ericamartling2
Meet our friend Erica Martling who has taken plenty of jumps on the ski hill, and next up, she's completing her masters at John Hopkins University in order to help start an environmental consulting firm to help developing nations adapt to climate change.

PERHAPS MY parents could have predicted I'd fall into some sort of adrenaline-induced sport when at the ripe age of 2 years (when I also threw on skis for the first time) my mother said to me, "Now Erica, stay next to me while I go get our towels and do not go into the water until I say so." Well I took off my little green poke-a-dot swimsuit and jumped on my brand new red tricycle and rode it straight into the deep-end of the swimming pool.

Fourteen years later not much had changed. I quit ski racing at Lake Eldora, Colo., to pursue soccer and freeskiing. That March I went into the park in Telluride for an inverted 360 off the big kicker tabletop. It looked sweet but I overshot my landing—by a lot. Despite the sick picture someone on the chairlift took of me 10 feet above the jump with my back parallel to the slope, next thing I knew I was in the emergency room with two broken legs. Bye bye skiing and soccer season! It was one of the biggest shocks to my system. I had never injured myself before, I had never confronted the limits of my capabilities and I was in a crucial period of high school for athletic scholarships to college. But breaking both my legs also taught me a lot. It taught me how to bounce back from injury and stay positive. On that note, knowing where your limits are and knowing how to push the envelope is a great quality to have.  It took a long time for me to get back into the park and it's still one of my biggest challenges. Somehow hucking off cliffs with fluffy powder landings was never as big an issue but I'm still working on those tricks on hardpack.

One of the greatest things I've enjoyed about competing on the IFSA tour is being able to challenge yourself in ways you never thought possible. Skiing has been an ever exciting journey for me and it will continue to be for the rest of my life. It is my diving board, it's what motivates me to take the plunge. The other important question to be answered, is if I had all the resources in the world what would I do with them? Well this goes on to describe the other half of my life and my quest to keep snow on our mountains and smiles on peoples faces worldwide. Since graduating from Middlebury College in 2003 with a BA in International Relations, I've been traveling from Alaska to the Alps to the Amazon, guiding, volunteering, researching and putting together puzzle pieces for an environmental consulting firm I would like to start to help developing nations adapt to climate change.

I completed my masters from Johns Hopkins University in International Development and Environmental Studies in December and I hope that I can use my education and experience to good use. I know there are a lot of people who care out there and are willing to make a difference and really that's all it takes, to simply "BE the change you wish to see in the world" as Gandhi would have told us. Life is too short to sit back and watch it all go by. If I had the power I would make everyone from students, to government, to big business, to nonprofits, to even ski bums realize how precious our natural resources are and play an active role in conserving them for the future.