What single moment from your recent travels feels like a metaphor for your choice to follow a passion?
Summiting and skiing Pico de Orizaba (18,491’) on a weekend trip felt a lot like many of the other work projects I’ve thrown myself into. You always have to get in over your head with the vision that everything will work out. No matter the outcome, you’ll learn so freaking much and it will influence everything that follows. I think we all do this in our careers though. A client calls up and asks, “Hey can you make this?” You say, “Sure!” when you really mean, “I have absolutely no idea if that’s possible.” Then you fight and fight until you pull off some magic.
So how did you finally make the decision to sell all your shit, throw caution to the wind, and go?
I pretty much blew all my vacation time getting started with commercial video projects. The other guys at work were encouraging me to make the leap and chase this new path. After releasing a second adventure film with Joey, work from our film sponsors began to pick up for the upcoming year. I think I spent a solid 6 months doing touch and go’s from my place in Boulder shooting in New Zealand, British Columbia, California, and all over Colorado. It was getting pretty taxing on my relationship and I hated all the packing and unpacking. Britt and I decided to stop paying rent and ditch the societal norms. Living in a sweet adventure van allowed me to be home at every video shoot, spend more time getting strong in the mountains, and have more opportunities to get out with professional athletes.
Describe your new home on wheels in three words.
Welcoming. Warming. Wild.
Outside of tools for work—computer, cameras, etc.—what is the one thing that you could not live without living as you do in the Promaster?
My co-pilots! It feels like home anywhere the three of us are together, even if Malcom sleeps 23 hours a day.
You’ve proudly bragged about skiing a crazy number of months in a row. Let’s hear it.
I think I’m at 40 months now. I’ve skied every month since I started. This summer I was living in Jackson and searching for leftover snow in Grand Teton National Park. The every month deal was starting to feel like a prison sentence, but having a new zone to explore and search for snow was pretty refreshing.