Valerie Arcara became a skier at the age of 2, a love she had passed down from her father.
” I have no recollection of not being a skier”, she said. Because he’s the one who raised me with it, I give him credit for everything about riding.
Arcara claims that her father also lives vicariously through her snowboarding exploits, including being in front of the camera rather than just in front of it. He says he is slower than he was when he was.
Arcara did n’t have the long or large seasons skiers have in the West because of growing up in New York City and skiing in the Catskills.
She relocated to Colorado in 2014 to study at the University of Colorado Boulder, where she replaced skiing for 40 to 60 weeks a year by traveling 40 to 60 weeks a year.
As a child, Arcara described her skiing style as good, and she certainly worked hard to have really clear technique and form, with moguls and technological terrain being her favorites to mountain on. ” I love strong trees, limited chutes and lots of spots”.
After school, Arcara came out as a trans woman in fall 2020. However, she had a dozen physical experiences while skipping while still in college.
” It ( college years ) was kind of the only time I ever felt at ease in my body before transitioning,” Arcara said,” just because it had such a transcendental quality to it when you really get into a really good rhythm with it (skiing )”.
As Arcara was in her pre-transitional step, she skied to cope with gender dysphoria. However, she just had a dozen ski friends at the time because she was a fairly shy person at the time. Arcara skied piano for about 22-thirds of the time in those days.
But she made up for what Arcara lacked in connection and ski companions with a lot of desire to go out and snow as much as she could.
After starting her transition in the winter of 2022, Arcara started meeting other transgender athletes on Instagram. She discovered a lot of athletes who were just like her through the profile.
” I met a few people through the accounts, which was great because I started meeting people and feeling more sociable when I was a year into the transition,” she said.
After losing interest in the idea of becoming an art teacher when she graduated, Arcara even made a second change in her career, moving to Durango for plane trip class.
Living in rural southern Colorado can be a lonely mission, as Arcara mentioned.
Although there are n’t many queers ski in Durango, Colorado, it’s great that they have the internet and skiing as things that could serve as a sort of a connector for me to those who do, she said.
But as hard as living in rural southern Colorado is, Arcara found another trans skier, Cadence Sweetser, through the website link, who stirred Arcara’s curiosity in being a part of the all- women mountain film” Advice for Girls”.
Sweetser contacted the producers of” Advice for Girls” to inquire if trans people, not only women, could be in the movie. The producers said yes, but Sweetser did n’t want to be the only one. So she reached up to Arcara and asked to be a Sweetser in the film.
There “really was n’t any precedent for us ( transgender people ), and it had n’t been something we had foreseen for ourselves,” Arcara said, noting that she thought the ski film industry might not have much room for transgender people yet.
Other northern Colorado production companies are producing merely women-starring ski and outside movies, just like Afuera Productions, an all-female production company.
Arcara remarked,” This is a great option for us to open the door for another people.” Despite my sex, there are many people who are likely more brilliant than I am. However, I want to open the door for them.
Openness and chance serve as a catalyst for her entry into the snow industry, which has been the driving force behind her decision to enter.
” It’s a good start”, she said of her and Sweetser being in” Advice for Girls”, but” there’s so much more to talk about, get out there for ( trans people ) with what all the other skiers ( cis- genders, straight and male skiers ) enjoy now”.
Future-oriented helicopter piloting
” What’s it like being in a helicopter”? Arcara responded to a question about how she fell in love with flying aircraft.
Her father bought her a Microsoft flight simulator video game when Arcara was 8 years old, sparking her interest in aviation.
” Flying a helicopter, especially when you’re doing dynamic flying and you’re in the mountains, maneuvering through terrain, which is my favorite flying to do, it honestly feels a lot like skiing”, she said. ” It’s a very tacit skill set. It requires a lot of body awareness and intuition. You must move along with it.
Helicopter jobs are in demand, have multiple paths within the profession for growth, and can be performed globally.
” Once you’re experienced enough after a few years, ( piloting ) can be very lucrative”, she said. Every time I enter the cockpit, I’m really happy to be there, according to the pilot.
Arcara said she believes there are only eight to twelve other transgender helicopter pilots in North America, making her one of the few to join the ranks of a profession with a predominately male workforce.
Getting up above the desert
Valerie Arcara, right, pilots a helicopter with flight instructor Sierra Gray during an instrument practice flight between Animas Air Park Airport and Navajo Lake, New Mexico on Thursday, April 4, 2024 in Durango, Colorado.
Jonathan Ingrahamjonathan. ingraham@denvergazette .com
With Arcara living nearby, Durango is making the most of her flight time while living among the sage brush, and she has one of the few helicopter flight schools in Colorado.
Arcara and flight instructor Sierra Gray rode with her on an early-April flight from Durango to Navajo Lake, New Mexico, where she first demonstrated her intuition, love for flying, and skill set.
She mentioned that the day’s flight might not be ideal and might be bumpy, but we made the most of it.
After being taxied to the launch pad with a golf cart, the Robinson R44 helicopter quickly spun up. We flew southward toward New Mexico after all system checks were completed and the flight tower had cleared us.
Transgender woman Valerie Arcara is undergoing training to fly a helicopter and is already making a name for herself in the ski and film industries.
As Arcara completed a cross-country flight,” touch down” at the Navajo Lake landing strip as part of her training to become a commercial pilot, there were only a few bumpy things.
As oil and gas wells passed beneath the aircraft and the San Juan mountains radiated in white in the distance, there was casual banter between her and Gray.
An oil and gas field plot sits south of Durango, Colorado, as seen Thursday, April 4, 2024, from a helicopter piloted by Valerie Arcara while on an instrument practice flight near Durango, Colorado.
Jonathan Ingrahamjonathan. ingraham@denvergazette .com
” This is a very unique place to train”, she said. ” I’m getting good quality training in Durango”.
Personal journey through the movie
Arcara is also engaged in a new project, a film that she has produced. She will be not only the executive producer/creative director, but an athlete skiing in the film as well. And the film’s title is'” T4T”, which will be a feature length, all transgender- athlete ski film with close to 20 athletes who she’s chosen to be in the film.
” They are all from different ski backgrounds, from all over the country, with all sorts of different genders and ethnicities in that group”, Arcara said. We’re really trying to capture a large segment of the transgender skiing community and try to depict a range of trans skiers ‘ experiences in a way that’s more about community and how these people have come together to create something greater than the sum of all its parts.
Arcara stated that she wants to use visually blurry moments to transition between the fantastical and even practical special effects like putting athletes on wires to give the impression of them floating in the movie.
Arcara is also working with some industry people, too, including” Advice for Girls” creator Sara Beam Robbins.
” She and I were instant friends on that production and she’s helped me out in the producer roles ( for this film ), planning the logistics”, Arcara said.
Over the next two winters, she and the crew will be filming ski- mountaineering in southern Colorado, park segments at Mt. Hood, Oregon, and, hopefully, at Crystal Mountain, Washington and Washington backcountry, in Fairbanks and Anchorage, Alaska and northern Vermont.
” We hope that everyone who watches this movie will find something to enjoy.” In a vacuum, it’s not just about trans skiers and snowboarders. It’s about something more fundamental, something more human”.
