Whether on the Natural Selection Tour or in Nepal for an expedition with Sherpa women, Marion Haerty will be busy this winter.
We left her at the end of last season on a very North American winterThis year, Marion Haerty will be back in 2023 on the Canadian and American spots, marked in particular by her participation in the Natural Selection Tour (finished at a nice second place behind the American Elena Hight). Marion Haerty will be back in 2023 on the spots of Canada and the United States. She hopes to add her name to the list of winners of the young event, she had left the Freeride World Tour after having outrageously dominated it between 2017 and 2021, and had found in the Natural Selection Tour a new career goal.
This season, the Grenoble native, who now lives in Chamonix, will have as her main objective to win this event, created by the American snowboarding legend Travis Rice. 24 of the best snowboarders in the world will be gathered for this competition. 16 men and 8 women will take the start of this third edition of the Natural Selection Tour. The organization has concocted a few new features, including the addition of a first stage: the "duels" (spread between January and February). And the icing on the cake is that the Frenchwoman's duel may well take place at home... In addition to the Natural Selection Tour, the Frenchwoman should also take part in the Verbier Xtreme if the organizers grant her a wildcard as in 2022.
Out of competition, the French snowboarder will unveil her new film "DIDI" ("big sister" in Nepalese) on March 8, during Women's Day. This production is a tribute to all the "didi" who, through their practice of mountaineering, open the way to emancipation for a new generation of Nepalese women. Through this expedition realized this autumn, Marion went to meet the rare women Sherpas Dawa Yangzum Sherpa, Purba Xaam Gi Sherpa and Fura Deki Sherpa but also Mingma Doma and Maya Raide, women mountain and trek guides. Proud, strong and independent women. Women who had the courage to defy the cultural traditions established by an omnipresent patriarchy to follow their dream. If Marion knew that by leaving on this expedition, she would make her first ascent to an altitude of more than 6000m and that she would follow in the footsteps of the mountaineer Micheline Rambaud, 63 years after her expedition, she was far from suspecting that she would become the first woman snowboarder to descend the Lobuche.
"If someone had told me when I was younger that I would be the first snowboarder in the world to ride the Lobuche, I wouldn't have believed it," explains the four-time world freeride champion. "I'll never forget that moment when, facing Everest, in absolute silence, I buckled my snowboard bindings and drew the most beautiful line. That moment was magical, out of time. This trip to Nepal is the most beautiful of my life. From the logistical organization upstream, to the incredible moments shared with these inspiring women, to this completely new world premiere on the Lobuche... It was fabulous. Beyond the adventure itself, it touches me to see the progress of our industry in relation to the budgets allocated to women riders. This would never have been possible 10 years ago. It's important to point that out.
Another production in which the snowboarder participated, the film "LINE & AIR" by the wingsuiter Géraldine Fasnacht, which you can discover below in full. Last season, the Swiss snowboarder invited Marion Haerty and the former Olympic skier Christina Lusti to follow her in her adventure in the heart of the Alps. The opportunity to make them discover another approach of the mountain, to initiate them to the piloting but also to return on the tracks of the legend Hermann Geiger "the pilot of the glaciers". Indeed, the Swiss pilot was the pioneer of mountain rescue and 70 years after his first landing in Kanderfirn, it was important for Géraldine to pay tribute to him.