Karina received her scholarship in 2019, she then used her funds to pay for competitions and take more time to train before them. She is coming off a season ending injury where she tore a ligament in her ankle and came back strong! Here is what she has been up to this season.

“I started out this season by going to Revelstoke to compete in the 2* Freeride World Qualifier (FWQ) competition with the hope of doing well enough to secure myself a position in the 4* competition – of much greater importance as it is worth many more points – which was taking place a few days later. I was pleased with my competition run (I have a long history of skiing well and then crashing during my run, so this was a huge improvement over some of my past runs), and ended up finishing in 7th place. While I was pleased with this result considering this was my first time competing in the adult category, I did not finish high enough to qualify for the 4* competition.

Nevertheless, I had an amazing time exploring Revelstoke mountain terrain with friends. I returned to Whistler, my home mountain, for a couple of weeks before setting off to Kicking Horse Mountain for the next competition. This time, I made it into both the 2* and the 4* straight away due to my existing points and there being less people registered of higher ranking than myself. In the 2*, I had a very spectacular

crash due to an unfortunate landing pad (a rock), but luckily emerged without a scratch. This had the opposite effect as some might predict, and rather than make me more nervous to enter my first ever 4*, all the pressure I felt melted away. My mindset became: “I’ve already crashed, and I was fine! What’s the worst that could happen?” Due to the low pressure environment I had created for myself, as well as the countless days of training I had put in leading up to the competition, the next day I ended up coming fourth in the 4* competition at Kicking Horse! I’ve now returned home and gotten back to training for the next competition, I leave for Lake Louise in a week! All of these adventures I have embarked on so far this season – and the many more to come – would not have been made possible without the support of the Flyin Ryan Hawks Foundation and their Adventure Scholarship Program, and I would like to extend my thanks to them once more for making my ski adventure dreams come true!”