Alice Michel

Profile and significance

Alice Michel is a Swiss freeski street and park skier from the Verbier region who has become one of the key names in the modern, film-driven side of women’s freeskiing. Rather than chasing World Cup globes, she has built her reputation in all-female crews, independent films and creative rail events, helping to push representation and progression in urban and resort-based skiing at the same time. Based in the Valais and long connected to the freestyle scene around Verbier, she has emerged as a central figure in projects that blend serious rail skills with a laid-back, community-first attitude.

Her profile spans several corners of the culture. She has been featured in season edits that showcase park, street and a touch of powder; in all-female street movies like “Frozen Babiez”; in narrative projects such as “Connected” that follow a small group of women from handrails to backcountry; and in the Cute Café crew’s films, where she is both a skier and a quiet driving force. Away from the camera she judges street contests like Red Bull’s Rail Riot in Laax, appears in media pieces about the realities of being a woman in freestyle skiing and even talks openly about training and running a half-marathon only a few months after giving birth. Taken together, that mix of skiing, storytelling and advocacy makes her an important reference for anyone following where women’s freeskiing is heading.

Competitive arc and key venues

Michel’s path doesn’t follow the classic slopestyle World Cup storyline. She has a FIS licence and results in regional tours, but her “competitive arc” is defined more by rail jams, creative side events and the way she brings street-ski mentality into those settings. A good example is the women’s Super Streetstyle at the 2023 Dew Tour, where she held her own on a tight course of rails and wallrides, putting down clean lines that included technical moves like a blind surface swap up high and a front 270 out of the lower flat-down rail. Those runs did not win the event, but they showed how her street background translates under lights and live judging.

As her reputation grew, she started to appear on the other side of the barricades too. At Red Bull’s Rail Riot during the LAAX OPEN, she was invited onto a small, core judging panel alongside influential park and street skiers. That role is telling: organisers look for riders who understand subtle differences in trick difficulty, speed, spot choice and style, and Michel’s years on urban features make her well suited to read those details. Off the contest stage, she has collected a filmography that ties her closely to resorts and regions that matter in street and freeride culture. Verbier and the surrounding Valais valleys are home, providing both lift-accessed laps and town-centre handrails; trips to places like LAAX connect her to one of Europe’s most established freestyle hubs; and her work in Scandinavian-led street projects has brought her onto frozen stairsets and plazas in Northern Europe as well.

How they ski: what to watch for

In films and contest recaps, Michel’s skiing reads as controlled, technical and quietly confident rather than showy. On rails she favours solid basics taken to their logical, stylish conclusion: clean switch-ons, blind surface swaps that stay locked on the rail, and 270 or 450 exits that are clearly finished before she looks for the next feature. Footage from her season edits and street parts shows her comfortable on down rails, close-outs and wallride setups, usually choosing lines that reward commitment and precision instead of low-risk tap tricks.

What stands out is how she treats each feature like a small puzzle. Instead of repeating the same approach on every rail, she plays with direction changes, surface swaps and subtle speed changes to squeeze different tricks out of the same spot. In Frozen Babiez and Cute Café projects, you often see her take a spot from another rider’s idea and add a small twist—a different direction of spin out, a cleaner lock-in on a close-out, or a more creative way of using the run-in or run-out. When there is a chance to add style, she usually chooses a line that lets her stand tall and ride away smooth, even on rough urban snow or ice. For viewers trying to learn from her, it is worth focusing on how early she gets onto the rail, how she stays centred over her feet, and how calmly she rides out of heavy features without unnecessary arm flailing.

Resilience, filming, and influence

Michel’s influence comes as much from the way she works as from any single trick. She has been part of the shift toward all-female and mixed crews taking up more space in street skiing, from early appearances in “Connected” with Rosina Friedel and Stefanie Mössler to newer projects like Frozen Babiez and the Cute Café films. Those movies are built around camaraderie as much as high-end tricks: long nights shovelling, sharing slams, cheering each other into blind take-offs and tagging spots with small personal touches. Her presence helps set that tone, showing a model of ski filmmaking where pushing progression and keeping the vibes light can coexist.

Resilience shows up in more personal ways too. In interviews she has spoken about being almost the only woman in ski-business classes at Colorado Mountain College and about her experience coaching girls’ freestyle sessions, noticing how riders often dared to try more when boys were not around watching. More recently, French-language coverage has followed her through pregnancy and back into endurance and snowsport challenges, highlighting a period where she stayed active, then completed the Ventoux half-marathon only a few months after giving birth. For many viewers that story matters as much as any handrail clip: it shows a path for staying connected to sport through big life changes, without pretending that the process is easy.

Geography that built the toolkit

Verbier and the wider Valais region are central to Michel’s skiing identity. Growing up and riding around an alpine village that mixes high-end freeride lines with dense village streets means she had access to both classic resort terrain and a dense network of urban features. On-piste laps above town, the freeride zones that have made Verbier 4Vallées famous, and evening sessions on local stairsets or flatbars all feed into the same toolkit: comfort in variable snow, strong edge control and an eye for spots that most skiers walk past.

Her geographic world then expanded in two main directions. First, toward the United States, where she studied ski and snowboard business at Colorado Mountain College and spent time in the Rockies park scene, adding North American-style jump and rail setups to her experience. Second, toward the broader European street network, working with crews whose films were shot across Switzerland and Scandinavia. Those trips exposed her to classic Scandinavian-style street weather—cold, dark, icy—and to architecture very different from Swiss chalets, pushing her to adapt spot selection and trick choice. Through Simply. Recreation Club and similar projects based near Verbier, she has also stayed close to the idea of local, Swiss-made skiing, grounding her film work in the same valleys where she grew up.

Equipment and partners: practical takeaways

Michel’s equipment story lines up with her focus on street and playful resort skiing. In many of her recent projects she appears alongside Swiss ski brand Simply. Recreation Club, whose skis are designed and built near Verbier and tuned for exactly the kind of creative all-mountain and rail skiing she represents. Their fishtail shapes and surf-inspired outlines fit the way she treats the hill as a continuous playground rather than a set of isolated features. For outerwear and layering, she has skied in films backed by companies like Swedish base-layer specialist Eivy, whose warm but stylish pieces suit long nights of shovelling, hiking and standing around while the camera rolls as much as they do actual riding.

For skiers watching her edits, the practical takeaway is that her setup is about versatility and comfort rather than race-room precision. A medium-flex twin-tip that feels predictable on both rails and chopped resort snow, boots that allow some ankle movement without losing support, and durable outerwear that stays warm and dry through repeated slams are worth more than shaving grams or chasing the stiffest possible flex. Michel’s example also shows how working with brands that share a crew’s values—local production, creativity, community—can strengthen the storytelling behind a project as much as the performance on snow.

Why fans and progressing skiers care

Fans care about Alice Michel because she represents a version of freeskiing that is both serious and light-hearted. Her clips prove she can handle heavy street rails, creative resort lines and contest courses, but the projects she chooses emphasise friendship, shared effort and the simple joy of skiing and filming with a tight crew. In a scene that can sometimes feel dominated by rankings and results, her work with Cute Café, Frozen Babiez and other films reminds viewers that there is another centre of gravity where women write their own stories, pick their own spots and define success on their own terms.

For progressing skiers, especially young women looking toward park and street, Michel offers a relatable blueprint. She shows that you do not need to be a World Cup regular to have a meaningful impact on the sport; that regional hills, city handrails and creative crews can be enough to build a name; and that it is possible to combine study, coaching, parenthood and serious skiing without pretending any of it is effortless. Watching how she approaches features, how she stays calm under pressure in events like Dew Tour streetstyle, and how she invests in community-focused projects can help riders think beyond trick lists toward the kind of ski life they actually want. In that sense, Alice Michel is not just a strong skier from Verbier; she is part of the engine driving women’s street and resort freeskiing into its next chapter.