Audrey Friess

Akron, Ohio / Bozeman, Montana | Active: 2018-present | Known for: street skiing, SuperUnknown 20, Bucket Clips, Onslaught Crew edits | Current: Surface team

Nelson Steps, Shovels, And One More Try

The down rail in Nelson, British Columbia, was not a clean park feature. It sat beside concrete steps, snow packed around the takeoff, cameras waiting while the crew shaped the in-run by hand. Audrey Friess hiked back up, skis on her shoulder, for another attempt at a spot that could take dozens of tries before one clip looked right. That street rhythm explains her lane better than a medal table: shovel, speed check, pop, slide, impact, reset. Friess built her public identity around that process, moving from small-hill Ohio park laps into street projects, female-led mixtapes, and sessions where the setup matters as much as the trick.

Brandywine Nights Before The Street Trips

Friess comes from Akron, Ohio, with Brandywine listed as her home mountain. Cleveland Magazine profiled her in 2018 as an Archbishop Hoban High School senior competing in rail jam events, and reported that she won bronze and silver at the United States of America Snowboard and Freeski Association national tournament in Colorado in slopestyle and rail jam. Her father taught her to ski at age three, and winter travel often meant driving to events in New York and Pennsylvania.

Brandywine is not a massive western training center. It is a Midwest hill where repetition replaces terrain size. Friess described skiing there with friends rather than treating every lap as formal practice, and Cleveland Magazine noted that she was one of only a few girls regularly entering rail jams at her hill.

The Knee Brace Season That Reset The Timeline

A 2020 Newschoolers interview with Skiing Physical Therapy gives the clearest account of Friess before her bigger public projects. She introduced herself as 19, advanced, and based at Brandywine Ski Resort. She said freestyle started after people at the hill taught her how to hit a rail, and that the absence of many other girls in the park pushed her to keep improving.

The same interview details an ACL and meniscus tear, plus concussions and bruised ribs. When Friess returned to snow, she first skied downhill turns, wore a custom knee brace, reduced her DIN settings from 8 to 5, and waited about a month before going back into the park.

Ohio Roots, Bozeman Streets

By the time J Skis wrote about her SuperUnknown 20 selection, Friess was described as originally from Ohio and living in Bozeman. The brand also noted street hours, powder clips, and an invite to Dew Tour. Street Twenty-Two lists her under Montana, with Akron as her origin, Brandywine as her home mountain, and Surface, Zipfit, and Crasheur as sponsors.

The move west changes the terrain without erasing the Midwest imprint. Bozeman gives access to deeper snow, while her public clips still lean toward rails, urban approaches, and crew-based filming rather than polished contest runs.

Mammoth Unbound For SuperUnknown 20

SuperUnknown 20 put Friess into a wider freeski frame. Level 1 announced the 2023 finals at Mammoth Unbound, with Friess listed as a 21-year-old finalist. J Skis described the format as a week of filming at a private park, with the top women and men joined by previous winners and invited pros. The setting was Mammoth Mountain in California, from April 19 through April 26, with park shoots and rider voting deciding the winners.

Friess later described the Mammoth setup as intimidating and said the park was outside her comfort zone at first. SuperUnknown rewards creativity, camera awareness, and feature choice. J Skis captions from the week show her airing a jump with a safety grab during a sunset shoot.

Bucket Clips And The Female-Led Mixtape Lane

Friess is tied to Bucket Clips, the Rosina Friedel-led mixtape project built to showcase FLINTA and female skiers outside the usual contest spotlight. Downdays listed her in Bucket Clips 2.0, with her segment group appearing alongside Aliah Eichinger, Eleonora Ferrari, Elsa Sjöstedt, Johanna Sellman, and Laura Wallner. iF3 later listed her among the athletes in Bucket Clips 3, a 20-minute film by El.Makrell Productions, produced by Friedel and described as a platform for skiers from Austria, the United States, Finland, and Switzerland.

Freeskier covered Bucket Clips III in 2025 and framed the project around hand-cam energy, friends, street skiing, backcountry shots, and underrepresented riders making their own platform. Newschoolers and Prime Skiing also list Friess among the riders for Bucket Clips 4, which expanded the project into a larger international cast.

Electric, Woodward, And The Onslaught Orbit

Onslaught Crew projects add another piece to Friess’s profile. J Skis lists her among the riders in Electric, an Onslaught street project built from a winter of urban filming. The same cast includes skiers such as Zac Scheurman, Graham Gray, Aden Moore, Hannah Wolff, Jordan Cooper, Ian Russell, Justin Kennedy, and Mason Kennedy.

She is also credited for photo and film work in J Skis coverage of an Onslaught Crew week at Woodward Copper. That camp was held at Copper Mountain in Colorado, where Woodward uses stored snow through summer for park sessions. The crew hosted rail jams, movie nights, quarter pipe sessions, and camper events.

How Friess Uses Small Features

Friess’s public footprint points toward street and park skiing built from small-feature decisions. The recurring elements are down rails, rail jams, slopestyle jumps, safety grabs, wallride-style setups, shovel-built in-runs, and repeated attempts until the camera has the clip. Her early competition background included slopestyle and rail jam; her later clips move toward streets, private park shoots, and mixtape projects.

Her style is less about one signature trick than about where she chooses to ski. Midwest rails reward precision because there is little room to build speed. Street filming adds uneven snow, stairs, security, traffic, and fatigue. Dew Tour Streetstyle placed her in a heat with Lisa Zimmermann, Drew Hooker, and Alexa Juncaj.

Surface Team, Street Edits, And The Current Marker

Surface Skis lists Friess on its 2025 team page, while Street Twenty-Two lists Surface, Zipfit, and Crasheur as sponsor support. That current brand context lines up with her public lane: independent street edits, crew projects, park sessions, and female-led films rather than a FIS results archive.

The most concrete recent marker is her continued appearance in collaborative video spaces. Bucket Clips 4 lists Friess in a large 2025 rider cast alongside skiers from Europe and North America, and Surface keeps her on its team roster. Her skipowd.tv page should center on street skiing, Bozeman and Brandywine context, SuperUnknown 20, Onslaught Crew, and the Bucket Clips community.