photos: Mary T. Walsh and Krista Holden

You’re not supposed to look directly at the flame when you’re welding. It’s the same concept as not staring at the sun: too bright, bad for your eyes. This is obvious if you’ve spent time in shops doing this sort of work, but if you’re a photographer at a snowboarding magazine, it could be a little less familiar, as evident as it sounds. Welders wear special, super dark masks so they can see what they’re working on without damaging their retinas, but when you’re trying to shoot photos of the welding happening, it’s an exercise in averting your gaze while maintaining camera focus. Look toward the noisy zap of metal being fused to other metal without looking directly at it, take photo, hope photo comes out.

Welding isn’t normal subject matter for me—except that for the past three years I have started winter off in the shop at Trollhaugen shooting photos of women who work in the operations side of resorts. Women that run terrain park crews, who drive cats, who build jib features—or who haven’t had the opportunity yet to do the latter and are getting their first go at it as part of the Take the Rake crew.

Two years ago, Marsha Hovey, the marketing director at Trollhaugen, launched Take the Rake to address the lack of career-building pathways for women working in resort operations, specifically in the park. She didn’t see it as a panacea for the industry, but rather a catalyst that would hopefully spur momentum across the board. And there has been a massive shift since that first event—the snowball is getting bigger and gaining speed—but where do we go from here?

The terrain park falls under the ops department at ski resorts and working as a digger is oftentimes the first step in a path that can lead all the way to mountain manager or even GM. Historically, this area of resorts employs few women—so how to change this? Start at the park with women who are already there and figure out what they need and want to enhance their experience. Marsha collaborated with Jess Goucher, Laura Rogoski, Abby Lewis, and Chloe Butel, experienced diggers and cat operator, respectively, and Take the Rake was born in 2021.

The original idea of Take the Rake was to create the first terrain park built entirely by women and then invite all humans to enjoy riding it. 11 women descended on Troll at the end of November that year to put their stamp on Valhalla, Trollhaugen’s rope tow-accessed park and definitive mecca in snowboarding. Valhalla, especially early season, is as high profile as it comes, so impress the locals and visitors there and you’ve done something you can be incredibly proud of—and that resonates loudly throughout snowboarding.

A big part of year one was rooting out women already working for park crews and bringing them together to make connections and share knowledge and experience. For nearly everyone that year, TTR was the first time they had ever worked with another woman on park crew. Ever. Over the course of three days, they collaborated to design Valhalla, refurbish rails and jib features, and install their ideas into the snow. Creativity flourished. Bonds cemented. The first TTR park was a huge success.

For year two, with almost two dozen participants in the new crew, Marsha and crew looked at what could further evolve the event. Realizing that few of the women had ever gotten the opportunity to learn how to use the machinery necessary to build and maintain wood and metal features, a clinic day was added with two legendary instructors: Jess Richitelli out of Lake Tahoe, a professional welding teacher whose background was built leading parks crew on both coasts for two decades, and Adam Mahler, Trollhaugen mountain manager and master welder, also with long-standing terrain park experience, specifically at Troll.

The clinic day in the shop turned into a hugely impactful element of the event. The women expressed a real lack of opportunity to learn these sorts of shop skills that are not only exciting to them but make them more valuable in the field. They received full tutorials in welding as well as other machinery in the shop—a rare opportunity when there’s little time to get instruction on the job and the only access to the equipment is often during work hours—while applying the skills in a practical way to fix up existing jibs, as well as working together to build a brand-new flat box sponsored by Arena Snowparks.

Additionally, there was desire to get cat time and learn how to become an operator. Previous to Take the Rake, the number of woman operators in the resort industry could be counted on one hand. There are a lot of barriers to becoming an operator, from intimidation to paid instructor hours, but at TTR, any person interested in sitting with one of the experienced cat operators (Chloe, Harmonee Johnson, and Kryn Allen, joined by Riley Davies and Sohvi Sandstrom in 2023) had the opportunity to do so.

The result of both of these things, only two years, is palpable. TTR alumni are driving cats at their home resorts (Marsha says there are at least 4 or 5 new women operators directly attributed to the event). They’re attending welding school. And they’re leading park crews, offering instruction to bring more women into the field and taking on new roles with more experience and confidence.

Witnessing all of this, there has been an acknowledgment of the need to create more pathways for women into terrain parks and operations growing throughout the industry. Buoyed by supporters of TTR like Olivia Rowan, publisher and owner at Ski Area Management Magazine, and the work she does at Cutter’s Camp (this year, Rowan provided a scholarship for one TTR participant to attend Cutter’s Camp 2024, a huge opportunity for further education and connections; Kelly Mooney, a rising talent in ops, was the recipient) as well as Michael Bettera of Effective Edge and LVL Up Academy (who has sponsored and supported TTR since the first year) and a barrage of mountain managers, terrain park directors, and ops leads who are excited to pitch in and gain the resources to do so, the industry’s wheels are turning.

“The response to Take the Rake on a global scale has blown me away, to say the least,” says Marsha. “I knew that TTR would be the first of its kind, but we seemed to have opened a can of worms that was long overdue to be open. This event struck a chord with an audience of people behind the scenes in our industry that rarely gets their day in the sun. The intricacies of ski area operations have always been hidden from our customers behind a Wizard of Oz curtain. Take the Rake ripped down the curtain and gave names to so many faces that are vital to the snowboard experience we know. Showcasing the talents of these women also shed light on the entire crew, men included, and celebrated their work in a way that has been traditionally glossed over.” The results highlight operations as a whole—not just women—through Take the Rake is a meaningful impact. The whole becomes stronger as its parts are reinforced.

If it seems surprising that a resort with 1,200 feet of elevation nestled among farmland in rural Wisconsin would become an indispensable industry training ground in such a short time, consider the immediate, impassioned response to TTR and its long-tail effects proof of the demand. In the two years since Take the Rake began, the participant interest is so great that there is an annual waitlist. (Having to turn interested parties away is far from ideal, but Marsha and crew have sized the event to best fit the resources the resort can offer to ensure the best experience for everyone.)

“The industry-wide weight on this event is massive,” says Marsha. “It seems so counterintuitive to turn women away, but we only have so much space at our tiny hill. A lot of resorts reach out to us, hoping to send their female staff to Take the Rake. As humbling as that is, it was never my intention to be the one-and-only avenue to further the education and skillsets of women in terrain parks.”

It’s an ever-evolving target to foster opportunity for more women to join the resort ranks that requires time, resources, and dedication, so consider TTR the spark that has lit the fire.

In the years since Take the Rake began, the industry has been adding kindling. Initiatives like Abigail Lewis and Arena Snowparks’ The Build Up, all-women crews at Snowboy Productions events, and learn-to-dig sessions like the ones held by Laura Rogoski in easy-to-access locations (often off-resort, even) are increasing opportunities as well as visibility. The work of folks like Rowan, Bettera, and support from brands like Arena, Pisten Bully, and others is huge. But there’s opportunity to really ignite a blaze as more people, resorts, and resources get involved.

“When I first heard of TTR, I felt that this would be a ground-breaking event, one that could support the lack of young applicants looking to work at resorts,” explains Bettera, whose perspective has been shaped by decades of experience in the industry. “At the time, the craftsmanship of shapers and the career path in the mountain resort industry was losing its allure. We were even feeling the pain at SPT, so I knew it was serious.”

Now, two years later, Bettera has a panoptic view of the impact the event is cultivating. “A positive and supportive community can play a crucial role in fostering talent. If there’s a culture that encourages and supports women in the terrain park, it can create an environment where they feel comfortable and motivated to excel. We are starting to see the benefits of TTR across the country and it’s growing. I am thankful for the woman of TTR and positive energy they have injected into our resort industry. Of course, we have much still to do,” he emphasizes. “And we are not done yet.”

TTR returned this season during the first week of December, expanding to serve an international crew with women traveling from North America, New Zealand, Sweden, and Finland, representing resorts and crew from Laax, Klappen, The Stomping Grounds, Snowboy, Mammoth, Meadows, and more. Beyond the four returning crew members, Laura, Chloe, Harmonee, and Kryn Allen, the crew was all new and included four Trollhaugen locals, the most women the resort has ever had on park staff.

The element of connection, community building, and mentorship is foundational for Take the Rake and in this way, gathering a new group of builders is much like the matriculation of a new class at a university (necessary for the ethos of TTR to continue to proliferate). Every year, simply bringing women from this part of the industry together strengthens not only their stake in things, but that of the industry as a whole. Providing actionable experience and on-the-job skills training that they can take with them works hand in hand with this. Together, those elements help to calcify the pathways to furthering their careers. The more women that come through the shop at Trollhaugen and the Valhalla build, the more the proverbial snowpack deepens and strengthens.

I’ve been lucky enough to at each iteration of the event taking photos, and while conditions and crew shift each season, the sparks are the same (literally and figuratively). Standing in the shop—a place I had never spent time in until TTR—the women are so hyped. Every time Jess teaches a new rotation how to fuse metal to more metal, the smiles are huge, the exclamations resonant. As Mahler introduces a new piece of machinery that does…something, I’m not personally sure what (sorry), eyes light up. And the effort is tangible: Rails are buffed and cleaned up, wood is cut and placed, features come to life. The women can see what their hands are able to do in real time. How their efforts contribute to concrete success.

This year, Grace Warner joined in, learning to weld in the shop and trim metal rails on hill before lapping the features that she helped the crew to install. Grace’s participation brought things full circle even more, exposing the behind-the-scenes in a new way alongside lauded rider, as the Michigan native got a glimpse behind the scenes alongside the crew and then went out and lapped the park all day alongside them. Of course, Grace was joined on the rope by a deluge of high caliber riders once the park opened. Tommy Gesme, Spencer Schubert, Forest Bailey, Julia Marino, Joe Sexton, Matt “Boody” Boudreaux, and many, many more tapped in to the TTR park as soon as it opened. The efforts of the crew paid off for the third year in a row.

Now, the event has wrapped and the women have traveled home, taking their experience with them and expanding Take the Rake’s effects into their local resorts and communities. The proliferation continues as more individuals embrace the effects of TTR. But where do we go from here? Take the Rake has always been something that evolves in the hands of the participants, so how can the rest of us find ways to participate and support this momentum?

“I always have imagined Take the Rake to be a catalyst to a larger movement, to inspire more women to join in on operations,” states Marsha. “I think it’s safe to say we have done that, but now, we need more resorts and communities to continue on with the momentum and find ways to contribute as opposed to relying on Take the Rake to be the solution. If you have women that regularly ride your parks, ask if they’ve ever considered applying to park crew. If you have women on your park crew, ask them if they would ever be interested in getting in a cat, or helping with feature maintenance and creation. Resorts with larger acreage and more shop space have an opportunity to join in, and we hope that they do.”

As individuals, we can do our part by paying attention, as simple as it sounds, through social media, through snowboard magazines, and by sharing news of community events. #Thankaparkranger, as they say. As an industry, we can devote more resources to increasing education opportunities outside of traditional secondary programs. Take the Rake has proved that this concept has legs and that there are more aspiring women than TTR can serve on an annual basis. If large resort entities and more brands get on board, the possibilities of furthering TTR’s framework are huge.

“I have said it before, and I will say it again,” adds Marsha. “I am happy to guide and assist anyone who’s interested in creating events like Take the Rake at their resort. Slap a different name on it and do the same thing! If at the end of the day it gets more women in operations, then to me, that’s a success.”

What has started at Trollhaugen is just the beginning, but expanding TTR’s effects necessitates buy in from other resorts and other areas, whether that’s community learn-to-dig days, mentoring programs, or full-scale events. Marsha and crew have shown that it is possible. Now what the rest of us do with this knowledge is the next step.