, freeride inherently forces athletes to be comfortable with slow rotations and unpredictable landings.
“When you’re dropping off the cliff, it’s hard to stay calm in the air,” Gibbs said. “You don’t know when you’re going to land.”
“Especially on the venue we compete on — it’s really big — they’re a lot bigger than what we have here,” he continued. “It’s a big jump and (that’s) something I didn’t expect last year and so it’s really helpful to spend more time in the air and get more comfortable with it.”
Brown buttressed her five-day-a-week gym sessions during the dryland period with snowboarding in all kinds of conditions through December — from crust to bumps.
“You can only control so much and weather is not one of the things you can. But I’m going to go over and do my best and I know I’ve had rougher conditions than some of my competitors,” she said. “But you know, maybe it will be in my favor.”
Brown said her goal is to attack the Kappl terrain with confidence.
“That’s what I’ve been focusing on the most. I can’t predict what the cliffs and snow conditions are going to be, but I know if I go in there wanting to perform my best, that’s how I’ll perform my best,” she said. “If I get to the bottom — even if it’s not a first-place run — and say ‘Wow, I can’t believe I did that,’ that’s the feeling I want to go for.”
No matter where she finishes, Brown is excited to represent her country alongside someone she’s known since third grade.
“He’s honestly one of my biggest role models in snowboarding,” Brown said of her childhood friend, Gibbs. “He’s so confident and smooth when he rides. He’s always cheered me on.”
Gibbs echoed the sentiment.
“It’s awesome we’re going together,” he said. “The improvements she’s had over the years (since) she started with SSCV, riding with my group — it’s crazy. She’s improved so much. And I’m really looking forward to going out there and representing the U.S. and Colorado.”
