Vanessa Chavarriaga, a professional Jackson skier born in Columbia and raised in the United States, was the first to welcome over 50 people into the Virginian ballroom on Jan. 28. That’s more than she and the other hosts were expecting.
“I think seeing people turn out, seeing people resonate with my story of being an immigrant […] just feels really good,” Chavarriaga said. “I’m really happy that we’re starting to do this.”
Chavarriaga Posada has lived in Jackson for 4 years. She became a professional skier to make the outdoors a more inclusive space and says it remains the work she wants to do in the future. (Dante Filpula Ankney / KHOL)
She and others hosted the first-ever event in Jackson teaching avalanche forecasts, needed backcountry gear and how to read terrain. Chavarriaga said the event aimed to address a language barrier.
For example, to find a Spanish translation of the avalanche forecast, you’ve got to do it yourself.
“The ski culture and industry hasn’t ever really curated to Spanish-speaking people because the assumption is made that people just don’t like it,” Chavarriaga said, ”which just isn’t true.”
She introduced the night’s several speakers from host organizations like Coombs Outdoors and Teton County Search and Rescue and shared her own experience navigating a life in the outdoors. She says multiple barriers can make people who primarily speak Spanish feel like they don’t belong in outdoor sports.
“I want them to question that after tonight,” Chavarriaga said. “I want them to know, like, maybe there is space for me in the sport. Maybe I can venture out, maybe I can learn about this and go outside in the winter.”
While nonprofits like Coombs and Camina Conmigo are working to make the outdoors accessible to the region’s Spanish speakers, Chavarriaga says, she doesn’t think that demographic is growing.
She would like to see that change and hopes events like this may be the catalyst.
Maddie Johnson works at Teton County Search and Rescue, one of the event’s host organizations and to her knowledge, language has not been an issue on a rescue before. SAR has just one Spanish-speaking volunteer.
None of the organizations involved with the event are tracking the Spanish-speaking community’s involvement in the backcountry but recognize that things are changing.
“There are definitely a lot of folks in this community who are getting into the backcountry more than they were just five, ten years ago,” Johnson said.
