CONWAY — With slopes ranging from 40 to 55 degrees, Tuckerman Ravine on Mount Washington was a great training ground for Caite Zeliff, who graduated to even steeper slopes and in doing so, to being featured in films by the legendary Warren Miller.
Now a resident of Girdwood, Alaska, Zeliff, 29, returned home recently to give the keynote speech at the Mt. Washington Backcountry Ski Festival.
By her count, Zeliff has skied on five continents, and as a woman, has been “breaking glass ceilings” in the sport of big-mountain skiing, where the challenge is not beating a competitor, she said during an interview at Cranmore Mountain Resorts, but to simply survive, occasionally while also making a movie.
Low key and modest, Zeliff’s petite size belies her accomplishments.
“Yeah, I am a professional big-mountain skier,” she said, explaining that the sport of which she is at the top of, requires “extreme skiing, jumping off cliffs and jumping out of helicopters.”
She has appeared in six films about extreme skiing, and is working on three more.
In 2021, Zeliff said she learned some important lessons about ego and safety after she “tomahawked” 2,000 feet down a mountain.
“My trajectory is getting more into expeditions, mountaineering and exploring deeper” into nature, she said, rather than extreme skiing. Working with some of the biggest brands in the ski industry, among them Oakley, Blizzard, Technica and The North Face, her goal is to “ski for a lifetime” and to share that experience with a like-minded community.
Zeliff is a fourth-generation North Conway native.
For a time, her dad, Will, owned Yesterday’s restaurant in Jackson, while her mom, Victoria Blake, who still lives in the Mount Washington Valley, is the director of sales and marketing at Tuckerman Brewing. Her late paternal grandfather, Bill Zeliff, served three terms representing New Hampshire’s 1st Congressional District and also owned the Christmas Farm Inn.
Zeliff learned how to ski through the Eastern Slope Ski Club, which since 1935, has offered skiing opportunities to elementary-school students who might not otherwise have them. She honed her alpine skills at Cranmore Mountain Resort and was a Division 1 ski racer at the University of New Hampshire.
As a professional big-mountain skier for the past eight years, Zeliff has participated in the Freeride World Qualifying Tour and recorded consecutive wins at the “King and Queens of Corbets” competition in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
She has also worked on films with Miller, Teton Gravity Research, and, most recently, Matchstick Productions.
Asked about her overall life experience, Zeliff agreed that “It’s been pretty damn romantic and exotic” to do what she does. There have been some challenges, she conceded, “but I’m definitely living the dream.”
That dream includes the ability to earn a decent wage, she said, qualifying, however, that the fun/money ratio is “more fun, some money.”
But being outdoors also brings her a personal peace, which she said anyone can also find there.
She said she was thrilled to be back home, if only for a little while, adding she was honored to have been asked to speak to attendees at the Backcountry Ski Festival.
Now in its eighth year, the festival is presented in partnership with Backyard Concept and Synnott Mountain Guides, with The North Face as title sponsor.
Sam Trombley, who is the marketing manager at Conway-based Backyard Concept, said having Zeliff at the festival is a big deal.
“A lot of people in the valley are stoked to see a local go so far,” said Trombley.
Tyler Ray, who is the festival director and principal of Backyard Concept, said Zeliff epitomizes the growing popularity of backcountry skiing.
Also the director of the Granite Outdoor Alliance, which is “a membership-based advocacy nonprofit organization supporting the New Hampshire outdoor industry,“ Ray said the Mount Washington Valley has always had a great mix of alpine and cross-country skiing to which backcountry skiing, both above and below the tree line, has been added.
The three disciplines are “an economic driver” and events like the Mt. Washington Backcountry Ski Festival promote the brands and products that skiers use, said Ray.
“The backcountry segment has trended upwards significantly,” Ray noted, with the segment seeing up to three-digit growth annually and having “really become a mainstream part of the sport of skiing.”
Backcountry skiers are passionate about the environment and strong advocates for it, said Ray, who called Zeliff’s life “a cool story and an outgrowth of the Mount Washington Valley. She’s a great ambassador. We couldn’t have asked for a better backcountry skier than Caite.”
