Local Skiing Sensation Sees Her Line and Gets It

Katie Rowekamp Finishes Season As One of America's Top Junior Racers

Girdwood ski racer Katie Rowekamp recently competed in Europe and finishes season as one of America's Top Junior Racers. Read the entire story of her trip below. (Photo by Soren Wuerth)

By Soren Wuerth

TNews Editor

Girdwood ski racer Katie Rowekamp was finishing a day of slalom training with her team in Kitzbuhel, Austria when, instead of riding a gondola down the mountain, she and a friend decided to ski back.

A side trail led to a CAT track, which led to a snow path, then a long traverse, shallower and shallower, to patches of concrete and a field and nothing. 

"We look across the field to the other side of the canyon and see the gondola we were supposed to take down," she said during an interview in a Girdwood coffeehouse last week.

Rowekamp and her teammate took off their skis and began walking, worried. They were always told to stay on the tracks because ski resorts in Europe don't flag off out-of-bounds perimeters. The mountains are yours.

"All of sudden we found this little tiny cabin out in the middle of nowhere and we were crossing our fingers hoping somebody lived there and not some crazy Euro serial killer. And I walk around and there is this big golden retriever basking in the sunlight on their deck, and this cute old Austrian lady and her husband were there and were, like, AH!"

They told the couple they were lost and needed help and the woman "sighed and grabbed her keys and drove us down to meet our coach at a restaurant. At this point, training was over three hours ago. He was not very thrilled with us."

It was a diversion significant because Rowekamp has made a discipline of staying the course. 

And making it down the mountain faster than just about everyone else.

The 15-year-old enters the FIS as one of America's top skiers. 

Early in the winter, she swept the National Performance Series. In March, she won the Super G and Giant Slalom at the FESA (European) Cup, beating even male races. 

Then, in early April, Rowekamp swept the USA nationals—slalom, giant slalom and super G—in the under-16 age group. As a young racer her season was a grand slam.

"That (sweeping Nationals) was my goal of the season," she said. 

Ski Racer Katie Rowekamp on the podium. (Photo by Matt Wilson)

Taking it Seriously

Rowekamp, an only child, learned to ski practically as soon as she could walk.

She said, in an earlier interview, her dad would drag her across the carpet with skis on before she was barely able to walk.

When she was seven, Rowekamp won her first race at Alyeska Resort. Her parents decided to pull her out of Girdwood School between grades three and six to be homeschool, a move that gave her more time for ski training and gymnastics, which, she said, improved her spatial awareness and athleticism.

As a child, the Rowekamps "had no idea (ski racing) would become a thing" for Katie, she said.

She kept racing and racing, earning wins or podium finishes in most races.

When she was 12 they decided it was "time to take it to a new level".

"I always had this idea in my brain that, oh someday I'm going to do something with this," Rowekamp said. "... from that day I kind of imagined myself in the future being a ski racer. And I'd always taken it pretty seriously."

Skiing Before Sightseeing

For Rowekamp, ski memories are chronicled in "U's".

Young ski races move through a series of "U"—for "under"—divisions, such as "U-10s", "U-12s" and "U-14s". After U-16s, high-performing skiers mostly compete against all ages in International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS) races.

As she moved through age groups, Rowekamp's podium finishes multiplied. When she was a U-14, she started travelling internationally with a 20-member team.

In the Netherlands, she encountered an enormous indoor ski resort with "injected" snow. "It's like going into a big freezer built onto a hill," she said. The experience would become passe, part of a ski circuit that brought her and fellow skiers to a wide variety of cities, mountains, resorts, terrains, and runs, locations like those designated on Girdwood street signs:  Kitzbuhel, Stowe, Loveland, and so on.

Her country index is expansive and she lists them like a tour operator, "Belgium, The Netherlands, Austria, Germany, France, Spain, Andorra, Switzerland ... oh yeah, and Italy."

And while she has some time for photos while travelling most of her days are spent on skis in the mountains. 

"You wake up early so the snow is good, you go up to the glacier and sometimes we're up there til noon and you spend the rest of the day doing recovery work, dryland, and homework—it's really difficult to stay on top of school work." she said.

Dad's Influence

Rowekamp said she has had to work for her goals and has been helped by her father, Scott, her Number One fan. Scott works in a fishing lodge on the Yukon River and often travels to see his daughter race. She says her parents, who claim Girdwood as their home, were "ski bums" and athletes.

Scott has been a key player in his daughter's success. "Whenever I did well in a race, my dad would be like, "Whoa, good job. Now let's think about the next one."

Burke's Scroll of Olympians

When she was 12, Rowekamp was accepted into Burke Mountain Academy, a prestigious ski school in Vermont that opened in 1970 and that has, among its alumni, Olympic alpine racers like Nina O'Brien and Mikaela Shiffrin. Shiffrin has the most World Cup wins of any alpine ski racer in history, male or female. "I don't know her know her," Rowekamp said of Shiffren, "I've taken photos with her."

The 60-student school is devoted to ski racing, and, though it maintains a high academic standard, Rowekamp says her days are "packed with training". Students live in dorms, train, travel and race together. 

"We have like a whole list in our gym of Olympians. We have a big scroll hanging from the ceiling of all the Olympians that were Burke alumni," she said.

"(At Burke) we don't get to have prom or homecoming or those normal fun high school experiences. But we're still united as a school. I have a conversation with every single person who goes to my school."

Like many successful young athletes, Rowekamp has had to manage a balance between school and skiing, but, when she's skiing it's "the only thing I think about," she said. 

Girdwood Ski Racer Katie Rowekamp passes a gate. (Photo by Matt Wilson)

All About the Passion

Rowekamp attributes her success to a mindset, a work ethic and a passion for the sport. 

“I've been lucky," she said. "I've had a lot of success growing up. Part of that is you can't let it get to your head. A lot of people do really well and then they think they're the best and don't have to work as hard as everybody else, that they're already there, which ultimately ends in their getting worse."

"I remembered when I was in Mini-Mites I was walking up to ski with my coach or something. I looked at Tanaka with my dad and I said, 'Whoa. I want to do that.' And he said, 'Maybe when you're older.' I always took an interest and it was always something I was passionate about. I feel like if you want to be successful in any sport you kind of have to have a passion for it and you have to be willing to sacrifice normal childhood experiences. Ultimately I feel like it's worth it."

Rowekamp credits learning to ski and race in the Chugach with her success. Not only is the terrain more extreme, "you have to learn how to ski on different snow. Almost every day is different."

Though her travel resume is already more extensive than many people enjoy throughout their entire lives, Rowekamp plans to always make Girdwood her home. 

"It almost spoils you, the beauty of this place," she said. "There's no place like it. The Alps are gorgeous and beautiful, don't get me wrong. But Alaska has this difference sense, like majestic ... danger, excitement."

While the Olympics are not outside her vision for future performance, "often times they have to almost dumb down the course and make it a little easier so that somebody who has less experience can ski it," Rowekamp says, since the Games include someone from every country, unlike World Cup races which require a season of wins for ultimate accolades.

"It's kind of a weird topic," she said, "because, almost, the World Cup is more competitive than the Olympics."

Rowekamp says she's inspired by World Cup racer River Radamus for his technical prowess and for his financial support, through grants, of younger athletes.

Girdwood Ski Racer Katie Rowekamp tucks down the slalom. (Photo by Matt Wilson)

Not a Sport For Perfectionists

With experts pointing, increasingly, to the negative repercussions of a cultural expectation for perfection—particularly among athletes, Rowekamp is attuned to the impacts and toll impossibly high standards can have in a sport that demands unclouded mental acuity.

"There are a lot of times when not every day is perfect, days when the snow is just terrible and you feel like you're skiing like crap and it's not going well. And I think when you have so many tough days, you have to learn not to fixate on it, just forget about it and move on, learn something from it and put that into the next day," she said.

Her coach, Thomas Erhard, told her, "you can't be a perfectionist in this sport." 

She says she's had plenty of coaches and Erhard is one of the best, allowing her to "express herself and have freedom" as a young racer.

"Some coaches are very over-controlling, but there's a point where they have to realize we're not stupid. I have a brain," Rowekamp says. "I'm not saying I know everything—I have so much to learn—but being able to teach us and let us learn by ourselves is really important."

A Self Check

Rowekamp is poised to race in North American Cup races next season and hopes to make Junior Worlds in the under-20 division, where, as a new skier (you begin with 999 points and work your way down) she will start in the back "with a pretty messed up course". She is already beginning to train with "FIS girls". This summer, her team travels to Chile to train.

After a winter filled with travel and racing, a day that stands in her memory was a timed "fore-run" in a NORAM race. She was joined by prominent World Cup racers. "I was just going to ski the course and see what it would be like next year, racing at a higher level." 

Had the preparatory run been a race, she would have had the fastest time on the mountain.

"That knowledge was just for me. Knowing for my own personal growth," she said. "Having an idea where I am."