Jess grew up shredding the slopes of Turoa. In 2022 she made history when she won the Freeride World Tour overall Ski Women championship title, the first Kiwi to ever win a FWT title since recording keeping began in 2008. In 2022 she stood atop two FWT podiums (Ordino-Arcalís & Fieberbrunn) and had a 2nd place finish in Kicking Horse. In 2020, as a rookie on the FWT she won the Kicking Horse Stop.
2022 Freeride World Tour overall Women's Ski Champion; 1st place 2022 FWT Fieberbrunn; 1st place 2022 FWT Ordino-Arcalís, 2nd place 2022 FWT Kicking Horse; 1st place 2020 FWT Kicking Horse, Canada; 1st place 2019 FWQ Nendaz Freeride 4*, 1st place 2019 FWQ The North Face Frontier 4*, 1st place 2019 FWQ Open Faces Silvretta Montafon 4*
Big mountain skier Jess Hotter had a remarkable 2018-19 season competing on the Freeride World Qualifier Tour. With three wins at four-star events, the highest tier on the qualifying circuit, she couldn’t be beaten and easily topped the women’s ski rankings by a huge margin. Her impressive results meant that Jess made her breakthrough on to the Freeride World Tour to compete as one of the world’s best freeride athletes.
Jess won the Snow Sports NZ Breakthrough Season Award in 2019.
Her 2020 season got off to an outstanding start with Jess winning The North Face Frontier 4-star at the Winter Games NZ. With the Northern Hemisphere season underway, Jess wasted no time landing her first Freeride World Tour podium, winning at stop 2 in Kicking Horse, Canada.
She finished the season ranked fourth overall which gave her a ticket to FWT21, but due to the Pandemic was unable to compete.
She returned to the 2022 Freeride World Tour as a wildcard and proved almost immediately why she completely deserves to compete on the prestigious tour. After a tough start, taking a heavy crash at the first stop in Baqueira Beret, she stormed to the top of the podium at the second stop in Ordino-Arcalís with an incredible run.
She went from strength to strength, claiming another win and a second place finish in Fieberbrunn and Kicking Horse respectively.
The final event of the 2022 FWT as the Xtreme Verbier, held on the steep and intimidating Bec Des Ross face. Jess went into the event as the current Women’s Ski category leader, dropping in wearing the yellow bib.
Despite crashing and receiving a ‘no score’ due to losing her skis, her previous results on the Tour this season means she still secured the overall champion title by 2500 points.
This marked a historic moment for Jess and the NZ Freeride community alike, with this being the first time in history that a Kiwi had won an overall title since record keeping began in 2008.
In 2023/24 Jess is focussing on filming epic freeride segments on some incredible terrain - keep your eyes peeled to see her on the big screen!
