First Descent

I'm offbase, bound for Arctic North.

We'll be out scouting.

There's plenty out here. It's just a matter of finding the right one.

If we can find a base up here somewhere that looks like it'll be workable,

I'll go ahead and set down on the top.

7601. This is one of the highest peaks out here.

Let's go see if we can get in up there.

That sticks up above everything. Oh, it's gonna be "nukin''"up there.

I could see somebody doing that, if the conditions are right.

It'd be one of the hairier lines, I can guarantee that.

Gotta play a really fine line getting in and getting back out.

Feels good to be back in A.K.

Alaska's so good because of the long runs and really steep runs.

And it has tons of terrain. It's just a mecca for free-riding snowboarding.

I didn't know it was going to be, like, bam, bam, bam, all around.

It's freakin'amazing.

I'm just looking to have an awesome time and learn a lot...

and hopefully gain some new skills.

I think everyday is going to be, like, the best day of my life. You know?

This is really where all the gnarliest stuff I've ever done happened, you know,

where I really pinned it to the wall and, like- and threw down.

When you're sitting down in the lodge or at your house thinking about it,

you have a lot of delusions of grandeur.

And then, the closer you get to the top of that mountain, a lot of that stuff melts away...

and you're just trying to survive.

Look at that track. Look at that track right there.

It's really strange to start out as a beginner again at a new thing.

I know nothing about the mountain.

And the scariest part about it is, you can'tjust, like, go on pure luck in Alaska.

'Cause that doesn't really work.

Oh, man, this is gonna be so much fun.

Can't wait to hook up with the Farm.

Can't wait to hang out with Terje, and meeting Shawn and Hannah.

You know, I've seen them on TV and in the mags and movies and stuff,

and I'm stoked to actually get up there and ride, take them to my backyard.

Anytime you can get four generations of talent and knowledge and ability together,

it's gonna be explosive.

just to be back here with all these guys, you know, especially Farm back on our home terrain,

it's special-it's one of those once in a lifetime reunion trips that you only dream about.

And with Terje here, somebody that,you know, I hold in the highest regards-

He's the best snowboarder in the world, really.

Terje has been like the guy I've always looked up to...

because he was the best in the pipe and in the park.

He was always backcountry riding.

He's a pretty reserved and pretty low-key dude.

Once you get him out there, I mean, he's just like a cat. He flies.

Shaun and Hannah being here for their finrst time, and their,you know, freestyle ability level-

it's a once-in-a-lifetime deal.

There's a big gap here. We're talking 20 years.

I think that all goes away, really, once you get up here and start riding together.

It's great for me. It just makes me feel young, even though I'm old.

Nick and Farmer is one of the pioneers from Alaska.

They've been here for a lot in the past.

And it helps a lot having that experience here.

Back in the old days, it was free and wild,you know.

It really was. It was carefree, and everything was the finrst descent.

You know where you were going, there was no other person ever has ridden.

Nick just was all about Alaska.

Hejust knew that's what he wanted to do.

Now he's been guiding for 1 3 years.

He didn't even ride a resort ever. Hejust rode-pow.! Rode choppers.

I'm stoked just to see...

that the top freestyle performers are willing to come up here...

and risk their lives just to ride and get better that way.

If you just take it from a money aspect or your investment,

and you look at this Shaun White dude and he's, like, worth all this dough,

and I'm thinking, I can't believe they're even gonna let him come up here,

'cause we all know that people have been taken out by mountains like this.

; Back in A.K. Beautiful day ;

Remember what happened last time we stayed in this cabin, Farmer.

What happened?

Wow. Look at this view.

Holy schizzel.

Pop-a-whizzle.

Yeah, Nick! Yeah, Farm.

Back again.

Which do you like more, Hannah? *NSYNC or Boys II Men?

I would have to say Boys II Men.

Oh, yeah!

Something like this with,you know,

all these generations of snowboarders, is definitely historical.

It's priceless. It really is.

In the 1 970's, snowboarding emerged from the backwoods of America.

It was an unknown sport with roots based on freedom, flow, self expression...

and a lifestyle that offered a truly unique feeling that defied description.

During its brief, but chaotic history,

snowboarding would battle the establishment, overcome prejudice and fght to keep its soul.

And in just 25 years it would spread around the world...

and change the face of sports as we know it today.

Snowboarding is so young, and it came about so quickly,

that there wasn't really a chance...

for the history to lay itself down and be concrete.

Any town you go in in the U.S.,

there's always some old-timer that comes up with a story like,

""Oh, I was the first guy to ever snowboard.

I took a water ski and I cut the back off and I put a rope on there. I invented snowboarding. '"

I'm one of those guys that's, like, I'm not the inventor.

I'll never say I'm the inventor. I'll never say I'm the first.

There's always been somebody before you that's had the same idea or something similar.

To me, it was more of an evolution.

Snowboarding has been around longer than any of us even know, maybe over a hundred years.

I believe that snowboarding's more about the pioneers that started it.

jake influenced the growth of snowboarding on the East Coast.

Tom Sims and Chuck Barfoot influenced the growth of snowboarding on the West Coast.

And then a sport was born.

He was a strange breed.

"Individualist'" would be an understatement.

jake Burton was definitely one of the visionaries,

if not the main one to put the sport over the top.

;

I got exposed to the whole concept of snowboarding through the Snurfer.

The Snurfer was a product that was made in the '60s.

It had no bindings, and the early ones had no fins. So it was just almost rodeo style.

But there was something there.

Tom was coming from a surfg and skateboarding background.

He went about it a different way.

I wanted to be able to surf the board.

Well, surfing in those days was all about nose riding.

So, I didn't think of having a big kick on the front.

I just wanted to be able to hang fve and ride across the hill.

Looking back, it's kind of amazing I didn'tjust grab a water ski out of our garage...

and go ride it down the snow.

'Cause it would have saved many years of development for me.

It was a process of developing product that could stop and turn right and turn left.

Definitely a lot of creativity and a lot of failure.

;

By the end of the '70s, the pioneers had finrmly laid down the roots.

But snowboarding's future and its survival remained uncertain.

People didn't even know what it was. There was no instructors, no lessons.

There was no set way to do it. There was no book.

There was so much variation in where it was going.

'Cause snowboarding wasn't really a sport yet. It was only a few of us doing it.

Ah.! Digger.! Yeah.!

It was a pretty tight fraternity, and we were all passionate about the sport.

But there wasn't this feeling of sort of, hey, we're building something.

We were just riding and, unknowingly, progressing the sport at an incredible rate.

This is a map of the Chugach Range here.

The Chugach is just one of many, many mountain ranges in Alaska.

Whatever you want's out there. If you want cornices, they're out there. If you want wind lips, it's out there.

And the whole thing is, just make sure you find the one that you want.

Back in the early days, when everything was untouched,

you could just go right across the street and get an untouched mountain.

This is a good example of most of the runs up here.

Steep, gnarly at the top. You cannot see your first four or five turns.

But once you get over that edge, everything comes into place.

Looks pretty steep, that one mountain right there.

It's always going to look steeper to your eye when you're flying in a helicopter or when you're looking at a photo.

It's still going to be steep, but not as steep as-

To me it works opposite. Really?

I get into it, but, damn, this is steep. This is steeper than I thought.

That's what I'm concerned with- going off,like, a wind lip or something and then just-

'Cause I've never really landed in powder that often. Like, landing and then rolling.

Go at your own pace. You want to come back here. You want to ride here again next year.

This place is gonna show you where your limits might be.

just ride to your ability level.

Which, you're all the best riders in the world in the freestyle genre.

And you can be the best riders in the world in this free-riding genre too.

I don't know- I've never really been in a controlled environment...

where I had to watch out for upcoming stuff...

and look forward and be, like, ""I gotta think about this before I do it'' instead of just go for it.

Gotta actually visualize and map it out inside my head.

If you can see the bottom, follow Farm.

- If you can't see the bottom, don't follow Farm. - Don't follow Farm.

Alaska, to me, to my friends, is the pinnacle of snowboarding.

There's nothing as big and vast and grand.

Once we got here, we knew that's where we wanted to be. It was like, God, this is rad.

Pretty much everything you can ask for, like a big mountain rider-

somebody who wants to have a really good time on a snowboard.

There's so many undiscovered mountains out there still that no one's even seen.

It's just unfathomable how many mountains are out there.

Once you ride powder,you never forget it. It's like a drug. It brings you back every time.

I'm a little scared. At first, I was really scared.

Like, man, I've never done this stuffbefore.!

It's just such a different mind-set out here. You get a respect for how big everything is.

Avalanches are our biggest concerns.

Crevasses. It's always scary. You never know what to expect.

You just have to know your outs, know where your safe zones are.

You have to be aware that something can go wrong.

And when it does, it's usually catastrophic.

You'll never be totally comfortable up here. Never.

And if you are,you shouldn't be here, because all around you the mountains are alive.

Unless you're fully prepared to be in a situation oflife or death,

you shouldn't be up here.

You can't get lulled into a sense of anything being routine up here, because it's not.

When you're flying and you're getting on top of these mountains,

you better pay attention to what the hell is going on.

Because one mistake is going to cost you your life or your friend's life.

Biggest thing that would bum me out is if somebody got hurt or killed up here...

in my backyard, in the place that I've been riding for 1 5 years.

It's always been my thing. I feel like the mother hen out here, and, you know, I would feel responsible.

It always crossed my mind that I'd end up coming out here when I was a lot older.

I always thought that I'd master everything and then take over on this thing.

I think it'd be a good time for me now, though, to get some experience.

If something spectacular happens or it's obviouslyjust got to be that way, then I'm ready to throw down like that.

But at the same time, I'm not going to try to kill myself, really.

At least until towards the end of the project.

You're out of control.

Oh, man.

Big mountain riding is definitely in my blood.

He likes to come back here, but he'll never really ever live here.