Ski Mountaineer
Kit Deslauriers
Jackson, Wyoming
When Kit DesLauriers skied Mt. Everest in 2006, she became the first person in the world to ski the 7 Summits, meaning she skied from the summit of the highest mountain on each of the seven continents. The 50-year-old mother of two is also the first female to win back-to-back Freeride World Tour championships, solo the Grand Teton (in between coaching soccer practice and picking her daughters up from school), ski the Polish Glacier on Aconcagua and make a complete ski descent of Vinson Massif, the highest mountain in Antarctica, among other feats. Beyond the 7 Summits, Kit has skied first descents in Alaska’s Brooks Range, has explored and helped preserve the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and was named a National Geographic Adventurer of the Year.
Kit grew up skiing in New England (her grandfather built the first chairlift at Vermont’s Stowe Mountain Resort). She graduated from the University of Arizona with a degree in environmental political science, where she took up trail running and rock climbing and earned a scholarship from the National Outdoor Leadership School to spend a semester in Alaska. After a decade in Telluride, Colorado, working on ski patrol at Telluride Ski Resort and with the elite San Miguel County Search and Rescue Team, she moved to the Tetons, where she lives today. While standing atop a peak in Sikkim, India in 1998, Kit decided she wanted to be a ski mountaineer and while competing on the freeskiing circuit, she formed the idea to climb and ski the highest peaks in the world.
Kit remains at the forefront of ski mountaineering, leading expeditions, skiing high peaks, protecting wild spaces and raising two daughters to accomplish anything they set their minds to.
Why TNF?
Kit is one of the world’s top ski mountaineers, credited with a list of first descents, including the Seven Summits. She is on the American Alpine Club Board of Directors, the Alaska Wilderness League Board of Directors and part of the Protect Our Winters Riders Alliance.
Accomplishments:
- First person to ski from all Seven Summits
- First woman to ski from the summit of Everest
- First female ski descent of Vinson Massif, Antarctica (16,067 ft.)
- First ski descent of the highest peak in the Brooks Range (AK), Mt Isto
- First female solo ski descents of Grand Teton and Gannett Peak, highest in Wyoming
- First female ski descent Mt. Aspiring, New Zealand
- 2-time Freeskiing World Tour Women’s Champion
- National Geographic Adventurer of the Year, 2015
- Author of Higher Love: Skiing the Seven Summits
- Intermountain Ski Hall of Fame, member