Jamie Burge is a dynamic ball of fire who rarely sits still, and she is also one ripping skier. A former big mountain free skiing champion, Burge is one of a handful of women that carved a path for fellow female skiers in a once male-dominated sport.
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“Jaime is a naturally gifted athlete who has the mental strength to charge it. On water and snow she rips. The first time I saw her ski I had to meet her.” – Daron Rahlves
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“Jaime is a naturally gifted athlete who has the mental strength to charge it. On water and snow she rips. The first time I saw her ski I had to meet her. It was at a Squaw big air comp and being the only female competitor (I think) she threw a big smooth lay out back flip. It was impressive,” says her good friend Daron Rahlves. “We’ve skied together and filmed with Tom Day and Keoki Flag for a Warren Miller film segment on Tahoe. A memorable moment from that day was skiing together down a deep pow run with a lot of rolling terrain at Sierra-at-Tahoe coming within inches of each other. Like I said, she rips, but best of all she’s always smiling and keeps going and going like the Energizer Bunny. Good luck trying to keep up with Burgie.”
“Burgie,” as she is known by those who love her, was raised in Tahoe and grew up skiing at Northstar. Her parents, both teachers from the Midwest, initially relocated to Sacramento for work. When Northstar opened in ’74, Burge’s father became a realtor at the resort, purchased a condo and moved the family to Tahoe. Burge was on skis by the age of 2. “It’s like walking to me,” she says. Following her parent’s divorce Burge and her mother relocated to San Jose. Burge soon found herself pining for the mountains.
“I would come up every weekend and holidays to ski,” she explains.
Then, she fell in love with free skiing.
“I had lots of guy friends. I started following the boys around and jumping tree stumps,” says Burge. Her antics didn’t go unnoticed. At 17, a race coach saw her skiing and invited her to join the race team. She raced for the next three years, which afforded her good skills and techniques, she says.
Burge saw snowboarder Morgan Lafonte back flip off Granite Peak during an extreme skiing competition, “I was so impressed a girl could do a back flip and thought I could do that.” A year later, she competed at Kirkwood and took second place by a half of a point. She was attending University of Nevada, but the call of the mountains was louder.
“I wanted summers and winters off so I only went to school during the fall semester,” she says.
After the Kirkwood competition, Burge was invited to compete in the World Extreme Skiing Competition in Alaska. “I fell the first day and didn’t place well,” she explains.
“Very few women were free skiing or competing at the time. Kristin Olmer, Wendy Fisher and Alison Gannet were some of the first women to engage in the free skiing movement. Wendy was working at Northstar and a big inspiration to me,” says Burge.
Burge competed for the next 13 years and traveled around the world. She’s won competitions at Kirkwood, Snowbird, Squaw Valley and Les Arcs, France, and has participated in a number of ski movies. Her first film was a Tahoe-based ski film, “Butter.” The movie features her doing a back flip off the Palisades at Squaw. She went on to be featured in Warren Miller, Matchstick Productions, Teton Gravity Research productions and “Empress,” an all-female movie
“It was an overwhelming time but I was living the dream,” she says.
It took eight years for her finish her degree in health sciences and she took a job waiting tables so she could ski. After back-to-back injuries Burge stopped competing.
These days, Burge can be still be found skiing any chance she gets, and she continues to do photo shoots. Passionate about health, she is a Crossfit coach at Truckee Crossfit and a dental hygienist at Donner Trails Dental. But her first love is the mountain. Burge lives big, parties big and skis big.
“I go hard at everything I do,” she says.
Burge says that she loves her community and feels fortunate and grateful to live in Tahoe. There is only one thing that bums her out, and that is missing a powder day because of work.
Photos by Hank de Vre
