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Riding the high life suits her slopestyle

Gretchen Bleiler's career has grown beyond halfpipes

ByBrian Metzler, Special to the Rocky

Published April 24, 2007 at midnight

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Success as a pro snowboarder has afforded Gretchen Bleiler a lot of unique opportunities.

Aside from traveling all over the world to compete in halfpipe and slopestyle events, she also has thrown out the first pitch at a Rockies game, waved the starting flag at the Daytona 500, modeled for magazines and made a cameo appearance in the NBC show Las Vegas.

She also has appeared on Today, Good Morning America and The Tonight Show and been featured in ad campaigns for Oakley, K2, 24-Hour Fitness and the Winter X Games.

But the gorgeous and gregarious blonde also is a tough-as-nails competitor with a relentless work ethic.

"Being a pro snowboarder is an amazing life. I can't imagine any other life," she said. "But I've worked (hard) to get it, too. When you're a professional snowboarder, your job is to go out there every single day and push yourself past your comfort zone. And basically that means scaring yourself every single day and riding in conditions you don't necessarily want to ride in."

She regularly does photo shoots for her sponsors and has served as a consultant for a soon-to-be-released graphic novel about a Winter X Games snowboarder who also rides motorcycles, goes skydiving and competes in street luge.

"It's been fun to be involved with something like that, something totally different," she said. "Part of being a pro athlete is taking care of the whole business side as well, trying to take advantage of opportunities and make the most of the window and of this career. It's not all luxury and a fabulous lifestyle, but it is an amazing one and I wouldn't trade it for anything else."

In a nutshell

• Name: Gretchen Bleiler. • Age: 26.

• Primary sport: Snowboarding.

• Home: Aspen.

• Originally from: Toledo, Ohio.

• Amazing feats:

Won two superpipe gold medals at the Winter X Games.

Won a silver medal in the halfpipe at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy.

Was the first female rider to land a Crippler 540 (an inverted 1 1/2 spin) and one of the first to land a 900 (2 1/2 spins) and a Michalchuk (an off-axis spinning back flip).

Won a World Cup event in March in Lake Placid, N.Y.

Finished runner-up at the 25th annual U.S. Open in Stratton, Vt.

• Other passions: Enjoys mountain biking, surfing, interior design and fashion and is passionate about fighting global warming.In her own words

• On starting over: "For me, moving to Aspen from Ohio when I was 10 was just amazing. In Ohio, I was kind of a country-club girl. I was on the swimming and diving team and played tennis and golf. But the first school year in Aspen, our school went on an outdoor education trip that included climbing up mountains and camping in tents. I had never done anything like that before, so it definitely changed my life. It was just a totally different set of opportunities and a completely different lifestyle."