Alpenglow Speaker Series - Kit Deslauriers

Back for its 14th year, the Alpenglow Winter Film Series will be showcasing the outdoor industry's most respected athletes. Hear from these professionals as they share stories of their incredible adventures in the mountains. Many of these shows are a rare opportunity to meet and hear from these talented athletes. Doors open at 7pm at the Olympic Village Lodge and shows are free.

Kit Deslauriers

Benefits Sierra Community House

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.