it’s about testing your abilities and testing your comfort zone. Sometimes you’re not always going to be 100% in control

It’s always an honour to have the opening segment in a ski movie, especially when you’re a girl. Angel Collinson has managed to get a double whammy, bagging a rare opening segment in the new Teton Gravity Research film, Almost Ablaze, as well as being the first woman EVER to do so for that company. She must be pretty stoked to be the first female opener in TGR’s twenty year history, and we’re stoked for her, too!

Angel has rocketed to the top spot of female freeriding over the past few years with her effortless style, speed and serious ability! Check out her episode of TGR’s Behind the Line, above, impressing the guys and smashing some scary looking faces in Alaska.

Growing up in Snowbird,  Utah, Angel raced internationally until she was 18, then set her sights on the Freeride world Tour. Last year she spent most of her time filming; as well as opening Almost Ablaze, she also appears in Lynsey Dyer’s much anticipated girls’ only ski movie, Pretty Faces. And she’s studying for a degree in environmental law. Wow.

But Angel seems like no stranger to hard work and pushing herself. She says ‘it’s about testing your abilities and testing your comfort zone. Sometimes you’re not always going to be 100% in control, it’s just about being in control the majority of the time’.

Watch Angel in smashing it in Almost Ablaze, available from iTunes, and take a look at her website, here.