The snow has remained ugly here, and shooting has been hard– on the days where the snow is soft and slushy, it is either foggy or raining. On the days when it is sunny, it is cold and blowing, and the snow is rock hard. Far from ideal! Nonetheless, it is snowing as we speak, and a foot of snow is forecast over the next few days, so we shall see what results.
Wednesday sees a mass exodus from Kutchan, as almost everyone leaves, and we totally clear out of one of our two apartments: Mike and Orry, after three weeks here, will be returning to Canada; friends Nate, Alex, Wyatt, Jeremiah, and Alex will be returning to their respective American homes; Jake Sakson returns to Colorado as well; Ian Hock, having been here for almost three months, returns to a New York reality, and the lack of his presence will be a jolt for all of us; and finally, Nick and I will be going to Korea. What?
The two of us have currently been here for 87 days– 87 of the 90 allowed on our visas. So we will be taking a short 2 day mission across the pond to Seoul, to taste the local kimchee and to allow our visas to be renewed so we might come back for 40 more days and have an epic finish to this film. A bit of an unfortunate pain in the pocketbook, but it should be a nice little micro-vacation, and a good change of scenery. Upon our return, we have a week to spend with Jaimie Laidlaw, before he takes off, the very last of our American athletes, after which we embrace spring with a serious vengeance.
However, we have two more days before our little Korean interlude, and it is snowing, so we plan to do some night shooting this evening, and put in a full day tomorrow: one last hurrah from the last big American crew, who unfortunately has been getting the short end of the stick, snow-wise. As I look out the window now, though, at the snow coming down in sheets, I can’t help but hope that the best was saved for last.

Ben– With Nick, Jake, and Jaimie up North on a week-long mission, the rest of us are left here at home for some freestyle maneuver action. For the first time this year, we have more snowboarders than skiers– 5 or 6– and we have been getting creative with the terrain.
Yesterday was exceptionally foggy, the foggiest we’ve seen all year. You couldn’t see more than 10 feet in front of you on the road! As such, we were driven into the trees, where we spent the day building and sessioning tree jibs and bonks… the riders disappearing into the mist created some pretty cool effects, and we got some good shots.
Today, we planned to head to the ocean to get some shots of the athletes shredding with the sea in the background. Unfortunately, the snow near the ocean is almost completely gone, but we ended up hiking 2.5 km up a mysterious road… we had no idea what was on the other end, and the snow along the way was awful, but we pressed on just to see what was on the other side. We eventually found a building/hut abandoned for the winter, with a tiny outdoor onsen tub next door! The Canadians immediately jumped in the tub, while the rest of us got a few shots of Nate and Alex jumping over a nearby waterfall… the cold slowly crept in on us though, and it wasn’t long before there were seven of us piled into the warmth of the 6×3 ft stone tub. Comfy. It was hard to leave the warmth of the tub only to get back into just-below-freezing weather and wet snow gear, but a glorious sunset guided us home as we rode down the trail. We hauled ass for the beach and ended up getting some great shoreside shots of the most brilliant sunset I’ve seen during my time here. Incredible! Tomorrow we continue our jumpy jibby missions, this time going higher in search of deeper snow.
Here’s a few screenshots from the footage on my camera at the moment:

The past week has been relatively mellow, as the snow has continued to melt away in very hot temperatures– today was over 50 degrees! Niseko right now seems caught between the seasons– certainly not winter, but not fully spring either. The other day we got a big 40 cm storm, but by the middle of the next day it had already turned into very heavy mush. Since then, it generally always seems to be half raining/half snowing. Most of us have pretty intense colds at the moment, so we sit inside and look out the window into the rain, wind, and assorted gnar. Needless to say, the motivation to get out into such slop has been relatively low, and we’ve been spending a good bunch of time skiing the resort and relaxing, although we did get time to do a few night shots, and the day after the above-mentioned storm we finally had the opportunity to hit a feature I’ve been drooling over all winter. A tight quadruple-pillow drop, ending with a 35+ foot launch. I’d climbed up to it several times during the season, and was so obsessed with it that I convinced myself I would hit it if no one else stepped up to it by spring. Luckily, Jake Sakson saved me from what probably would have been a severely debilitating injury, sending and stomping the thing clean. It was immensely satisfying to see a line go down that I’ve had on my mind for so long.
We are back to a packed house, with 13 people now on premises. Last night saw the arrival of a massive crew of shred-friends– I drove to the airport alone and came back with Nate Jones, Alex Cruse, Jeremiah Konkle, Wyatt Tigert, and Sam Cornwall, all friends of ours from Colorado and Utah, as well as Dynafit’s Jaime Laidlaw. Nate and Alex were a couple of the guys hitting the jump in Silverton at the end of Hand Cut. With them here, as well as Orry Grant and Mike Coletti, we’ve got a great big jump crew, and Ian and I plan to spend the next week getting some good springtime airborne maneuver destruction.
Meanwhile, Nick, Jaime, and Jake are prepping to leave tomorrow for a week-long trip up north to tackle some gnarly ascents and gnarlier lines in some new zones that should be pretty incredible.
This is our last major group of people here, and when most of them leave around the 26th, nobody else is currently on the roster to come! Our days of hustling crews through at a breakneck speed will draw to a close– at the end of March we’ll move out of one of the apartments, Ian will leave, people will melt away, and it will be just Nick, Yuki, and myself to enjoy the sunny days of April shooting Taro, Takanashi and other locals in corn snow. I am enormously excited for this change of pace. It’ll be a wonderful vacation, and we’ll have time to set to work on the edit of the film.
But, we’re not quite there yet, we must keep the ball rolling, and despite the crappy weather we plan to all head our separate ways tomorrow to begin shooting the latter half of March with a vengeance…

Ben– Sorry for the extended lack of news. After Jacqui and Will took off, the crew entered a sort of vegetative hibernation mode, slumping into our respective holes for a few days as we recuperated from the past two months of relatively nonstop movement. Our days off couldn’t have come at a better time, though– as we drove Jacqui and Will to the airport, huge rains and howling winds were descending on Kutchan, and they quickly decimated the snowpack. Everything became a flattened sheet of ice, and the once-massive snowbanks lining Kutchan’s streets all but disappeared. 45 degree temperatures meant we were trying to figure out ways to climb onto the roof to sunbathe. Needless to say, the skiing wasn’t exactly epic, and after a much needed carousing trip to Sapporo, we used the extra downtime to relax, occasionally whipping out the cameras to shoot some interviews, or shrines, or pretty sunsets, or random fearless swans, or other things of that assorted nature.

We had a grand send-off for for the wonderful Michael Brown, who, after two months of nonstop picture taking, headed off to Tokyo, his time here being over… I’m afraid the blog may suffer for it a little, for noble Michael was always the one to post the pics on top of my writing after a grueling day in the field. We miss him greatly, already, and the sight of his empty room brings tears to my sunburned eyes, although the ski-scavengers have, of course, already begun to move into his former lodgings, desperate for bed-space. They disgust me.
The scavengers in question at this point are Orry Grant and Mike Coletti (the Nelson natives), and Jake Sakson, who arrived just a few days ago–another Aspen/Carbondale mayhem-bringer, and a proud Flyow telemarker. This group has, for the most part, spent their off days in the park, hitting icy jumps– heaps of fun, but there really isn’t much else to do when riding in the trees is akin to shredding on top of a cheese-grater.
However, Jake seems to have brought the snow with him, for as soon as we went to pick him up the other night, the skies opened up and began dumping some wet white goodness. Yesterday was an unexpectedly awesome day shredding the resort, with just enough new snow to make you forget (on some turns at least) that there was an almost-season-ending ice crust below.
Today, the forecast was sunny, and we were all stoked at our first chance to get out and film in somewhat reasonable conditions in over a week. Tomorrow it is supposed to rain again, so today it was pretty much our only chance to get anything done in the near future. And get things done we did! While Jake went out with Nick (they are still out, doing a full shoot during the day and bringing a generator to shoot into the night), Ian and I took Orry and Mike to the Amphitheatre of Shenanigans, but not before returning to a big pillow line that we had been to with Bubbles almost a month ago. Bubbles had fallen on the last pillow, and we hadn’t had a chance to get back to it, but today was the day for retribution– Mike ponied up and slayed the line, and we finally got the shot clean. Stoked! Minutes later, Orry did a huge backflip off of the topmost pillow, but unfortunately tweaked his leg a bit on the landing, and was out for the rest of the day– the guy is recovering from a recent leg injury, but still is casually throwing massive backflips off of drops that would put the fear in me even if they were half as large. Ridiculous.

With Orry taking it easy, Mike took center stage, and really proved his mettle, spending the day throwing fives and incredibly laid-out, falling-asleep-in-the-air backflips off of a natural pillow before tackling a few bigger pillow lines and tree jibs. There was a lot of standing around towards the end of the day waiting for light, but the stoke was high enough by that point that it was hard to bring down. All in all, damn good times, and we returned to the car tired but satisfied– it was awesome to get behind the lens again after such a hiatus! Hopefully Jake and Nick have had similar success today. Tomorrow’s forecast is: “A heavy icy mix in the morning, then heavy ice; otherwise, windy and chilly.” So, there is a good chance that whatever powder we may have accrued in the past few days will soon be gone. But, time shall tell, yes?
In other news, the trailer– people have been joking that the February trailer will actually be coming out in April, but I can now tell you that it is finally done. It was actually done a week ago, but as we were rendering it, the hard drive with all our data had an internal disaster, destroying the thing and all the data on it. Luckily, we triple back-up everything, and only ended up losing one day’s worth of Ian’s shots. Perhaps when we return to the states we can find some way to pull them from the dead drive, as there were some good ones. In any case, after several hours of fearful meltdowns and expletives, we realized everything was more-or-less okay, and tragedy was averted. Although, we had to buy a new backup hard drive and re-edit the whole trailer, which took a bit of time– hence the delay. So, long story short, and enough of my excuses, you should see that up within the next 24 hours. I know I said that about 2 weeks ago, but it is hard to be certain in this uncertain world, is it not? Hopefully that credo will apply to tomorrow’s dire weather forecast…

Ben– A few days ago, Aidan, Zach, Mike, and myself spent a full day in the sun building a big kicker, which both Zach and Aidan said was the biggest they had ever built. Intimidating, no doubt. The light died before we could finish it, though, and the next day was graybird and dumping snow (frustratingly opening up to blue around 2, but by then it was too late to go rally up to the jump), so we didn’t get around to hitting it until yesterday. When Zach, Aidan and I arrived at 8 a.m. it was perfectly blue, but by the time we had gotten up to the jump and cleaned up the run-in, the clouds moved in and stayed there all morning and afternon– we spent a good four hours cursing and freezing in our boots waiting for the sun to pop. Finally, around noon, we decided to pack it up, and come back another day… but in the parking lot we found a big film crew of 10 snowboarders standing there, looking up at the area where our jump was and talking in hushed tones. There was no doubt in our minds that they would snipe it if we left it, or would at least put tracks through the background and landing. Frustration and tension bloomed, as we cursed them under our breaths. We overheard them making plans to go up to our spot– we also heard that several of them didn’t have beacons, a great idea when they were planning on going straight up a quite steep area, most of them without snowshoes, in two feet of brand new snow… herein we find the work of genius! Foolishness aside, it was obvious that we had to protect our baby, so we headed up and sat around, praying for the sun to pop once more. Finally, around two we began to see some holes. Around the same time, however, the snowboarders had gotten to the top of the peak overlooking our jump, and were now standing on the steep slope directly above us– if it was to slide, it would have come right on top of us and the jump. Stupendous., and we cautiously tried to stay out of the way while maintaining our presence in our zone. Right as the sun broke, they moved off of the top and lower onto the ridge– and directly into the camera frame I had of the jump, as I was shooting from the opposite ridge. I was overwhelmed with joy as they began to build another jump just above my frame. All we could do was be civil and ask their photographer to move slightly to the side out of my shot, a request which was ignored. Stoked.
In any case, the good news was that we had beautiful light, and the session began in earnest. Having had two days to think about how they were going to handle the jump, Aidan and Zach were ready and relentless. Aidan threw down a switch 540 first hit, and Zach followed up with a MASSIVE overrotated 360-turned-540 that landed on a bush– a beautiful crash, and the only one of the day. Aidan answered with a perfect switch 900, and Zach countered with a doozy of a laid-out backflip, picture perfect. Finally, Aidan stomped a cork 1080, the cherry on top to a hour long session that had been several days in the making. Good job, dudes. Aidan, in particular, has got some pretty incredible skills– at only 16, a sophomore in high school, the kid slays it like I could have only dreamed of at his age. And he’s a fun little dude to hang out with, to boot! Hopefully we’ll see him going big places soon. Anyway, by this point, the boys were tired, Aidan’s kneed was beginning to give him trouble, and I was tired of having to frame my shot so there wasn’t a bunch of doofuses in the background, so we decided to pack up, having only hit the thing 5 times– but each one a useable shot. Once we were back in the parking lot, we looked up and saw the entire crew of snowboarders standing on the lip of our jump. Unbelievably, they had watched us leave and immediately abandoned the building of their own jump, deciding to pick up the scraps of ours. They proceeded to session our jump to smithereens, the disgusting vultures. They even sent a goon to shoot it from my same exact camera angle, hiking right up my hard-earned bootpack. Luckily, the light had pretty much died on them, so hopefully they didn’t get any shots on a jump they didn’t earn. All in all, quite weak backcountry ethics. That said, perhaps we should have torn our jump down, but I guess the naive part of me thought that they wouldn’t film a jump someone else had built and thrown down on in such a perfect stomptastic manner, only minutes before. It’s like drawing a big penis on the Mona Lisa before the paint has even dried– it just destroys the wholesome unity and effort of the whole enterprise. So, a little message to the crew rocking the stickers of Head Snowboards, Amplid, Fur Pure Enjoyment, and Replant Snowboards, all brands that I’ll be avoiding from now on: Touche, boys, but watch out for the karma. Stoked to see that you are doing your sponsors proud and keeping it real (sketchy) in the backcountry!
All told, despite the encroaching band of booter pirates, we managed to squeak out a great day with some of the biggest, baddest airs of the season. Big props to Zach and Aidan for making it happen big in the sun, when we all thought Mother Nature wasn’t going to give it to us. Good things do come to those who work for it, after all.

Ben–In the past week, we have had more sun than we have seen during all of January and February combined, and its re-entrance into our lives has been fabulous. Spring is indeed on its way, and I think we are all thankful for it. The very first day of March felt like an entirely different season from the day before– the sun was out, there was no snow on the road (something we haven’t seen all year!), and all was fair in Hokkaido. Wonderful.
Needless to say, we have been taking advantage of this rare gift as much as possible, and its been a bit of a shock– we’ve been dreaming of the sun and the easy shooting it provides all winter, and now that its here, a new set of challenges is presented that I had totally forgotten about since last spring. Now sunburn is factor, and myself being a recipient of many a snow-reflected second-degree burn, constant face protection is always in the back of my head. Also, we are all remembering the discomfort factor of hiking in the sun. Not easy or fun! For this Alaskan, I can’t hike 10 steps without feeling like I’m going to fall over from heatstroke. Just as we had just adapted to deep winter, our bodies are being thrown into a new sunny environment. The grass is always greener…
Actually, though, we are all most happy to have the sun, despite its new challenges, and we’ve been shooting hard to capture it while it lasts.
Indeed, while Aidan and Zach were out destroying a kicker (I shall detail this mission soon), Nick, Jacqui, Will, and Lorenzo were out filming glorious pow in the sun, and came out with some great shots of their own on some pillows and a new area dubbed by Aidan as “The Amphitheater of Shenanigans”. Nick, Lorenzo, and Aidan all took off this morning, emptying the house a bit, and providing some breathing space. Once again, a shame to see them go! It’s incredible how quickly people cycle through, but we did indeed get some awesome shots with each of them. It’s just wild how people have never met before, then they arrive and quickly bond into a little unit, and then all of a sudden two weeks have passed, the athletes take off, a new group arrives, introductions are made and the process continues. A strange little social structure, no doubt about it. Indeed, just before those guys left, Orry Grant and his friend Mike have arrived to take their places. Canadians through and through, they are Nelson boys, and we shot a bit with Orry last year for Hand Cut. Good to have you, cadets, and welcome to the weirdness.
Today we went out with Jacqui and Will and got some beautiful sunsety pow shots, and tomorrow is our last day of filming with them before they take off as well. It will also be our last day before the forecasted rain and 59 mph winds, so we will certainly be trying to make the best of it! Once the Aspen crew is gone and the rains have arrived, the Sweetgrass Crew will be taking a much needed breather… four or five days of relaxation. I personally would like to put my camera in a closet and forget about its existence. We have hardly stopped filming in two months, and its time for a little rest and recuperation before hitting the Spring shredding with a vengeance! Hopefully we shall emerge rejuvenated, for many good things are still on the horizon. Including that new teaser… stay tuned.

Nick– With a star-studded cast of tele-rippers in house, we couldn’t hold out any longer. The time had come to open up the 50 degree spines of Chugashsan, a spot that skis more like AK than Hokkaido. It took us more than a month to negotiate the hush hush escort to this spot, and another month before we built up the courage to send riders down it. What if it slides and Forrest Coots ends up in the river? What if Charlie Cannon’s sluff carries him through a nice 800 vertical foot shiatsu shrub massage?
While instincts screamed no, the snowpack tests were reassuring, with two feet of blower snow and blue skies, the time was now.

So we left the house at 5am, and by 9am, Will Cardamone, Nick Devore, Lorenzo Worster, and Jacqui “The Edge” Edgerly had all snuck in two laps a piece in the early morning light. Front and center, Cardamone charged down a finger, aired over his sluff, and flashed the line into the apron. Stage left, the one-two Devore-Edgerly punch quickly moved to committing spines, taming them with interlocked fingers and whispered “I love you’s.” Next door, Mr. Worster took on a technical line that ended in a dramatic tomahawk in the apron. Somehow, someway, the guy landed in tele stance after three airborne rolls, skiing down to the river intact. Body pummeling, camera pleasing. All said and done, Lorenzo got his rebate in the afternoon light, riding down the shadow lines with glorious snowspray offerings to the Chugashsan gods.