Westbound Boarder

Not too many people can say they snowboard for a living, but for Chanelle Sladics, a SoCal native, board sports are her life.  In her words – “Snowboarding is just … so fun.”  And with a first place finish in the Aspen Open, third place finishes in the US Open and Mount Snow Winter Dew Tour, and a 2007 X Games Bronze Medal in slopestyle behind her, Chanelle is living the dream.

Chanelle grew up as an aspiring surfer in Newport Beach, California.  She loved hitting the tube, but never had anyone to ride with so she never really got into it.  She started skating on a regular basis in place of surfing and ended up getting sponsored by a local skate shop, after which she began competing.  However, skating never really “clicked” for her, so she stopped competing, and that was that.  But she always had a connection to the mountains.  She grew up traveling frequently – her parents took her somewhere nearly every weekend, whether it be to the mountains, the water, or somewhere else – so she developed an itch for traveling and adventure at an early age.

When she was in fourth grade, Chanelle suffered a terrible injury that gave her a new perspective on sports, and life.  While playing soccer, she fell and broke her arm, a break so bad she nearly had to have her arm amputated.  She knew she had a long recovery ahead of her.  After the break, it took her nearly two years to regain mobility and feeling in her arm.  She came back and “sucked at everything,” in her opinion, so she decided to start over and take up snowboarding.

At first, she had no idea what she was doing on a snowboard.  She didn’t even know how to carve, but she would charge the jumps anyway and kill it.  By her third lesson, she was sponsored by her local snowboard shop (the same shop that sponsored her for skating).  She became a member of USASA and won the Jr. New Zealand snowboard comp, both which helped land her a spot in the X Games her senior year of high school.

Snowboarding was Chanelle’s passion, a passion she pursued on the weekends, while still attending school full time.  “I was the beach girl [who] thought she would never be a pro snowboarder,” she said.  She went on to college and moved into the dorms, and became a cast member on a new MTV show called “3 Way Threat,” which profiles the lives of athletes who excel in either snow, surf or skate (or all 3) and also features Shaun White, Todd Richards, Hannah Teter, and MFM.  After placing 12th in the X Games, though, Chanelle began to think, “what would happen if I really tried snowboarding, full time?”  She talked to her parents, who offered Chanelle a compromise.  They said they would give her one year to make it as a pro, during which they would offer their full support 100 percent, but after that she would be required to go back to college, snowboarding once again only as a weekend hobby.  Chanelle said it was the best way to really jump-start her career on the slopes.  Looking back, she feels it was one of her best decisions, because it allowed her the opportunity to truly focus on achieving her dream of becoming a pro snowboarder.  And, well, we all know what happened next.

Since then, Chanelle has dominated the pro snowboarding circuit, winning competitions and starring in a number of film roles, one of her most recent being Oakley’s “Uniquely,” a 35-minute travel inspired women’s action sports film.  On her job (if you could ever, possibly call snowboarding a “job”), Chanelle says, “It is just a dream that I get to travel the world and have amazing sponsors.  The older I get the more I realize what a blessing it is.”  And of the industry, she expresses sheer gratitude – “It is amazing that action sports is getting this sort of respect, and to be part of that growth is even more amazing.”

Aside from being one of the best pro riders our generation has ever seen and a “triple threat” in snow, surf and skate, Chanelle is a super humble, down-to-earth human being who lives life one step at a time.  She spends her summers living in San Diego, where she has a huge garden and grows her own food, and her winters in Breckenridge, Colorado.  “To be so close to all the resorts is pretty rad,” she says of Breck.  But she definitely doesn’t restrict herself to these two, physical locations.  In fact, she spent this past summer getting her skydiving license in Hawaii, then went on to co-produce a yoga DVD, traveled to Costa Rica for a wedding, snowboarded in Canada, New Zealand and Australia, and finished with racecar driving school in Florida.  Her idea of a perfect day on the hill would involve heading up with a group of her best friends, riding powder all morning then hitting the park in the afternoon, with good music and high fives all around, then carving laps until sunset.  It would begin with a “kick ass” organic, vegetarian breakfast, and end with a long yoga sesh.  Her perfect day would also involve learning something new, as she feels it is important to always learn from your obstacles and grow as a human being.

Where will life take Chanelle next?  Well, she doesn’t exactly know at the moment.  She loves to compete, but she also loves to film, and she doesn’t like defining her life by just one thing.  One thing she does know, though, is that there is a lot more traveling in her foreseeable future.  “I have a massive itch to see the world,” she says.  She has already been all over – China, Japan, Bosnia, Fiji, France – and she loves going to third world countries.  So where will Chanelle go next?  That’s another story to be told.