This past January, we made a short film. There was no script, no set, no actors. Just mountains as far as the eye could see, powder for days and the hut of our dreams, luring us 11,000 feet up above sea level. We invited Ben Moon to bring a few friends, some cameras and several underlayers, and we filmed the magic that ensued as we headed off the grid, into the backcountry, in the R1T and R1S.
Like most adventures, this one started with loose plans and willing hearts. We were in Colorado for the Winter X Games — as were a few of our favorite snowboarders and storytellers — and it would have been wrong not to squeeze in a hut trip and get creative with our surroundings.
The San Juan Mountains provided the essentials: staggering beauty in every direction and wild terrain —rugged enough to make even the most fit among us gasp for fresh mountain air now and then.
“You have no choice out here but to look up, and look out, and connect with whoever you’re with,” Shannon Ethridge says. Ben invited his producer friend for exactly this reason; Shannon is the kind of company you keep close. Aside from her extraordinary ability to turn any terrain into a dance floor, she’s got that one trait everyone looks for when choosing who to spend time with in the wild: flexibility.
“When you’re working outside, inherently you have to be flexible and open. You learn that ultimately, you’re not in control, mother nature is,” Shannon says. “The elements really drive what you can and cannot do and that can either make you crazy or inspire you endlessly.”
A self-taught photographer and director, Ben (above) is a magnet for good-spirited, adventure-seeking souls like Barrett Christy. He became fast friends with professional snowboarder during a shoot for Boarding for Breast Cancer.
When Alex was 14 or so, he started watching snowboarding videos and realized there were people out there making a living doing what he loved. He immediately set his sights on becoming a professional snowboarder.
“What I love about the mountains is they are always changing. Snow falls. It drifts. The elements are in a constant shift. The terrain is different in the beginning of the day than it is at the end of the day. And there’s this interaction between you and the natural environment. You leave a track. It’s fleeting, but it’s there and when you look back, you get to see where you and the natural world blended for a moment.”
“Everything about Jackson is extreme. The actual physical geology of it, the way the rocks are shaped — it breeds a sort of extreme energy and people. And my riding style used to reflect that. It was aggressive and fast, but after a series of injuries, I started to reassess my interaction with the mountain,” Alex says.
“Taro interpreted snowboarding and existing in the mountains much differently than I was used to. For him, it's not aggressive, it's the opposite — it's very fluid and natural. The way he describes it, you should turn around the tree the same way that water moves around a rock,” Alex says.
“Yoder doesn’t snowboard, he floats,” Emilè Newman says. She met Alex in Jackson and made the valley her home precisely to surround herself with people like him — and of course the panoramic snow-capped peaks that have enchanted her for as long as she can remember.
Alex Yoder (left), Emilè Newman (right)
“I didn’t know what I wanted to do after college, I just knew I had to be in the mountains. I spent a lot of time in Jackson as a kid and decided these are the kinds of people I want to be around. People who challenge themselves physically and mentally. There’s a spirit of self-reliance and grit in mountain towns that I just gravitate towards.”
Emilè found plenty to do once she settled into Wyoming. The outdoor educator, writer, yoga instructor and budding conservationist blends her interests masterfully, and never misses a powder day.
"Out here, it's all about the basics," Emilè says.
Documenting said powder days was an adventure in and of itself. It helped that the people behind the lens are more comfortable outdoors than in.
“It’s such a special energy when you’re outside in the elements. It moves your brain to think differently in terms of possibility. There are challenges too, of course, but that’s what keeps things interesting. It forces improvisation,” Chelsea Jolly says. She and Ben met at a climbing gym many moons ago and beyond their love of climbing, surfing, skating and shredding, they both shared an interest in telling stories that weren’t being told.
Skip Armstrong (left), Ben Sturgulewski (middle), Chelsea Jolly (right)
“Sturge’s work is so soulful and full of life. He has a way of capturing the energy of a place and I think it’s because he’s able to zoom in and tune into the details that other people often overlook,” Skip says of his fellow DP.
Until next winter, Colorado.
