STANDARD FILMS PT 2/4 | POWDER & RAILS | VICE

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DAVE HATCHETT: You think it's time to go off?
Off the Richter scale, that is.
If you flashed a line 15, 20 years ago, and it's a big,
gnarly line in Alaska or wherever, and you flash it
clean, I mean, what's the difference between then and 20
years from now?
I mean, you could put it in a segment today, and a lot of
the riders would love to have that in their part, if they
rode it that well.
MIKE HATCHETT: Like, I can go back to TB-5 and watch a
movie, and I'm not trying to sound arrogant or whatever on
the filmmaking point of it, but I can put in TB-5 Alaska
footage, and I can put in Alaska footage from this year,
and I could be like, I don't see a difference.
But I've seen the stuff from '95's almost better.
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DAVE DOWNING; Yeah, TB-5, the Johan park
was the one for sure.
It still is.
You look back at that part, and if he filmed that right
now, it'd still be a groundbreaking park
right now, I think.
And that was pretty cool to witness that firsthand, see it
with my own eyes.
JEREMY JONES: He's like a wild animal.
He'd get to the top and just be like, "Cameraman, media,
this is Johan.
I'm dropping in 10 seconds." And cameramen are just
scrambling, no back and forth.
That'd be like the only communication you'd hear from
Johan, and then he'd go do something that no one's ever
done before on a snowboard.
I mean, half of his best riding probably wasn't on
film, because he didn't feel like waiting for cameramen.
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EIKI HELGASON: I just watched the first [INAUDIBLE] movies
from one to six, just a few weeks ago.
And man, the riders there were just standing up for the
sketchiest jumps, and bigger then than they're doing today.
So sick.
I got so pumped just seeing backflips off the biggest
cliffs and front flips.
Descending it.
I like that.
JEREMY JONES: Noah's descent in TB-5 on Super Spines is
hands down--
it changed what that dream run was and big mountain
riding in one line.
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DAVE HATCHETT: Definitely my most famous first descent is
the Mendenhall Towers, and that was in Juno.
We had a heli, and we're like, we want to go there, we want
to go there.
And we just started pointing at mountains, which are all
basically now the runs that are right off the road, but at
that point a good portion of them were first descents.
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JEREMY JONES: I would say both of those descents, the Super
Spines descent and the Mendenhall Towers descent,
before those guys did that, no one thought that you could
ever ski or snowboard down something like that.
It just shattered the ceiling, and was like we were all
looking over this way, they go and do this, and we were like,
OK, that's what we should be looking at.
JIM RIPPEY: As I would talk to people who had watched the
videos, it's usually those one or two shots where you almost
kill yourself and you're just totally, totally going for it,
that they remember.
LONNIE KAUK: Yeah, TB-4 was the one.
Like, you see Rippey doing that big old backflip off of
there, and it was just like--
next level.
You're like, I want to be that dude
snowboarding in the video.
JIM RIPPEY: We got out of the helicopter, Treje saw
something he wanted to do, some turns down below, and I
didn't really see anything, so I kind of walked over the
ridge, and I saw this perfect cliff.
I've always loved jumping off cliffs, because what you get
when you jump off a cliff is you get that acceleration
experience, where you're going from going really slow, and
just feel that drop rate.
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TREJE HAAKONSEN: I remember when we did a run right next
to it, like, first time I went on a big mountain that was
that long and that steep for that long.
And I remember just doing airs on the way down, and small,
little bumps.
And he would just fly for so long because it was so steep.
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JIM RIPPEY: I remember him being, like, this is sketchy,
this is sketchy.
Of course it's sketchy.
We're flying around in a helicopter, looking over these
crazy peaks.
TREJE HAAKONSEN: The whole intensity level when you go
first is obviously a little higher, because you don't know
what's going to happen and stuff.
Victoria was up there too, and and Jim, I'm like, yeah, sure,
you can go first.
And I heard Mike on the radio, "Treje, you're going first,
and you're going now." I'm like, OK.
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DAVE HATCHETT: It just looks so easy.
You're like, I could do that, but you don't really realize--
or maybe you do-- what could happen if
something went wrong.
And that's when you watch the bail segments, and you watch
Tom tumble through rocks, or some of Jeremy's close calls,
and you really, really realize what could happen if you hook
an edge in the chute or a rock line.
And all it takes is one tumble onto a rock and you're toast.
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TREJE HAAKONSEN: You'll show a video, and people would just
be, like, oh, dude, I would have done that, or I would
have went there, I would have done that.
You're like, dude, you got no idea what it looks like when
you're riding down that.
You're like either scared as shit or you just forget where
you're at, and it freaks you out.
And then everybody's like, oh, dude, you're just riding
along, it doesn't mean anything.
It's like, dude, you have no idea what it takes to friggin'
do that stuff.
It gets gnarly.
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JEREMY JONES: The thing with riding these serious lines is
crew is everything, and Mike and Dave are some of the best,
most experienced guys in the mountains in the world.
So when I'm on a line and need to get advice, I can call up
the cameramen, and they're giving me world class,
on-point feedback.
MIKE HATCHETT: Even me, I'll let my guard down, you know?
Just not thinking, hey, is that guy in the right spot to
respond to a rescue or whatever, you know?
You see people, and there's just three dudes on the slope
at the same time, and that guy's in the way of the abbey,
and there's some guy standing on the cornice, and that guy's
snowmobiling here.
And they're just like, dude, what if something
happens, you know?
Is anyone ready?
Is anyone even paying attention here?
JIM RIPPEY: They take the back country seriously.
They assess the snow conditions, and Mike has
always taken that very serious, way more
serious than I did.
There was a lot of times where Mike and I would almost butt
heads because I'm, like, let me do this, and he'd be, like,
no, it's not safe.
JEREMY JONES: I'll watch a kid be lining up a gap or
something, and I've seen them time and again be,
like, you know what?
I haven't seen enough out of you that tells me that you're
going to make that gap.
You came up short on this jump, you overshot this jump,
and there's a five-foot sweet spot, and if you don't get it,
you're going to hurt yourself.
I'm not shooting it.
DAVE HATCHETT: I've definitely seen and witnessed a lot of
really close calls with me filming other riders with
trees that have been way too close for comfort.
TOM BURT: We were trying this follow cam shot through this
little slot rock, but it had a little wave in it.
It's a wind wave, but it was almost like a kicker.
DAVE HATCHETT: We saw a little wind drift at the bottom, and
we threw snowballs at it, and it seemed soft.
The snowballs disappeared, and we all agreed it
looked like it was OK.
There was a tree kind of in the fall line to the right,
but we all thought we'll just hit that little snow drift,
and we'll just ride right over it.
TOM BURT: So I went through, and when I hit that lip, I got
bucked, but when he hit it, he was trying to stay with the
camera, and he got whipped around and lost his edge, and
then he slid down the hill and slammed this
tree that was there.
DAVE HATCHETT: He must have missed the tree by two to six
inches, maybe.
I just grazed the tree with the tail of my snowboard, kind
of sliding butt-first down the hill.
Luckily, that's how I hit it, tail-first, and it was
actually enough force to break my femur.
And it broke my femur and my hips, so of course I was
completely out that year.
And it was definitely a pretty big blow to me.
I mean, physically it was an insane injury
to come back from.
And after that, I wanted to come back, and I wanted to do
everything I was doing before, but by the time I came back
from the injury, it was another year, and then another
year after that to even be 100% again.
And at that point, I was a couple years older, and I just
kind of realized some things.
I kind of lost the desire after that.
Definitely I would say that, in a sense, breaking my femur
put an end to my snowboard career.
So, definitely, trees don't move when you hit them.
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