These tidal waves of challenges all started at the peak of Kimmy’s career. Fol-lowing her standout part in Absinthe’s AfterForever in 2017, Kimmy earned all the accolades: TransWorld Snowboarding Rider of the Year, Snowboarder Rider of the Year and Video Part of the Year celebrating the culmination of a lifetime of progression and an enduring willingness to push past her comfort zone. Her part featured heavy AK backcountry lines, lofty natural features, and Kimmy stomping her signature double backflip—this time, as she says, “legit” and in the powder, alongside a heavy-hitting crew including Manuel Diaz, Brandon Cocard and Austen Sweetin. Standing onstage, Kimmy dedicated her award to her mom, Judy, who couldn’t be with her that night. While the acknowledgement from the industry was huge for Kimmy, what meant even more was for her mom to know her daughter had achieved her dreams. Three weeks later Judy succumbed to cancer in Tahoe. Her mom’s passing was an impetus for Kimmy and Chris to start a family. Their son Koa was born in March 2018, and while momentarily away from the act of snowboarding, Kim-my took the opportunity to lean in on the snowboard industry in sup-port of female riders as mothers, re-signing with Burton and introducing new language into her contract that has been shared far and wide within the industry since. This advocacy for women in snowboarding built on her already strong mentorship role through her Amusement Park and Amusement MTN gatherings. Kimmy was ready to get right back into it in 2019, this time with Koa along for the ride, her winter highlighted by filming trips for Fire on the Mountain produced by Chris, and Burton trips including deep pow in Japan and, remarkably, a remote family trip sailing and splitboarding through the fjords of Svalbard, Norway. Koa, likely the youngest passen-ger ever aboard that adventure vessel, kept things interesting, taking his first steps onboard, sea legs and all. But just as things seemed to be getting back on track, another wave hit. Their first trip in the early winter of 2020 was underway, filming for the Burton One World movie in interior British Columbia. After the in-augural day of filming, Koa suddenly got sick and what followed was a harrowing evacuation to Vancouver where he was diagnosed with acute kidney failure, which could have been a potentially fatal diagnosis if Kim-my hadn’t acted so swiftly. This terrifying episode sidelined Kimmy for the rest of the winter as Koa slowly recovered in the hospital and then at home in Mammoth. Cue the global pandemic and the universal life disruption that followed. Koa’s baby brother Zeppelin was born in the spring of 2021. Come that fall, Kimmy was once again looking forward to the winter, but then the big-gest wave of all hit: a diagnosis of inflammatory breast cancer. This time she truly wondered if this was the one that was going to pull her under. But before we move forward, let’s back up. An interview with the in-domitable Kimmy has been on the books for a while. In fact, it’s long overdue. Kimmy’s career has spanned two decades, from her first year of competition in 2000 to filming parts with Standard Films, Runway Films, Absinthe, Burton and many others, to championing equality by mentor-ing the next generation of female riders and advocating for motherhood within the sport. Despite her nearly unparalleled presence in snowboard-ing and all she’s been going through outside of it, she found the time to share her story and in classic fashion did so humbly, with care and grace. The Snowboarder’s Journal: Briefly tell us about your path to snowboard-ing, where you grew up riding and how you first understood the possibility of a pro career? Kimmy Fasani: I grew up ski racing, my mom got me a snowboard when I was 9. After my ski races, I’d see a group of guys making fun little side hits and courses at Soda Springs in Tahoe. I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, that looks amazing.’ So one day my mom got me a lesson and it just totally clicked. I loved snowboarding because it was different from what my mom did. She was such a great skier; snowboarding gave me something that I could do that was different. How did you start competing? We had a hill behind our house. I built a jump with a bunch of my friends and landed a backflip and the guys were like, ‘You should start compet-ing.’ So, I did. I ended up doing well in USASA events because I was the only girl, and then I went to Nationals and won. I was like, ‘Well, maybe it’s not just because I’m the only girl.’ Right away Burton started giving me products, when I was 15, and that just kind of reiterated that maybe I could do it. My mom was really supportive of allowing me to be passion-ate and she saw my drive and my commitment to it. Had your dad already passed away by then? Yeah, so my dad passed away in ’99 from cancer and I started competing in 2000. Snowboarding became a great distraction for me at that point; there was a group of people my age who had already made careers in skiing and snowboarding—C.R. Johnson, Sammy Luebke, Josh Feli-ciano—who were also already traveling for contests. I don’t think it was necessarily healthy because I was young and we were partying, but it gave me a healthy focus. I was not a competitor — I just couldn’t rive in at vironm t. KIMMY FASANI 073
The Snowboarder's Journal The Snowboarder's Journal 20.3: Page 73
