Snowboarder makes comeback after five-year hiatus

By Somer Breeze | The Bellingham Herald • Published February 07, 2009

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Seven snowboarders have won the annual Legendary Banked Slalom pro women’s title at Mt. Baker Ski Area since Karleen Jeffery last won the award.

Jeffery, now Jeffery-Barlia, last won the title in 1999 — her fourth straight title and sixth overall.

But Jeffery-Barlia’s last appearance in the Banked Slalom was in 2004 when she finished runner-up to Stacy Thomas of Seattle.

This season, the former professional snowboarder from Mammoth Lakes, Calif., came out of a five-year semi-retirement, and this weekend she will return to Baker for the 24th Legendary Banked Slalom.

“I’m sure there’s going to be all kinds of people that haven’t seen me in a long time,” Jeffery-Barlia said in a phone interview. “They’re probably going to be surprised to see me. It’s going to be a really good time.”

The two-day preliminaries began Friday with the finals set for this Sunday.

While watching the Beijing Olympics this summer, Jeffery-Barlia said she thought about making a comeback to see if she could still compete and possibly even make a run for her first Winter Olympics.

She already has done a handful of competitions this season and won her first race out of retirement at Copper Mountain in Colorado.

“I trained really hard to do all these races, and since I’m in really good shape I thought I might as well come back and do Mt. Baker,” Jeffery-Barlia said. “It’s one of the funnest races to do anywhere.”

Jeffery-Barlia has been snowboarding since she was 16 when she became a professional, and she raced until shortly after losing her sponsorship in 2003.

This weekend she re-enters the pro women’s division, where she’ll face competitors as young as 20 years old (Kelesy Galt of Kelowna, B.C.) and as old as 50 (Megs Pischke of Vail, Colo.). Jeffery-Barlia will be going up against a category where the median-age of competitors is 28.

“I’m a lot older than a lot of the people in the competition,” the 35-year-old said. “I’m just trying to have a really good time and not put too much pressure on myself.”

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