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Higher is... is my story from growing up on Cape Cod and,

really following my passions,

letting nothing get in the way of snowboarding

and culminating on the high peaks of the Himalayas.

And along the way... I realized that,

it's not about standing on the highest peak,

or not about the descent,

it's really... it's the journey, the emotions along the way,

the people you meet along the way, and it's um...

truly is, you know, the journey is the reward.

Jeremy, like his two older brothers was very active,

very interested in sports.

We were all skiers in the family.

I recall him getting his first snowboard

from Shaw's General Store in Stowe, Vermont.

I went to Shaw's, like, the day before Christmas

and there were three of these boards in there.

I didn't really know what it was,

but I bought three of them and

Jeremy, Todd and Steve, took them out.

At an early age we got really into skateboarding and

then surfing, and I was also into skiing at the time.

And I first saw snowboarding in Thrasher Mag,

my first thought was, 'Finally.'

I had been on the mountain a bunch on skis and I always looked at the mountain going,

'Man, it would be so cool to be able to ride down this thing sideways.'

Three of us would get up, go shred the mountain all day on our skis,

and then we'd come home and turn on the floodlights

and he would go until he was called in to go to bed.

We were away at school and Jeremy was still at home,

and we came back up to Vermont one weekend and

we're like, 'Where... where are our snowboards?'

And he took all the boards and

went down to the General Store

and they let him trade those in for one with edges.

I was the youngest of three brothers and,

and definitely knew that I'd see some abuse for that decision,

but I had to have that board.

And if that meant taking a couple lumps, then, so be it.

It wasn't allowed in Stowe to snowboard on the mountain for a few years.

Jeremy just was relentless in his pursuit of getting a pass.

He was the first person to ever get a snowboard pass in Stowe, Vermont.

I went to my first snowboard contest on the East Coast

when I was fourteen years old.

I did thirty-five contests a year.

We would live early Friday so we could get to the half-pipe by Friday afternoon.

We would session the half-pipe and in the process find a couch to surf.

Back East at that time,

it was just a gathering of the tribes at this point,

because a lot of us really were terrible.

There was no itinerary other then get to the mountain to register at 7:00 AM

on a coffee table in some broom closet at the ski resort.

Everyone would have duct tape.

You'd be inside the lodge, duct taping up your gear.

It was raw. It was what snowboarding was back then.

It was a full rebel sport. It was awesome.

Next at the top, Jeremy Jones,

sixteen years old out of Kingfield, Maine.

Yeah, our youngest competitor hits the course...

When I was sixteen, I went on the professional tour as much as I could afford.

He said, 'If I don't do anything in two years, then I'll consider going to college.

I knew early on there was no way I was going to college.

Once I found snowboarding, it just took over my life.

It seemed like Jeremy was going to do whatever it took

to make snowboarding the focal point of his life.

Along the way, going to my first race,

I went to Jackson Hole to visit my brothers.

And saw this world that I didn't know existed.

I was surrounded by dishwashers and waiters, and real professional dirtbags,

but they were riding every day, all day, in Jackson.

I had no idea something like that existed.

It changed my life right then and there.

I was like, 'Wow, this is the snowboarding I want to do.'

I'd go to Jackson every year, once or twice a year, if I had any break in my schedule.

Throughout racing, it was always this fallback plan,

if this gets to a point where I'm not having fun anymore,

then it's time to go to this next phase of snowboarding, which is full time freeriding.

I'm here with Bryan Iguchi and hoping to ride the Grand.

It's something I've looked at for over twenty years now,

and um... I spent time here.

I wanted the Tetons to be in Deeper, I wanted them to be in Further,

and we put in some hard time in the Tetons, got shut down every time.

It's just been this, really a challenging range

to try and get up and hit the major lines.

This year I reached out to Z and Brendon,

who are both Exum guides and have been spending a bunch of time high in the Tetons.

The Tetons are truly the epicenter of big mountain skiing in the lower 48.

Of course that culminated with Bill Briggs in 1971,

having this wild imagination to go and click into skis on top of The Grand Teton.

I had no doubts at all I could ski it.

Climbing up there, I had my real doubts I had the strength to do it.

The Otter Body as a ski line is really the dream child of Doug Coombs and Mark Newcomb.

Once you finished skiing the East Face, you roll into a choke,

and use that to repel onto another hanging snowfield,

as referred to as the Otter Body.

You then have a series of three, double rope repels

and they end with free hanging repel, right onto the Teepee Glacier.

Doug Coombs was a huge influence on my life.

He was larger than life, like Superman,

in the mountains and, you know, I always cherished my time with Doug.

About a month before he died, he reached out and said,

'Hey, I want to take you up the Grand.'

You know, unfortunately we never got to do that.

You know, the harsh reality of spending a bunch of time in these serious mountains,

is they have consequences.

It was a recon mission to check out the snow,

and get as close as we could to our objective.

And this is as physically close as we could,

getting that kind of angle of perspective.

And it really was right in your face.

I mean you look out and it's just right there.

You can't make mistakes on something like this.

And that's the biggest thing, it has to go a certain way.

You see how there's that wind lip, though?

- On that little... - I like that

It's a nice protection there, you just ride that little wave

Protection from what, though?

Comfort.

Mental protection.

At least you're not looking off onto the abyss.

You see a little edge.

Yeah, so you'll only have like a four hundred footer underneath you, instead of...

A thousand footer.

Bout time we're on that thing, it's going to have to be pretty settled.

I think we all recognize we're hanging it out there on a line like this,

and we're going to employ every single trick in the book, to mitigate the hazards.

Mistakes are not easily forgiven up there, for sure.

It's definitely way more real, being that close.

The reality of how big and steep it is.

The size, just the sheer mass.

You know, that block.

I wouldn't say I gained confidence by getting that close to it.

You know, this is turned into a major snow event.

This is definitely a major snow event, for sure.

But we're not worried about any deep instability in the pack.

Feel really good about the overall snowpack.

It's really, like, shockingly right-side up, very unique.

I'm totally foreign to the snowpack.

We need to really be comfortable with backing down,

unless it's absolutely perfect.

This thing needs to be a hundred percent or I want nothing to do with it.

We can't fool ourselves into thinking that we can eliminate the risk on a line like that.

So, yeah, a little bit of a waiting game.

In the middle of a little storm cycle in the Tetons.

Going to stretch the legs and ride some pow, with my good friend Bryan Iguchi.

We couldn't have come from more opposite ends of the spectrum of snowboarding.

He was jibber, freestyle, and I'm in a speed suit riding hard boots.

Over the last ten years, we've been on a similar path.

Just getting educated and taking it further and further.

Seeing the weather window calming, it looks like it's taking shape.

It's definitely a lot more snow then I was anticipating.

Going into something this serious, and big.

We've climbed about 2000ft

We're still doing, this, to see the top of the peak.

She's a big one.

My immediate anxiety is making it through the night warm.

I'm in two summer bags, stacked together.

A sleeping pad that seems like it got pulled off a lawn chair.

And it's definite below zero action,

it's a little different then California.

The snow sure is better!

Oh, we've got that going for us!

Ah, it feels so good just to lay down for a second.

Prior to the mission I had a lot of anxiety for the climb,

then I woke up in the morning, and just was like,

I got really excited for it.

I'm like, 'We're going rock climbing, I got my snowboard on my back

and I'm going to climb the Grand.'

You're on belay, Z.

You got Z leading.

Going up there.

This is the fun part.

Climbing.

Crawling.

Come on keep it moving.

The hardest 5.4 move I've done.

We are getting close.

Getting through some of the final technical climbing moves before the summit.

Oh!

Top of the Grand, long time in the making.

The real deal heavy stuff is still below us,

we're going to evaluate snow and see if today's the day or not.

First time I've ever had this, where I had these light shakes.

It was like my brain was trying to tell my body to calm down.

Just trying to keep breathing.

Yeah, Jer man.

Let up, enjoy this!

You've got to be kidding me.

Alright, dropping!

That was unbelievable!

I cannot believe the pow!

That gets me in the game, dude.

No way!

Are you kidding me?

Oh, my God.

It was kind of miraculous that it was just such a uniform, right side-up snowpack.

Seeing all that and not being able to produce results on any of our tests,

it still just felt like this is out there.

At that point, I dropped in onto this huge hanging snowfield

and skied into that anchor.

Jeremy, this is Z, I'm into the first anchor,

you can drop whenever you're ready.

The snowfield dead ends at the anchor, at this pinch,

so your position just gets more and more precarious,

rather than better and better.

As you roll into that anchor, if anything does start moving above you,

you'd have no chance of surviving.

- Watch the rock - Yeah.

- I'm locked. - Alright, I'm in.

Give me a little tension.

Off!

Jeremy's off belay, you can drop when ready.

Up and lock.

Okay, I need to switch to heels, hang on a bit, Z.

Okay, cool.

Off belay!

I don't like that snow

We had just pulled on to the Otter Body

and Zahan had just pulled up to us and started to dig a pit.

I was in the lowest position,

trying to get an assessment of the stability on this next slope

but then there was this, sort of, ominous sound.

Sluff! Sluff! Sluff!

Holy Shit!

That was probably one of the heaviest things I've ever experienced,

being on a steep, exposed face like this

and having just a waterfall continue to come and pour over my head

and over Z below me.

That portion of the line, the actual Otter Body,

is really just kind a far out there experience.

You're on the East Face of the Grand, on this little patch of snow,

that's totally disconnected from any other snow.

It's kind of not even supposed to happen.

I'll drop next and go straight to the anchor.

It's warming rapidly, we got to go.

Keep your eyes open for an anchor!

Okay!

K, right in here is the rocks.

So, we're over a four hundred footer

and we need an anchor to get out of here.

I'm really happy to get on these final repels.

Hey Bryan, this is Brendon.

You can ski down to Jeremy and I.

- Fully wait for rope - Yup.

- Wasn't me. - Nope, that's spin drift.

Okay, Jeremy's repelling!

Okay, I'll lock you, come off repel.

We're almost onto the second repel,

we've got one more repel, Z's at the anchor.

Fuck

Off repel!

Okay, Gutch, you can go ahead and repel.

Whoa, it feels good to get off.

All four down and clear, halleluiah!

Copies, all four down and clear, strong work, fellas.

Whoa, spin drift.

Whoa.

Alright, let's talk about it down there.

Mountains are still talking to us.

Party run!

I love the fact that you've got other people, following along.

They're not doing it necessarily my way, they're doing it their way.

The idea is to have each person, doing his own creative thing.

That's the valley here, that's Jackson.

You have this expanding type of thing and what not.

I think it's fabulous development.

If I had anything to do with it, I'm proud.

I'm kind of a train wreck out of the mountains.

Meaning the wheels definitely come off

the further away I get from the mountains.

And when I'm in the mountains, it really feels like home to me

and life is simpler and it's, it's really the world I'm most comfortable with

and when I get out of that, it's not as natural.

My snowboard is, it's like my art form,

in the sense of it, with my snowboard in the mountains,

is where I can kind of go to this space, this real special place,

that is so different from the day in and day out of reality.

I guess at the end of the day though,

that's where life feels the most pure, the most rich, the most real to me.

They told us in, I think, 93', that it was going to be in the Olympics in 98'.

So, at that point, we definitely focused from 93' to 98' at the Olympic Dream.

Instantly, it's like, sponsors are fired up, my parents are fired up.

I mean I was excited and working hard.

No matter what, if I made it to the Olympics that was going to be my last race.

We had Olympic qualifiers leading up to it.

On the last run of the last event,

I would have needed to win the contest

and I would have had a spot on the Olympic team.

And I got third place at the last race

and it was a really cool experience, because I was up there with my closest friend,

Adam Hostetter.

You could definitely see that his eye was on the prize,

but it wasn't the Olympics, it was well beyond the Olympics.

Where as, my eye was probably on the prize and it was just the Olympics.

Didn't make the Olympic team, and never put on hard boots ever again after that.

You get older and that whole, quote 'ski bum life,' becomes unattainable.

You have to get a real job.

If he didn't want to go to college

then he knew that he had to figure out a way to make a living out of snowboarding.

During the tail end of his race career, he would finish the race season

and come up to Alaska with us.

Steve and I, we had been heli ski guiding.

We would spend all our money and then get on commercial fishing boats

and replenish the coffers for the next winter of adventures.

And during one of those cycles, we decided, 'Hey, lets buy a camera,'

and that was when we started Teton Gravity Research.

The first day we ever shot film, I dropped in with the camera,

and went down and set it up and the first frames that I ever rolled were of Jeremy.

We were having a blast, and just seeing where we could take it.

Jer's first trip to Alaska, he had never ridden that maritime snowpack

and he made his first couple of turns and I just saw him, all of a sudden, get it.

And he just came down grinning, ear to ear,

'Oh, my God, I've never seen pow stick to something that steep.'

He started to really show his true colors, as an exceptional big mountain rider.

It was a turning point for him.

I think it was, it was a point where he had discovered Alaska,

he'd discovered big mountain riding,

he'd discovered a new path to continue to snowboard.

My names Jeremy Jones and I'm into hanging out.

I've been doing a lot of hanging out this year, especially in Alaska.

Sick.

When I stopped racing and focused solely on freeriding,

the level of intensity was so much greater than when I was trying to go to the Olympics.

And what I learned there was you can't go out and snowboard for someone else.

It's not going to work and it didn't work. I didn't go to the Olympics.

Because, I was doing it for other people.

If you put everything you have into it, before you know it,

you're going to meet your heroes. And that's what happened to me in Alaska.

I mean I had full access to my heroes,

like Tom Burt, Doug Coombs, Hatchett brothers.

They're just sitting on a tailgate waiting for the clouds to break.

The backbone of my snowboarding came from their approach in the mountains.

Jeremy ends up with a mastered turn,

and then he learns some freestyle, and he takes all of that

and he just crushes.

He's pushed the boundaries

and peoples perception of what's possible on a snowboard.

I can very clearly remember watching him riding spines

on just straight, slick, rock walls.

God, that stuff, that's really high consequence and he was just nailing it.

Early 2000s, snowboarding really started shifting to almost all freestyle.

You know, you had to be hitting a handrail or in the park

doing some technical trick.

That's what's so cool about Jeremy; He never followed,

the snowboard industry. Never listened to the sponsors,

who were probably harping on him, do this, or do that.

I have a lot of respect for Jeremy for doing that, for just saying,

'Hey, fuck you,' to those guys. I'm going to stay in the big mountains

and if you want to sponsor me, sponsor me, and if you want to cut me, cut me.

I don't think Jeremy even cared.

I think he was like, 'I'm going to ride big mountains forever.'

It's really cool to know that there's these lines

that you couldn't possibly dream up being that perfect.

And going into unknown, insane terrain.

That is really a cool feeling and one that I continue to look for.

Usually about three days before Jer takes off, tension gets high around the house.

The kids start to sense it

and they kind of understand now that Dad is going to be gone for a while.

I think it just breaks his heart to say good-bye to them.

-Are you strapped in? -Yes.

Tell them that you're not going. That you don't want to go.

But I like going into the mountians and snowboarding.

But I don't want you too.

It's very easy for someone to sit back and say,

he's crazy, he's selfish, this guy's a jerk,

to go out and do what he does with family at home.

And I struggle with that.

It's just hard for me to imagine living my life a different way.

There's just so many different ways to die, and I think life is precious.

Taking stupid risks is definitely irresponsible.

But my kids need to see people living life and drinking life up as much as possible.

This could be a cool time to go into an area that very few people go into.

That's sick.

-Isn't that sick? -Yeah.

This year in particular, I feel like Jones, to throw another element of wildness to it,

zero plan. Show up if you want and we'll figure it out.

I've been to Alaska every spring for almost twenty years

and all my riding has been focused on these coastal ranges.

Going to the Eastern Alaskan Range was just so far out of my comfort zone.

It's just a totally different geography and type of snowpack.

Let's go see if we find our the Holy Grail.

You guys are climbers?

We like to climb mountains and snowboard back down them.

Oh, really? Awesome.

It may be this big, blob mountain coming right out there.

If I'm going to Alaska, Ryland's coming with me.

He rides those mountains as good as anyone in the world

and has that perfect attitude that's needed to deal with the highs and lows,

that come with a long trip camped in the mountains.

So, like, this guy.

Which one?

This face at, uh, kind of 9:30.

Oh, that face there? That looks crazy to me.

I think we have a good zone, but a ton of unknowns ahead of us.

Definitely some anxiety.

Not as many epic faces,

but the faces that are epic, are so mind blowing, it's unbelievable.

It's right in here, is what we call the super wall.

Your looking at some big walls.

There's a couple of lines that we saw,

definitely be willing to think about,

but a couple that Jones was seriously considering are absolutely game off to me.

And at this stage of my life, I would rather,

put a ton of energy into one line that's one of the best lines of my life.

It happened in a flash, a deadly avalanche in Colorado Rocky Mountains.

A group of snowboarders were buried alive,

five of them died, only one survivor.

We're getting ready to launch into the mountains

and I get word that five people died in an avalanche in Loveland

and one of them is a close friend of mine, Joe Timlin.

I met Joe through Jones Snowboards; He was one of the first reps I hired.

And I think that was just because he had that pure love of snowboarding

and set his life up around snowboarding and we shared that same passion.

I mean it just rocked my world; I just could not believe it

and the last thing I wanted to do was go into the mountains and go snowboarding.

As hard as those lessons are, it gives me perspective and regrounds me,

and kind of brings me back down to ground zero and it's the ultimate humility.

My first impressions were... fear, I would say.

Instantly the seracs start cracking down off the side of the mountain

and its just echoing with,

Boom! Boom! It's like, hitting rocks, blowing up, huge rumble

and all of a sudden you realize the scale of the place that you're in.

I picked the zone because of this one face that we're camped underneath.

There is definitely a wide array of lines on it,

but there is one real cherry line right off the summit that hopefully I can ride.

We have no information on this range.

It's like that 'Alaska Snowpack Evaluation Handbook' is thrown out the window.

So, we're out of our comfort zone for sure.

That is a big face. If you do one turn

and 'Oh, shit, it's three inches of pow on blue ice,'

don't want to be taking a ride to the bottom.

At the base of our primary objective.

Just going to look at some layers,

maybe do a test or two, and then I think it's dinnertime.

I think it's rideable. I'm just a little concerned about the ice.

Like bulletproof. Like bulletproof ice.

Really, I feel like the only way to find out is to just get on it. Start climbing it.

We're at the base of the face.

Looks upside down steep.

Hoping it changes when we get on it.

So, moment of truth is upon us.

Well, this is the blue ice, though, I think.

Better than I thought.

Who knows how it'll do with a day of wind on it,

but definitely got potential.

Why the fuck am I up here right now?

Well we still have questions about what's above us,

we're going to be able to feel some real bulletproof stuff right here.

So, I'm going to give it a feel and go from here.

I think I'll ride the face today.

I might come up and ride this lower flank again if the light is good

or whatever,

but I'm not feeling it.

Whoa

I'm afraid to look at my tent.

It's not nearly as buttoned up as this one, and this one's shaking a lot.

Riders on the storm.

It's going to be a loud night.

How well is this thing built?

Right now it's batting down the hatches

and just, make sure stuff hold up in this wind.

But as far as the line that we're camped here for,

I can say that that's probably really good ice climbing.

It's like, full blizzard. Temperatures changed

and we could be in this for a few days,

So I don't know, it is what it is.

We can't just get up and leave, kind of impossible.

Man, it just really came down last night, it's insane.

Like, everyone's tents were completely buried.

Every four hours we have to shovel out our tents.

It's still snowing.

Snow most of the way up my tent.

I'm pretty snowed in, right now.

Unbelievable.

Wow, can't believe my tent stayed up.

Yeah, well not all of them did.

Really?

Sad day.

Sad day, what happened?

-Did the tent collapse? -Yup.

-The big one did? -Yup.

That's why I can't see it?

Oouuuu...

Owe.

That's hard hitting.

Snowed 2ft last night, no wind, stright down, collapsed the tent, broke every pole.

That was one of the first moments where I've been like, this isn't worth it.

I just knew that there were these massive amounts of snow up overhead

and if something happened you wouldn't even hear it coming.

If there was a massive, large scale avalanche,

it would just, could take you out like that.

It's been a wild twenty-four hours,

I've heard a lot of avalanches, serac falls.

We wanted a storm but not like this one.

First time we haven't heard snow in at least three days.

-Got spines. -Got spines.

I'll never forget, coming out of my tent that morning and looking up,

and seeing, like, the most incredible spine wall I've ever seen.

Oh, my God.

Somehow we found one of the sickest faces on the planet and we didn't even know it.

For the first time of the trip, I realized, like, wow, we might be riding this thing.

Time to really start evaluating this and seeing if we can figure this mountain out.

We've seen a lot of, um, avalanche activity,

which is good, we want to see the face shedded.

It's wild, though. It's a long process, you got to enjoy it.

You got to be really patient and be totally willing to walk away if it's not right.

Waiting over two weeks to see what's on the other side of this thing.

Oh, Gorgeous.

What's it like up there?

It's deep and forty-five degrees on either side.

I think it will be really fun walking.

-Sick. -Yeah.

Out of this world.

Out of this world.

Oh, my God.

Nice work Ryland.

I would at least like to make it to the top of this ridge

and see what happens.

These bootpack spines are too good to pass up.

I mean, my God, look at this. 3000ft of vert.

3, 2, 1.

Woooo!

Your going to like those spines Jones, they're just playful.

I'm going to switch over and start heading up.

Copy

I'm gonna keep getting up the ridge.

Enjoy that second lap.

We got some decissions to make.

Do we go up that cornice or do we hike up this old slide.

Hard call.

God that is firm.

Dude, should we do the traverse?

Get out of this ice?

-Not a bad Idea -Yeah

I think we get out of the ice.

Okay.

Alright... Traversing.

Oh... Fuck.

Not good.

Oh man.

That's got major problems we can't figure out today.

Can I boot back up and ride a line on this main face.

He really brushed it off a lot better than I would have thought.

Pretty cool, I don't think a lot of people would bounce back from something like that.

I reached my high point but I was not able to top out,

but I'll get down and just, kind of, reevaluate.

But I, in the meantime, I got a super tasty line, this way.

Whoa.

-What a day, dude! What a day. -Right?

Hell of a backyard you have here.

Yeah we found a rowdy zone.

I had this way up.

For a month, this is how we're going to climb the mountain.

Did that, got denied about 100ft from the summit.

Now we're hiking the line I want to ride.

We got major white ice.

Huge maybe?

If I was a betting man, I"d put the odds on 50/50.

You go out there with him and you're like, where's he going to take his riding next.

I guess, riding 6 spines over death exposure.

I was willing to get that exposed.

It is steeper than I thought, for sure.

This ridge is... oh, yeah.

Into the chest, deep.

All right!

This is where the ice is.

Oh, not bad, not bad!

Sweet!

Whoa!

Whoaaaa!

-Yeah! -Yeah dude!

Line of my life man!

I can't believe, I cannot believe it man.

Teary eyed.

You think of everything that goes into it.

Awe. It's just, oh.

You know, I thought about Joe a lot on that trip,

and some of the other guys who passed away in the avalanche,

and it was my little piece to honor my fallen friends.

I respect life, but I really feel like you got to live it.

I mean nothing feels more alive than, than at that time,

and just think of how siked they'd be to see us sending like that.

You know, you look at my journals and stuff;

I can talk about the way up over and over again

and write these long pages of the way up.

And the way down, is um, there's no words for the way down.

It's uh, it just kind of, every journal entry ends once I strap in.

That's where I really at times, go to this place, that's hard to get to.

And it's just, you're mind and physical body are,

just at the top, top, top, peak form in communicating together.

It literally feels like your, your snowboard comes to life

and it takes you for a ride and takes you to a place that,

you don't have control of, but are in total control.

That's what we call the white moment.

Jeremy was in four, five films a year for awhile,

but it was always about adventure,

and it was always about looking over the next ridge and finding the next thing.

As Alaska and the heli world blew up, up there,

it got smaller and smaller

and I think he just started to loose that energy and excitement.

And he could go in and bang out multiple movie segments in a two-month chunk.

Sponsors were happy, people were happy.

His career was at its' pinnacle, basically. He was peaking.

I knew of all this awesome terrain that was outside the snowmobile boundaries,

it was outside the heli boundaries.

He came to us and was like, I'm sick of the boundaries,

this isn't doing it for me anymore.

I want to start, going over those borders and camping and hiking these lines

and getting into stuff that hasn't been done.

Jeremy walking away and doing his own production,

I questioned that.

'You know, during that year you're still going to film with Absinthe or Standard?'

And he was like,

'No. For me to do the next phase, I have to do my own thing and separate it.'

At the time, it definitely was a risky move.

He could have done that one movie and had his whole snowboard career be gone.

Jeremy said, 'The heli is limiting my access to the mountains.'

That is the redefining moment

that you can find in other athletes in other sports.

When people refine who they are and what they do,

that's when you take notice again and again.

All of a sudden, I had ninety-five percent more terrain to choose from.

It's not an anti-heli deal, it's not an anti-snowmobile deal,

and it's not an anti-resort deal.

It's about going past the existing boundaries, finding new terrain

and riding those epic, dream lines.

Some of the places, that he wants to access, the way that he does it,

that's the utmost dedication right there.

It's so beyond snowboarding.

Coming from someone who came from Cape Cod, with no hills,

to hiking some of the biggest hills on the planet, and snowboarding down them.

It's the ultimate, like, pursuing a dream and getting there.

I don't think it's possible to eliminate the worry.

You know, you're still dealing with Mother Nature out there

and you can't predict, a hundred percent, what Mother Nature's going to do.

I know that. I've spent enough time in the backcountry,

you're never one hundred percent guaranteed of anything out there.

You can come right up this shoulder,

and then this side of it, these are lower angle.

We'll get dialed in on this, to a point where hopefully we can move to that.

I first saw Shrangri-La when I got a text from one of my main cameraman,

Chris Figenshau.

I was in the Jackson Hole Library

and paging through a book on Nepal

and came across a photo that was really striking,

and really aesthetic mountain.

I talked to climbers, who talked to meteorologist,

trying to just get some snow beta,

if we were crazy to think about riding something like that in the Himalayas.

It was for sure the greatest gamble I'd ever taken.

But to me, at this point in my snowboarding,

I was willing to accept that there was a good chance I might not be able to ride it.

Sensory overload, everywhere you look. Oh, my God.

The streets are just bustling with people,

so much humanity packed into one little street.

Just a real interactive city,

no one on their phones, no one, like, headphones on

just really, happy people.

Really, Luca was a no-brainer,

very comfortable in the mountains, both climbing and riding,

comfortable with hard snow, has been to altitude.

Really, just found the best, true, big mountain snowboarder I could

and that's Luca Pandolfi.

I met Jeremy for the first time in Switzerland.

He is a rider that I respect a lot

because he influenced my way of riding from the beginning,

from where I started as a boy.

About to hit my city max,

which is about, seventy-two hours.

The plan is to fly to Lukla,

at which point we will start a two week trek to basecamp,

and from there,

we'll be a day or two away from the first view of the face.

On the trail coming in,

it winds up and down these really steep mountains

and it's their main highway

and the way they access and supply these towns is through these trails.

We just got our first glimpse of the alpine and it is shocking.

We definitely got a lot of walking to do. It is a big, big, big world.

You move up this valley, just getting, just ramping up.

Come around the corner and it was right in front of us,

, Ama DaBlam, Lhotse, Mount Everest.

You feel the energy of the mountains,

it's a peaceful place.

It's kind of being too much spiritual or worry?

Can just make your own experience. You can feel it.

I've been hit, by a bad thing, you know.

I discover my mom was a terminal,

she was year, she had bad cancer.

Then, she was doing well again, so I got motivated.

I went into climbing again.

But then suddenly, four days before leaving here, she passed away.

That has been a pretty tough moment for me.

I just fell down, I was emotionally destroyed,

but I knew that Nepal was a good place to refresh my mind

and to get in touch with nature.

Nature is the best way to get into the flow again.

Traffic Jam.

We hope to start snowboarding in here on small stuff,

but we'd like to snowboard this.

Are you direct to come down? Or just...

We, you know... No, we turn... you know.

Nima Tasi has been on Everest, 10 times,

Ama DaBlam 12 times.

All the big peaks he's been on them multiple times.

Whenever you see someone his age that's been on this serious of mountains,

I have the utmost respect for a person like him.

I wonder if they will be successful or not.

If they make it to the top, how will they ride down?

Yes, off and away.

Definitely giving it ample time,

to get acclimatized.

We're not trying to march on up,

spend a little time at 20,000ft and get out of here.

20,000ft for us needs to feel like our home town.

I feel like I'm doing good,

then a little hill comes and I'm instantly out of breath.

It keeps going through my head, how am I going to snowboard?

When it's this hard to walk.

Nice, to be home for awhile.

I woke to a clear morning,

have some breakfast and then head up

and hopefully get a view of the peak we're hoping to ride.

Nervous for sure,

to see if it's at all in the cards?

If it's a maybe, if it's who knows.

The first time I saw the picture, I shit in my pants.

I love that balance between fear and excitement.

I want to see it; I can't wait to see it.

It was really exciting,

because here's this face that I'd played over in my head a million times

and looked at photos,

and it was pretty surreal to finally be that close to it.

We're here exactly when we want to be.

It's the right aspect; It's the right elevation, but...

still one big maybe.

We got a lot going for us,

but it's still a 65 degree spine wall in Nepal.

Maybe it's not, I hope it's not 65 degrees,

but it looks like it from here.

It looks as steep as it gets.

That's what has me freaked out a little bit. Just massive.

That one.

Yeah. You understand?

Mingbo La may be practice, but the main objective?

Over there.

We are going to spend a lot of time at high camp.

The acclimatization process is to go, get up high,

spend a bunch of time up there, sleep down low.

And ideally you recover

and each time you go back up to higher elevations,

you are that much stronger.

Higher... and feeling it.

I feel like I'm three hundred pounds... crawling.

So we've been here, I think approaching, three weeks

and I've yet to strap my snowboard on,

but we'll get there. Patience.

We're hoping to top out on Mingbo La

and ride our first line of the trip.

If we can just get up in the 19,000 foot range,

it'd set us up for snowboarding 19 to 20,000 feet in a couple of days.

Hey, you can lower me Luca.

It's just this little curb,

going zero vision. Wish me luck.

Yeah dude.

Tiring, huh?

Snow's good.

-Snow's perfect, I think, for steeps. -I need to see.

Me too, yeah.

Coming this way? Or...

We don't know, the first day we go up here.

We look at the ridge.

We don't need any fix signs,

we just climb.

So, before we go up today

we can have good look at glacier one more time,

with the sun.

Okay? You like the plan?

Oh, sure, sure.

We are going up to high camp,

I think it's probably our fourth lap up there.

Kind of our first real high pressure of the trip,

and we're hoping to go up there, stay up there for a while.

Still so many unknowns,

but we'll start figuring out exactly what the challenges are,

and just one step at a time

and hopefully get a chance to ride this face.

It's about to get real these next couple days,

because now we're focusing on Shangri-La spines.

This afternoon, hopefully we can punch a line through this glacier.

That's the first order of business.

I really need to think about it,

because it is not my type of terrain.

I am more used to, to ski couloirs.

I'm open to suggestions, you are the Spine Master.

I would come over that last spine

and exit right next to the pepper.

Because that would, that will stay clean.

That over there? Whoa.

Tomorrow we are going this way?

Tomorrow we go up, yes.

Not Mingbo La?

No more Mingbo La.

Tomorrow, we go up this and ride this side of all the rocks.

The next day, we go to the summit

and ride this side of all the rocks.

No.

It's been amazing seeing the porters and Sherpas,

operate in the mountains.

They spend their whole life in the mountains,

half the year they're on an expedition

and just seeing how they move through the mountains

and the speed at which they do it has been mind boggling.

You know, they weren't really used to seeing people climb,

not on fixed lines.

Their whole deal is always fixed lines on anything,

you know, over 40 degrees,

so we said, 'thanks,'

and they sat back and watched us do our thing.

Lining.

Relentless.

We were gaining six inches at a time,

clawing our way up and to gain that ridge.

I think it probably took us two hours of full battle,

to go the final two hundred feet.

Yeah!

Finally getting up there

and just revealing the most science-fiction,

foreign, mountain vista I had ever seen,

was an incredible feeling.

Nice dude.

Yeah dude.

Good job.

I defintely want to make it a couple hundered yards up the ridge.

On belay.

Left or right or center?

This way.

Looks good.

Going off.

Hey guys, I'm thinking of starting from here,

does that look kosher to you guys?

You're gonna wanna fade rider's right.

If you go rider's left,

that big spine below you,

has got a huge cliff right in the middle of it.

Sounds good, brother.

All good!

Pretty much a first experience for me on big spines like that,

with a lot of sluff management,

and you imagine the feeling to be at the top of these spines

and you're not sure what you are doing, it is your first experience,

and you see Spines Master get sluffed out.

I was like, 'what the fuck I do now?'

and then I just like to unplug the brain

and be in that zone.

When you just react to what is coming your way.

It's what was not the imagined line,

but I'm pretty happy for my, my first experience in this kind of terrain.

You guys show me another world.

Tomorrow is another day.

Definitely, freaked me out getting sluffed off that thing

and I don't know, I had gotten away with a lot of,

playing with a lot of sluffs on a lot of steep faces

and it was kind of like my chips were finally up

and I think it was the first time in 6 or 7 years,

that I've gotten sluffed off a face.

How's it going, Jer?

Oh...

That's how I feel.

Basically going as slow...

as possible without stopping is the pace,

I'd say. First skier.

Nice!

Yeah.

Into the sunshine.

Close to the top!

Clouds came in,

got a little window,

hopefully we get some clearing,

but we're on the roof of the world man.

Really... High.

Yeah... Jones.

Yeah, edge of the world.

So some where about 20,000ft.

But there's one problem.

Clouds just snuffed us out.

But I have hope.

So we'll see.

We still got 3 more hours of daylight

and I've crafted a little bed here.

I'm in it for the long hull.

I'll take a nap, what have you,

I feel pretty good as long as I don't move up here.

Wake me up when it's sunny!

Top of the line, waiting.

It is already one house and a half I am here.

I'm freezing.

The whole time I've been sitting here for three and a half hours,

I thought for sure we would get a window.

I was staring down my line in the sun.

I was off by about ten minutes.

It's going to be serious getting off this thing on foot.

I will be crawling to camp tonight, in the dark.

Down climbing.

Freezing!

Fuck!

It's getting dark, we got to move.

I was at the top of my line, it was in the shadows,

so I was in the half in the fucking cold.

Up above, you know, 20,000 feet for probably,

um, I don't know, close to five hours today.

And I'm definitely cooked.

It was heartbreaking to walk off that peak.

I had worked so hard to get there,

the snow was killer, the terrain looked awesome,

I felt really comfortable.

But I realized on my way down, how tired I was.

I couldn't make more than two turns without having to stop.

So, it was probably a good thing that,

I didn't get to ride the face that day.

You know what it takes to get up there.

My throat is on fire.

If you're not a 100%, you obviously can't.

You need to be a hundred percent.

Sorry to hear that, dude.

Yeah.

It's just... the fucking shit.

I wish you good luck.

Thank you.

I totally respected his decision

and you've got to listen to you're gut on these serious lines

and I think his gut was telling him not to go up that day.

It's been pretty much a successful trip for me.

I learn a lot, have a lot of fun.

But... there's a moment where you need to pull the plug.

If I passed away and could say one thing to my wife,

I'd say 'I'm sorry'

It's just,

the kids change everything,

my world made a lot more sense before I had kids.

Leaving kids behind without a father would be devestating.

I think it would erase all of my successes,

in the mountains or what have you.

It would be irrelevant.

It's taken so much energy just to get to this fourth run,

it's just amazing how hard it's been.

We're gonna build an anchor,

I'm going to go over this top roll on a belay

and then, go from there.

1...2...3!

Okay, that feels good.

How much more rope?

Yeah that's probably your last turn.

Okay!

Off!

Alright, Jeremy! Be careful!

It's pretty much an exposed line,

there's bergschrund at the bottom,

but then there's a short glacier and then there are seracs.

So, conservative,

and say, 'it's more like surviving.'

You guys got a copy?

-Yeah, barbi copy. -Go ahead Jer.

It firmed up,

and obviously can't really hold an edge on this.

For sure, don't seek out these hard packs,

steep lines that I have to pick my way down.

But I knew I could get down the line safely,

and I just really slowed everything down

and focused on inch-by-inch

and picked my way down.

Made sure I wasn't coming off that face.

Oh

That was the hardest run of my life.

Forty-five minutes.

This trip to the Himalayas wasn't a stepping stone,

to like, 'I want more.'

The entry fee into the Himalayas is hard.

If I had seen what I saw on this trip fifteen years ago,

yeah, I could have set my life up around that.

I do think there is a ton left to be done there.

I won't be the one doing it,

but hopefully the future generations take it from here.

With these films I hope,

I really hope I inspire people to get out there,

to challenge themselves,

not in the challenge, go hit the biggest cliff of your life,

I mean challenge, in like, go on that great adventure.

Just really follow your passion.

That's a scary thing and a challenging thing.

That means making some tough choices along the way.

K

That's just such an exciting part of life,

I know this a far out there dream, but I'm all in on it.

It's the only way I know how to live my life.

Snowboarding is just a part of Jeremy.

I would never want to change that,

I would never want him to do anything but what he's pasisonate about.

When he's 80 years old, he's going to be out in the mountains.

As much as possible.

It's his heart and soul,

and that's what we love about him so much.

What's your cooking resume?

My cooking resume,

Um, there we're a lot of questions involved.

Well, I'll tell you how you get to be a cook on a trip like this.

You actually need a super stacked resume,

that has nothing to do with food.

Have a good run man.

Woo!

That was probably pretty good.

Ama Dablam, Cho-oyu, Nuptse, Everest, Lhotse,

a lot of the worlds highest mountains right here.

To go up and narrow the safety margin,

I don't care how you do it!

Man, I think that's great adventure and I think that's super,

and Im glad to see anybody doing anything that way.

But you have to move off the stage

and let somebody else do the performing.