Elaine Vardamis

Co-Owner / Boot Fitter / Explorer

Elaine was born and raised in Nederland and started fitting backcountry ski and mountaineering boots at age 19. She was trained by some of the legends in the field, including Chuck Bird and Bob Egeland, before coming to Larry's in 2016. She's introduced countless folks to skiing and has fit everybody from John Krakauer, to friends skiing Denali, to skiers hoping to continue despite a debilitating injury, to never-ever skiers getting into the sport. In addition to skiing at least one day every month for the past 13 years, she's a two-time winner of the Elk Mountain Grand Traverse and the only American ever to have won the infamous Expedition Amundsen ski race in Norway. She's hiked more than 4,000 miles of the Continental Divide Trail from Mexico to northern British Columbia, skied across the Greenland icecap and hiked and packrafted the length of the Brooks Range from the Canadian border to the Chukchi Sea twice. As a youth she trained with the Winter Park Freestyle team and raced for the Nederland High School ski team. She has placed top-three in numerous nordic ski races around Colorado and can zipper-line bumps and rip thru trees with the best of them. Her latest endeavor is training to become an Alaskan bush pilot. She lives in a 110-year old cabin in Eldora with her husband and shop co-owner Dan.