It's not the first female frontpage shot, Keri Herman was up there from the US Open a few years back.
The new frontpage is a dope sequence of a sick trick being done by a girl, and that's badass, but I'm a bit disappointed to see a summer photo going up on the cover in January. One big advantage of net-based media is the opportunity for near-instantaneous coverage, so I always like to see a fresh cover shot that was taken fairly recently. Leave it to the ski magazines to publish cover shots that are six months old.