In an industry largely dominated by men, Coalition Snow is filling a void in the snowsports industry as the first ever female-owned and operated ski and snowboard company in the U.S..
Founded in 2014 by Jen Gurecki, Coalition Snow has slowly become a household name for female skiers and snowboarders seeking performance-driven equipment that is designed with them specifically in mind.
“I started snowboarding when I was 15. I’m 45 now, so it’s been 30 years. You spend that much time doing something and dedicating your life to it, and you start to realize who it’s for and who it’s not,” Jen explains. “I’d been living in Tahoe for a while out of university and saw that there wasn’t really a strong representation of women in snowsports. Let’s be honest, snowsports focus is on CIS white men, that’s the industry. And so anyone else just kind of exists in these margins, and I was always unsettled by that. I’ve always just felt like the outdoors should be for more people, for everyone.”
For a very long time, women’s snowsports equipment suffered from a phenomenon known as “pink it and shrink it,” where companies would take a men’s ski model, make it shorter and softer, and give it a “cute and girly” top sheet design. It wasn’t until the late 1980s that skis specifically designed for women began to emerge, yet disparities between the men’s and women’s equipment lines were still abundantly clear.
Jen Gurecki and the rest of the Coalition Snow are one of very few snowsports companies in the entire world that center their products and gear solely around women. They currently offer a wide range of skis and snowboards for different terrain types and rider preferences, sporting unique and colorful top sheet graphics. At the 2018 Olympic Games, Coalition had two female riders sporting their equipment – Rosalind Groenewoud and Britt Hawes. Their skis and boards are currently available through their retail store at Reno Public Market, and they keep stock at various host shops across the U.S..
Coalition Snow previously had a seasonal store based in Truckee, but had to close up shop in 2020 after just six months due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Around the same time, a new opportunity presented itself. Construction of the new Reno Public Market was in the works, and the developers were in search of local businesses to fill up the new community space with their goods and wares.
Jen jumped at the opportunity, opening “Far Out” – Coalition’s first year-round brick-and-mortar store and taking her business to the next level.
“It was kinda scary. It’s a five-year lease, and it’s very capital-intensive. When we started, the whole store was just sheet rock and concrete floors,” Jen explains. “I had to envision and execute this whole store from the ground up basically.”
The Far Out store at Reno Public Market has all of Coalition’s skis and snowboards, as well as new lifestyle and adventure goods. “The Far Out store is a way for us as a business to actually walk or talk,” mentions Jen. “If you look at the brands we are carrying, we have a number of women-owned, black-owned, Indigenous-owned brands. We are really trying to build the outdoor industry and community that we want to be a part of, and in doing so are able to work with really amazing brands that share our values and help uplift these communities that have been historically excluded. We buy things from these businesses and we sell them, so we’re putting money directly in their pockets. That’s how you really support others.”
The 712 square foot Far Out store is home to both U.S. and international outdoor brands, with a few select items being one-off pieces that Jen picked up along her travels; “I travel quite a bit, so you’re always going to find things in the store that you will literally not find anywhere else in Reno. Like things I bought from a market in Kenya, items I picked up, put in a bag, and flew back here with,” Jen said.
But Coalition Snow is more than skis, snowboards, and gear. It’s a community for people to connect and grow in snow sports, while leveling up their confidence and riding ability. They offer an Indigenous Backcountry Scholarship for Indigenous communities to increase their access to avalanche training and backcountry skiing and riding.
Coalition also offers group travel excursions through ‘Far Out Adventures’, with customers able to book their spot on an upcoming trip either online or at the physical store in Reno. “Through Far Out Adventures, we run multi-day and multi-week adventure group tours for women, non-binary, and femme presenting humans,” Jen explains. “We recently got back from our Japan ski trip. We’re doing a cycling trip across Kenya soon, which I ran last summer, and a trip to Mt. Bachelor called ‘Bachelorette’ which is our next one.” Customers can sign up for an upcoming trip, and stock up on all their travel and adventure gear essentials at the Far Out store beforehand.
While at the Reno Public Market visiting the Far Out store, it’s difficult to miss the pop-up shop directly opposite which is stacked with colorful, hand-crafted baskets. All the proceeds made by the sales of the baskets are funelled into a microlending program in Kenya, facilitated by Jen’s first brain-child Zawadisha.
Zawadisha is a non-profit that Jen started even before dipping her toes into the snowsports industry with Coalition. “We provide micro-loans to women. We’re sort of like the rent-a-center of rural Kenya, I think that’s the best way to describe it,” Jen explains. “We loan products like iron sheets, solar lamps, clean cookstoves, rainwater tanks, chairs, mattresses, items that improve the quality of people’s lives. We provide the products to them, and they pay for it over time.” Zawadisha’s headquarters are located about a four-hour train ride from Nairobi, in a very rural part of the country.
“We have amazing community partners there, and we’ve worked very closely with the chief, elders, and other women’s groups and other non-profits there. We’ve been doing this work for over 10 years and have a team of 5 women who run the operations, but we work with a couple thousand women every year.” One of the Far Out adventure group tours is in partnership with Zawadisha, and participants will embark in a cycling trip across Kenya.