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All around you.
To seek is not to be content with where one is.
To seek is to fantasize that there is more.
I am a seeker.
We all learn that water has three phases.
The solid state, the liquid state, and also the vapor state.
You can't explain all the known properties of water
with three phases alone, you need a fourth phase.
As children we have this natural tendency to explore.
And then we go to school and we have to give the right answer.
This has a tendency to squeeze out of us
the truth-seeking nature that comes as a human being.
Because of the institutionalized nature of science,
scientists have become more hesitant to challenge perceived truth.
If we want to get to real truth, we have to dig down beneath the foundations.
That was beautiful, man.
- We stomped? - Yeah.
Fuck, yeah, dude.
Oh!
There is absolutely an art to building jumps.
Excavating efficiency, structure, architectural sanity.
It's kinda like our arts and crafts, to do the trajectories right,
do the transition...
- It looks sweet, it's just... - ...not too much compression.
A little bit of late pop.
Building jumps, man.
That's what we do and we do it well.
I think we can do this in three hours.
Working with Travis is kinda like banging your head against the wall
over and over,
until eventually
your brains spill out.
It's a pleasure building jumps with you in the backcountry, Pat.
It's a pleasure working for you.
Welcome to Wyoming!
Better act accordingly.
Got to whisper right now 'cause I can't talk too loud.
He's getting excited.
It's crazy to think it's been 11 years
since Travis brought me out to the backcountry, that first time.
He's just kinda, like a older brother to me,
always pushing me a little bit further.
Just gave me the glimpse of what was possible.
Business as usual, man,
blowing my minds the first time we went out on his jump.
Travis and I definitely share this path.
It's kind of a migration based on hydrology.
I was just obsessed with the processes of nature.
I remember, as a kid, watching people surfing,
the water, how good it felt to play...
I realized that the storms that were
providing this great surf would provide amazing snow in the mountains.
I had this epiphany.
I was dedicating my life to this process.
It's just like a natural instinct, there's something primitive,
something that goes a little bit deeper than just playing or just riding.
The laws of nature are the most powerful laws in existence.
Water evaporates...
Clouds form...
Life begins.
The snowstorm atop high peaks...
falls heavy...
settles...
melts...
flows through tributaries,
streams...
into rivers...
and finds the sea...
then returns to the air.
This process we follow,
this cycle we ride.
Travis!
# Where #
# Do we go from here? #
Yea, Guch.
Excitement and discovery is, like, the best thing about being out here.
You can't do it all in a lifetime.
Dude, I think that's an arch.
It looks like it goes.
What do you think on approach?
So coming up the same way we went
and then just hike up that ridge down all the way.
Travis, are you ready?
Ready.
# Where #
# Do we go from here? #
# Oh #
# Where #
# Do we go from here? #
# Oh #
# Where #
Bryan Iguchi showed me a lot more than just how to kick out a method.
You know, he handed down the modus operandi, a certain way of living.
He is the humble master.
I had a vision of what the potential of snowboarding could become,
and he realized it.
Travis became the snowboarder I always wanted to be.
Here we are.
We're about 11,400 feet, continental divide.
Beautiful spring day.
So basically, the snow that falls on this side,
melts out, flows down into the Gulf of Mexico and on into the Atlantic.
Then the snow on this side flows into the Pacific, and around she goes.
# Come on #
Ooh, dawg.
# Ooh... #
# Oh #
# Where #
# Do we go from here? #
# Where #
# Ooh... #
# Do we go from here? #
# Where #
# Do we go from here? #
Travis took this idea about the hydrological cycle
and turned it into this epic journey.
This hydrological cycle, it's easy to just write it off as, well,
that's the weather.
We steal a lot of the magic from things that we give names to.
It's this beautiful, choreographed cycle of life.
If you were standing on the moon
looking back at Earth, at one point during the day,
you're looking at a blue planet.
The ocean traps the sun's heat energy and turns it into a solar engine.
A system of ocean currents called the North Pacific Gyre
moves in a clockwise direction, driven by wind and the rotation of the Earth,
distributing this heat energy around the planet.
This helps fuel the storms that drive our winters.
I realized, by combining my love of the ocean with my love of the mountains,
it might be possible to actually follow the flow around the North Pacific,
travel with the water that melts down from the Continental Divide,
sail with it as it sweeps across the ocean,
and turns into the snow that blankets Japan.
The cycle swings up and tears past the Kamchatka peninsula,
and then finally banks into the catcher's mitt that forms the Gulf of Alaska.
These charged weather systems coming off the ocean hit these coastal mountains,
which ring out precipitation like a sponge,
creating some of the most incredible snow formations on the planet.
The most extreme example of this is in the zone in AK we named, "So Far Gone. "
I've never seen a place like this before.
The way this snow sticks to the mountains creates these pillowed spine lines
that are totally sci fi.
Since the first time I saw it I haven't stopped thinking about it.
The whole area has ice up high that forms these natural kickers.
It's subtle, but this allows you to do tricks you couldn't pull off
in a normal AK style line.
I look at mountains and I ride them in my mind.
The possibilities for progression mother nature has provided here, it's unparalleled.
This area is so remote, we have to camp,
and because it's protected wilderness, we can't use helis.
We have to hike.
It's a purely human-powered mission.
Once Travis has an idea in his head, it's really hard for him to let it go.
I think the only thing Travis is afraid of is failure.
It's incredible...
letting yourself go and just moving with the pace,
and...
you know, directional flow of the ocean.
Just seeing the power of the currents
traveling westward across the Pacific and knowing that it's all tied in,
that without this that doesn't happen.
I think it brings a lot more appreciation,
even when we're far and away in those winter months,
just knowing kind of where it came from and where it'll go back to.
I love sailing just like I love snowboarding.
I find there's such similarities there.
The fact that you're out on your own terms,
at the mercy of your own decision making,
it keeps you focused on what you're doing now.
# Is there any way #
# To get this weight off my skin #
# Find another one #
# Is there anyone #
# To get this writing off the wall? #
# Find a new one #
You know, why do a trip like this?
I think just the act of, of doing it, being out here,
is really what's important.
You know, out here I actually have time
to read a book, look inward and it's not that you can't do it...
by any means,
it's just...
I have yet to find the discipline
to live my life on land like I do out to sea.
Going on trips like this, you want a partner who will support you
and back you up and raise you up.
We are going to head to platform 37
and we're going to want to get on the 13 train to Sendai.
Lando is my brother in this.
We're going to roll this whole thing together.
There are only a few people in snowboarding whose style blows me away.
Mikkel is one of them.
There's something about Japan that I felt
that's where he could really showcase his riding.
Oh! My God!
Powders good.
The infrastructure they put in place here to handle the water
just shows you how much of it they get.
Japan is the snowiest place on Earth.
Some people say
you can't ride forest because
there are gods living.
But, for my understanding,
if you have respect
good thinking about nature,
nature god will protect you.
Magical out here!
Perfect trees, no branches, just these beautiful, flower-like canopy.
It's really special to be able to find a place that lets me
be in that most creative state.
It's been a way for me to key in to my favorite parts of snowboarding.
Every year, you know, you kinda get new ideas on what to do.
I kinda had a vision of playing around in the trees.
When you've come up to the backcountry you never know what you're going to find.
Pretty much just kids playing in the sandbox.
This is just one of the things you got to do to stay in shape out here.
I, of course, had this vision of just riding powder.
Travis, on the other hand, has to go to this crazy mountaintop, every time,
and that's how Travis's mindset works. It's like, once it's locked in, it's locked in.
It's pretty epic to be here beginning of January
and be looking at AK style lines that you wouldn't be riding till, like, late winter.
I definitely had no idea there were mountains like this in Japan.
It seems like it's completely endless too.
Yeah.
This is, like, definitely a steeper pitch with...
You know, who really knows what's in there.
The more you look at it, the friendlier it feels to me.
This is where some of those big faces are.
This looks a little gnarly.
It's pretty obvious that Travis is pushing to the alpine every chance we get.
The Japanese Alps, they have everything for any snowboarder's dream.
They're such a unique piece of topography.
It's like nowhere else on Earth.
The Japanese Alps are some of the most majestic,
beautiful mountains in the world,
yet, I think they can be some of the most dangerous.
It snows ungodly amounts in the valley.
What's it doing up there?
We're in a very volatile environment.
Clouds are moving in, storms are coming from every direction.
You can't even see the terrain until that moment the clouds lift.
Beautiful Japanese morning!
Dealing with weather every day.
This our fourth time trying to climb.
Finally we're peeking out in the sun.
Yay, Lando!
Every day has been planned good.
We get up and then it ends up snowing a foot on us.
But today's the day, eh, Mikkel?
- Yup. - Yeah! Today's the day.
It's out-of-control beautiful up here.
I did it!
Where he wants to go with his snowboarding is just kinda bonkers.
I don't know how else to describe it, but sheer persistence.
I don't understand it,
but when I get to be a part of that with Travis,
it's beautiful, man.
Dude's just fighting opposition.
All good here.
Getting up to the alpine wasn't something that I had envisioned in Japan.
It was eye-opening.
I didn't have any idea that there was terrain like this here.
It does have this mystical beauty to it.
Oh, shit.
It's a Japanese fire festival.
It's been going on for centuries. This is insane.
We're, we're pretty much about to burn up here.
Every snowflake needs a particle of dust.
Where does most of the dust come from?
Ash.
Let the fire burn.
When it's just dumping and it's calm,
that's when I feel the most alive...
remembering how fun it is to...
just... be lost in it.
Many of us cling to ideas that we've come up with.
We love them.
We think we've arrived at certain truths,
but there is so much in our world that is unknown.
Travis sent me an email saying, "You're in."
All I knew was that we were going to Kamchatka.
And it was going to be an epic adventure.
# Ride all day till the light's gone #
# I'm with all my friends Friends, friends #
# Said I'm with all my friends #
It's so thrilling to go somewhere that's completely unknown.
Eric's the kinda guy who gets excited by the unexpected.
He's just down.
You realize pretty quick that Travis pushes the limits.
He pushes himself.
He puts all of his time and energy into what he's obsessed with.
Dude, where are we?
Planet Hoth.
I can see wind just ripping, snow being taken off at every peak.
We got wind!
Holy shit!
The wind's blowing the snow somewhere, we just got to find it.
Up top, it's weird crust stuff.
Up above that, it's wind affected.
Just trying to figure out what to do.
This volcano, it's sheet ice.
When I'm just feeling like something isn't right,
it's very easy for me to pull the plug.
Travis doesn't pull back, he'll just keep punching forward
until he gets what he wants and until there's nothing left.
I wouldn't have set foot on that volcano.
Woo-hoo-hoo!
Yeah, man. I'm ready.
Dude...
Dude, that was a burner.
Seriously.
Not the worse run of my life, the worse snow I've ever ridden.
That was the longest run in my life, hands down.
Yeah, it's a long one.
There are going to be two options, it's either, we go to the interior
and try and find some more low elevation stuff
or go to beach and go surf.
Fuck me, dude!
- What? - I don't surf, bro.
Negative 40, coldest day of the trip and we're going to get in the water.
Hey, Lando!
Just being in that cold water my arms started seizing.
It scared the shit out of me.
Those guys like that shit, I guess, I don't though.
Fuck this!
The reason that we wanted to come here was because
for years we've ridden Japan, for years we've ridden Alaska.
They get the best conditions on the planet, and then you look on a map
and you see this incredible Kuril Island chain.
It's so good here and it's so good here. What the heck is in the middle?
Kurils, it's one of the most difficult place
on our planet to organize this kind of...
operation.
From our lodge straight to the Kurils
will be, like, 200 kilometers.
That means about an hour flying, 50 minutes.
But then, from here to this island, one more hour.
And some part of the flight, we have open ocean.
Sounds like a freaking psycho mission.
"Psycho mission."
That's the right word.
You know, weather can change really fast,
we must be really lucky...
with everything.
Hopefully we'll get that perfect weather window.
The weather has been beautiful in Kamchatka.
We've had negative 40 degrees, plus 40 degrees the next day.
So this is calling for Wednesday.
Thursday, Friday, there's a chance.
Yeah, the weather's been like a kick in the nuts.
When you're hanging out in the lodge waiting for weather,
your mind can play tricks on you.
I don't know, we're just, uh...
We're here.
We're in it.
We're just letting blind optimism...
rule our destiny.
We have some news for us.
Forecast shows
big, high pressure system.
That's Kurils. Internet shows, like one week good weather.
Classic! Classic Kamchatka!
You know, we see this, like, really small window,
and we finally decided to pull the trigger and head south.
There was so much build up, so much emotion and energy.
We're like, "All right. This is it!"
We're going to the Kurils!
Halfway, you see this current line.
They're like eight foot breaking waves where the Pacific Ocean
and the Okhotsk Sea are just grinding together.
To watch that energy moving across the planet, it's powerful.
No?
I don't really know what's going on.
We can't leave the helicopter...
that's one thing that's going on.
Bureaucracy is the issue here.
We have all the proper paperwork.
We got approved by the military, but apparently it's a different military,
so these guys won't let us in.
They're shutting us down.
They're shutting us down!
We've been detained for, like, six hours,
but we're just trying to get out of here. It's a two-hour flight home,
and there's about two and half hours of daylight left, so...
Just trying to keep sanity here.
# So we made it down To the Kuril Islands #
# Had high hopes #
# But they would not let us Even past the ropes #
# Are we ever going to Get to shred? #
# I don't know #
Oh, no.
# This morning #
# We thought we were going to Ride powder #
Powder.
# Nah, fool, we're just POWs #
# Locked up #
Dude.
What, dude?
- Let's make a run for it. - Yeah?
That's for you.
All you guys.
If we can't ride here, at least these kids can keep riding here.
This way we leave a little piece of us with them.
Oh! I can't believe this.
That's crazy, that snowboarding is alive there.
Goodbye!
It's so painful.
I spent, like, two years planning this trip.
We got completely shut down.
When things don't come together,
I'm so compelled to figure out how it does work.
I dig deeper to find the truth.
Alaska, it's the place where it might seem like it's...
you at odds with the physical terrain.
But Alaska is really just the backdrop for you against yourself.
It's as far as you want to take it.
It's definitely the driest we've ever seen it out here.
I don't think I've ever seen this much rock in Alaska
in the wintertime before, ever.
One of the least amounts of snowfall in 100 years
in Alaskan history, so that's kind of what we're looking at.
- Holy shit. - Holy shit!
Some facets on top of that crust.
On top of this, ring crust.
It's definitely scary.
For the next storm to come in, we want it to come in
warm and wet, rip it out and then snow like,
you know, quite a bit on top of that. Would be
best case scenario, in a dream world.
Yeah.
I'd like to live in a dream world.
Got to tiptoe, unfortunately.
A little more scary when you got to tiptoe instead of charge.
On the road from Japan straight into Russia,
came straight up here and, you know,
just kinda...
We're just...
Just battling the whole time, man, and I just...
I got to get out of this.
I can't keep battling.
I don't know. Big mountains have always scared me and I have always been able to...
deal with that fear and just...
I don't know, there's something about the snow pack, the low tide and...
Just something doesn't feel right, so, I got to listen to my gut instinct.
Amen.
- What a whirlwind. - Go get it.
- Yeah, thanks. - Buddy.
Love you, bud.
Hate to bail, but I got to.
One half of me is disappointed
that a partner of mine can't meet me where I'm at.
And then the other side of me is pure compassion,
'cause I know that it's what I'm pushing towards.
Going over some of the details of So Far Gone right now.
Now if the conditions were good you can knock that stuff out pretty quick.
Just take a look at these photos from our scout flight a couple of days ago.
Yeah, see, if you look at photos from last year.
You know, all this is, like, rideable, filled in, like...
It takes a season's worth of snow for So Far Gone, I don't think that's happening.
You know, we kinda got a long game with the plan and this area
and seeing as how this year is already really challenging out there,
and not looking all that safe from what we've been able to collect so far.
Maybe we go out next year
when we hope conditions are better than they are this year.
We grow into that.
It was looking really bleak.
We were talking about pulling out of the field.
We did two weeks waiting for a good snow and then we saw
a mass of low pressure, way off the Aleutians,
coming from Russia and watched it for days,
and it just turned into this incredible, stable snowpack.
So Far Gone is not happening,
but there are places that you can go and still find...
somewhat normal conditions.
So it's just the two of us, so we're gonna
definitely be shredding with the third in spirit.
Yeah.
Um...
But, you know, a little bummed that he had to, he had to bounce.
Looks like AK.
I'm scared, finally.
You've got to cross the slough.
I was thinking about coming in the middle here.
Travis pushes the limit so hard, but when we look at decisions that he makes,
they're very calculated.
That's probably what I respect the most about him.
He sees that he could ride it and he will.
Trav, you got this, buddy!
- Dropping. - Go on, man.
Look at that, buddy. Get this. Get this!
Oh!
Yeah!
Good job, boys.
That makes it all worth it, right there.
- Amen. - That's what we live for.
A beautiful day.
Seriously. Yeah, buddy.
You land things and you don't land things.
I guess if you're Travis, you usually land things
that you probably shouldn't have landed.
The fragment's the size of my finger.
The CAT scan on top of the MRI shows a little old injury
and then the new injury on top of the old injury.
No question.
On the right side that's normal volume to the nerve holes,
but if you look at the left side almost all of its disc.
Most people would be laying on the floor, carrying him on an ironing board.
They wouldn't be up walking around smiling with that kind of rupture.
If you look at this, which is the paraspinous muscle and the belly muscle, the soleus.
His muscles around his spine
are the single biggest ones I've ever seen.
His core muscles are literally like this...
- I mean, I've never see this. It's insane. - It's huge.
Travis Rice, a left L 4-5 posterior lumbar microdiscectomy.
No known drug allergies, two grams of Ancef is in.
What's the fourth phase?
When water meets a surface,
the molecules undergo massive change.
They become structured,
they acquire charge...
All you need is light.
Waking up. The surgery is done. Went perfect.
You in there?
Open your eyes up.
You're going to be back.
When we set out on a goal, follow through means a lot,
and you push it a lot,
regardless of how the outcome might end up.
Yep.
My phone rings and I was like, "Why is Travis Rice calling me,
telling me all about his trip," and he wants to go to the sickest place
he's ever seen in Alaska.
Then at some point he tells me,
"Yeah, I would be stoked if you could join in."
I could not truly believe it.
So Far Gone finally feels like it's coming into alignment,
but living and snowboarding in an area like this comes with a lot of heavy exposure.
I'm just gonna get my legs and mind warmed up to this style of riding again,
reconnect with the mountains here in Alaska.
In Valdez, perfect warm up
before a big mission in the glaciers.
I don't feel like I chose Victor,
it's what he's done in snowboarding,
the ways he's tried to express his own riding.
He wrote his own destiny.
Victor in three... two... one... dropping!
Travis, dropping.
That's it.
Victor and his French rules.
It's been about ten years since I went out with Jones
and camped on a glacier for a month
and totally changed my perspective on ways to operate up here in Alaska.
It's great to have him up here so we can kinda get aligned for
our approach into So Far Gone.
Jeremy Jones, and he's right there.
Rice, I'm 100 percent.
Copy that.
Give her heaven, buddy.
Fuck, yeah. Dude, get this.
Good job, Victor.
Travis, just give me a circle when you're ready.
Three... two... one...
Travis, dropping.
I find myself infatuated...
with a vision of doing something in such a specific way.
I have not figured out how to separate...
reckless optimism...
from a healthy appetite to pursue things,
until it becomes impossible.
To be able to know the difference...
Yeah, it'd be amazing.
I've been lucky to have a few glimpses into...
what this idea of letting go really is.
I know it's possible.
I was laying there, very upset with the decisions I made.
Angry that I'd just injured myself,
knowing that So Far Gone wasn't going to happen, and I had a shift.
I was given this gift of humility and appreciation for life.
And everything that happens to me is this opportunity for learning.
Really, the greatest journey
is the one that you take towards a better understanding of yourself
and this incredible life
that we get to live.
Now we get the wind back.
Okay.
There she is.
Yay, Lando!
Fuck, yeah, Rice.
You're gonna be bouncing right over.
We feel free when a new understanding appears.
So, that's where we get great pleasure.
We stumble and we try and finally something comes together.
It's beautiful.
This process we follow...
This cycle we ride.
There was a series of letters from Einstein to his daughter,
and they weren't to be released until many years after her death.
And one of them was a charming story,
he said, "Take my equation, E = mc2
and replace the 'm,' replace the mass with love."
He said, "You put love into the equation,
and love times the speed of light square gives you energy."
He says, "The real energy comes from love."
Who's got a phone? I have to call my mom.
Mom. Hey, Mom. Yeah, can you hear me?
Hey, I did it.
Huh? No, no, no, she's not pregnant.
I mean snowboarding. I couldn't have done it without you.
All right, ma. I got to go.
All right. Love you. No, you hang up.
Two ducks in a pond and a burned out belt.
It's the way to start the morning.
We need to reinvent ourselves.
I'm gonna dye my hair and start doing one foot tricks.
I'm going to grow a beard and just be a sarcastic asshole.
Has anyone seen Wheeler?
Just got back from battle, dude.
That's what it's all about, boys.
Watch out for this guy, he's straight up.
Flippin' that, flippin' this.
These fans are going to get goin'. All this stuff's gonna light up,
so I don't want you to be freaked out by that.
We're gonna serve lunch right on the tip top
of that volcano up there.
Spewing hot lava, we're gonna have hot soup,
hot coffee, that's gonna be hot shit right now.
Captain, I think we're about ready to take off.
We gotta go now!
The course is ready.
There comes the vibe.
Thanks, guys.
We are deep in the mountains that we've hiked for two days.
It's rugged conditions out there, way worse than when Jeremy Jones was here.
It's burlap sack out there, bro.
- Tell me when it's in the right spot. - All right.
Yeah, that's how you block.
I gotta let the big dogs eat, then the little, small dog can eat after that.
Just like the X Games right, bud?
Just have someone else build you a park.
The jump would be finished if you were shoveling, not filming nothing.
The crew is really fired up for this mission.
Everything's really starting to make sense.
And I think, even back at home people are gonna be really impressed
by what we're gonna bring home.
Yeah, I'm in the field. Listen, we got an emergency.
Listen, I know you're just sitting there.
No, we're just looking for gnarly conditions, one way or the other.
Earn your keep.
I was bored a couple of years back, decided to go to flight school.
Fly around them long enough, you want to be able to fly one.
Yeah, you know, things are different these days.
You can't just roam around the streets of Tokyo,
with your GoPro 3, ah, 3.5,
thinking you're going to get a freaking viral video to go past 0.5 million.
Welcome to Alaska.
Let the games begin!
Hell, yeah, slapstick.
We got Scott Serfas and Mark Landvik versus Travis Rice and Eric Jackson.
Little two-on-two, half court press.
What you gonna do, bitch?
All right, Trav. Let's do this.
Marquesas Dead ahead!
We want to find snow! We gotta go that way!
West!
No, left, you idiot!
That way.
Is that all you've got?
Bring it on!
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