Self-described Buttermilk Mountain “lunch lady” Kaitlin Speck has only been in the Roaring Fork Valley since November, working in food service at the ski school.
But it’s hardly the 25-year-old’s first winter on skis.
Speck has been sliding on snow since she was two years old — mainly at East Coast ski areas — and finds plenty of reasons to keep heading out to the mountains.
There’s “the adrenaline,” for one thing, and “the people,” she said in an interview on the Silver Queen Gondola at Aspen Mountain last week.
“And then .. I feel like it's the opportunity,” Speck said. “My mom gave me a lot of opportunities to ski, so that's what made me continue. And then obviously, once I got old enough to make my own choices, just the people, how fun it is. … This was like, my first love.”
Another thing she appreciates about the sport?
“Just the feeling it gives you: how, when you're skiing, you don't think about anything else,” Speck said.
