WORLD CHAMPION EXTREME SNOWBOARDER 

Former world champion snowboarder Morgan Lafonte learned to ski at Nubs Nob, near Harbor Springs, but it wasn’t until she was introduced to the nascent sport of snowboarding in Colorado that she found her metier on the slopes. By the late 1980s, Morgan was breaking all the rules as the one of the world’s few women extreme snowboarders. 

 

In a decade, she managed to rack up an impressive — and lengthy — list of accomplishments: She was the national and the female world champion extreme snowboarder in 1993 and 1995. Her colorful thrift store skiwear and her giant flips — she is widely considered to be the first woman snowboarder to nail a double back flip — made her a standout on the slopes. She’s tackled remote and dangerous peaks around the world; she’s jumped out of a helicopter hovering precariously on one skid. She’s been featured in Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar, on MTV, and in many films; she was featured in commercials for Mountain Dew and Minute Maid; she has had a K2 snowboard marketed in her name; she was the featured expert on Chevy Truck Ski World with Bob Beattie. And — no surprise — in 1999 she was the focus of an NBC Dateline segment about adrenaline junkies.