Why were you drawn to the snowboarding lifestyle? Did you see a future in it? I didn’t think about a future in it, I just really enjoyed it. When I was 16, I joined this thing called Switch Academy—you could get Fridays off school [to ride]. My friend Leah joined it as well and we were surrounded by good, young snowboarders who showed me the way. At this point, were you still riding with your brothers? My younger brother [Digby] was more into skateboarding, but we would ride from time to time. He’s a pro skater now. I didn’t go with my older brother Harry too much. I had my own crew. Your family is very loving and kind and fun. How do your parents feel now that their children are living the lives that they wanted? My parents are the biggest chillers ever. Helen and Stephen, they are both more artistic than sports-oriented people. When they were younger, they would ski, but they weren’t that into going up the mountain when we grew older. That helped shape my independence—I would always have to find rides because we never had a 4WD car. We never had much money growing up, but my parents supported us to follow our passions in any way they could. For example, moving to America when I was 17, they were like, “Ok, we’re not gonna stop her.” So, I saved up to get myself over there. Which is pretty crazy thinking about it—looking at a 17-year-old these days, I’m like, “They’re such babies, I can’t believe I moved to America by myself at 17.” In just a few years, you went from weekend warrior to full-blown competitor. You became a national team rider for New Zealand and competed in the Sochi Olympic Games [in 2014]. Can you tell me a little about that experience? When I was coming up, Slopestyle wasn’t in the Olympics yet, but it was talked about. The New Zealand team had eyes on the kids that were into it. New Zealand is so tiny it’s easy to find those kids, especially on the female side. I was doing the national contests and getting results from time to time. Did you enjoy that? Yeah, I loved it. I didn’t have to travel very far to get to the snow in Wanaka. One of the first competitions I ever did, the South Island Championships, we had to travel to Mt. Hutt, and that was my first experience of leaving town to compete. Was that when you decided you wanted to pursue competition? It was probably my first time coming to America. My parents were very fair people when it came to my brothers and I—they bought my older brother a car worth $2,000 when he turned 16. When I turned 16, I didn’t want a car, I wanted a ticket to America. This lady called Rachel Newton took a bunch of kids over, we went to Colorado and Tahoe. It was an eye-opening experience. I couldn’t believe you didn’t have to drive up switch-back dirt roads to the resort, the parks were huge, and it was my first time ever seeing the big resorts and that much snow. There were way more kids my age riding. Do you have a car now? Nope. Not much has changed. It’s just still snowboarding and carless, living the simple life. When I got back to New Zealand I was still in high school, but I got a job at a café, then a skate shop, trying to save as much money as I could to go back the following year. All I wanted to do was snowboard. As the winter was approaching, I decided to quit school halfway through the year so I could work and snowboard more before the US winter. Snowboarding was an obsession by then. When I like some-thing, I absolutely love it. And I will stick to it and the smaller things getting in the way will be cut right out. I went back to America for three months at age 17. I had a house set up for the first five weeks but nothing beyond. I ended up moving in with an Australian family that I met on the hill. That was how I would do it every season from then on, pretty loose and homeless, but it somehow always worked out. When you went to the Olympics, where were you living? I was doing back-to-back winters. I would spend winters in Colorado and then back to New Zealand for the southern hemisphere winter. STEFI LUXTON 055
The Snowboarder's Journal The Snowboarder's Journal 22.1: Page 55
