Think you had a busy ski season? There’s a pretty good chance that Stephanie Jagger’s got you beat.
The 30-year-old Vancouver resident broke the Guinness World Record for most vertical feet skied in one year, surpassing the old mark of 4,146,890 feet on Thursday afternoon (May 5) on Blackcomb Mountain.
“I was having these panic attacks about falling on the last run,” she laughed. “I took it pretty slow and (broke the record) around 12:30.
“I had some people to call… and had lunch and a boozy coffee to celebrate.”
Jagger, who calls Whistler Blackcomb her home ski area, traveled the world since July, skied on five continents and racked up millions of feet worth of descent along the way. She returned home to B.C. in mid-April to break the record.
She spent one more day on the slopes Friday (May 6) and her final total came in at 4,161,823 feet — about the equivalent of skiing down from top of the Whistler Village Gondola 1,100 times. She logged 15,000 feet more than the old record.
“It meant a lot to me to complete the goal at my home mountain,” she said.
When Jagger set off on her epic journey, becoming a world record-holder was never a goal.
Inspired by a sign at the top of a Whistler Blackcomb lift reading Raise Restraining Device, Jagger decided to leave her public relations job and life’s other “restraining devices” to ski four million vertical feet in 10 months. She learned during the winter that achieving such a feat would put her close to a Guinness record.
The old record-holder was a British man who set the mark in 1994. Within hours of Jagger’s announcement that she was attempting to break his record, the man contacted her.
“He was very encouraging and super excited that there was a female that would be recognized,” explained Jagger, who said the British man set the record with a female companion who wasn’t formally recognized as a record-holder. “He told me that it’s not about the record, it’s about the journey that you’re going on.”
That journey saw Jagger experience 45 different ski resorts while absorbing the ski culture in each region of the world.
For all the time Jagger logged on snow, she spent about as much sitting on lifts, which she described as one of the greatest challenges she encountered working towards the record.
“As your energy levels dip, to battle the boredom on the lifts can get pretty tough,” she said. “Time on your own is a good thing, but that much was a bit trying.
“Other than that, the traveling took a huge toll on my system. There was a period in January and February when I went from Japan to Delhi to Geneva… it was way too much travel in one go.
“That was one of the reasons I came back to Whistler as early as I did.”
With the journey complete and the record broken, Jagger said she isn’t sure what she’ll do next, though writing a book is something she’s considering. But mostly, she said she wants to continue to go through life with her restraining device “up.”
“The title (of world record-holder) is not as important to me as being able to live this way or inspiring other people to,” she said.
As of Friday, Jagger was still awaiting confirmation from Guinness that she would be proclaimed the new official record-holder. She is expected to learn one way or the other before the end of the month.
“I’ve broken it and it’s up to Guinness if they want to give me a certificate or put my picture next to the person with the longest fingernails,” she laughed.
