Gretchen Bleiler is one of the faces of women’s snowboarding. She is a two-time Olympian, together with Kelly Clark she has won the most Winter X Superpipe gold medals and she has been a member of the U.S. Snowboard halfpipe team for over eleven years.

When Gretchen was 10, her family moved from Ohio to Aspen, and then two years later to nearby Snowmass Village. During a trip with her school, she learned how to snowboard and was immediately hooked. Four years later, she joined the Aspen Valley Snowboard Club and began competing in local USASA competitions. After graduating from school, Gretchen chose to take a year off from school to see how far she could take her snowboarding. She got many successful results and in September 2000 she was invited to join the U.S. Snowboarding Team.

Six years later, Gretchen Bleiler made her Olympic début and won silver at the Torino Olympic Winter Games. She also competed at the 2010 Olympic Games in Vancouver where she finished in eleventh place.

Besides Olympic medals, Gretchen is also—as mentioned above—together with Kelly Clark one of the women with the most Winter X Superpipe Gold medals (2003, 2005, 2008, 2010). But not only that, she’s also won another X Games medal in 2007 (silver) and has been on the podiums of the Burton US Open, the Burton Canadian Open, the World Snowboarding Championships as well as the Burton European Open.

Aside from snowboarding, Gretchen is into practicing yoga, biking, surfing, hiking with her adopted dog and staying involved with Protect Our Winters (POW) and Aspen Center for Environmental Studies (ACES).