In case you haven’t heard, Kimmy Fasani is the latest addition to the Burton Global team. With a solid contest and park history, Kimmy has moved into the backcountry recently and continued her dominance by being the first woman to land a double backflip and her transition to full-time backcountry filming. We had a chance to get to know Kimmy a little better and ask her a ton of questions. A Bur-Ton of questions.
1. What pushed you to try a double backflip not only in powder but also in the park?
Doing a double backflip was something I wanted to try for a while. The one in the backcountry was really just to see if I could do it. When I landed that, I decided to try it out in the park. I had a lot of fun pushing myself and seeing what my mind was capable of letting me do.
2. Does your husband influence your snowboarding style?
Yep, he has been a huge influence in my snowboarding. Even though he’s a skier, he knows more about snowboarding than I do. He is always the first to give me advice on how to make tricks look better. His knowledge has also been helped me develop a foundation in backcountry.
3. Has Chris tried to get you to switch back over to skiing?
Haha. Nope, but I try to ski a couple times each year just for fun.
4. Besides Tahoe, where are some of your favorite places to ride?
Japan and B.C. are my other favorites- deep snow and plenty of good terrain.
5. After some backcountry time now, are you going to transition to filming full time or keep doing some contests also?
I will be filming full time. The backcountry takes a while to understand but once it clicks you don’t want to leave it. That’s where I’m at, I finally feel like I have a good understanding of what I’m doing in the mountains. I just want to keep pushing my riding in that direction for a while.
6. 20 years from now when you finally move on from pro snowboarding, do you have a vision of what you’ll do with your college degree?
For sure. I am really passionate about women’s marketing and action sports. So my guess is that I will have a job dedicated to those areas later in life.
7. Now that you got the double backflip out of the way, what are your riding goals for this season?
I am hoping to just keep hitting bigger, more creative features in the backcountry. I want to have fun and build up a well-rounded video part with lines, jumps, pillows, and maybe some rails. So when winter hits I will just start checking things off.
8. What other riders inspire you and why?
Kelly Clark because of her focus and determination. Cheryl Maas because she’s just an amazing all around rider. Annie Boulanger because she’s charging in the backcountry.
9. How do you think excelling at park riding helps to transition to the backcountry?
The park gives us a foundation. Having all the basics dialed and consistent in the park makes hitting jumps in the backcountry a lot less stressful. Knowing that I only have a couple tries to land a feature in the backcountry makes me grateful for early season park laps.
10. What was the best thing about filming for TB:20?
Filming for TB:20 was such a huge learning curve because I didn’t work with other girls. I was working with guys most of the season and I had to keep up or I would get left behind. Having Devun Walsh giving me advice and mentoring me was by far the best experience I have had in my career.
11. Where do you want to ride the most but haven’t had a chance yet? Why?
I would love to explore Europe. Those mountains are so big and the terrain is so different from North America.
12. With the low snowfall in Tahoe and Mammoth, what have you been doing?
I spent about 2 months doing park laps at Mammoth. Just getting my legs back and having fun riding. Since it wasn’t snowing I was riding my bike and rock climbing as well. Then I decided to find winter so I headed to Japan.
13. What was Japan like? Had you been there before and do you want to go back?
Japan was amazing!!! They are having an incredible season and it snowed everyday I was there. The trip was a really last minute panic and Kelly Clark and I left the US on December 31st. I had only been once before about 5 years ago but Kelly had been many times for contests. We kind of jumped in not knowing what to expect but kept our fingers crossed that everything would work out and we got really lucky. Neil Hartmann, a photographer in Japan, dialed everything in for us and we were able to ride a lot of different terrain, shoot some photos, and start off 2012 with a lot of powder. We are already planning our trip for next year.
