7YW: In your interview with Shandy Campos, he stressed the importance of where a person is raised. What was it like growing up in Vermont and how do you feel it influenced you?

JESSE: Even when you are just a kid in Vermont I think you start to get an idea that in general the culture here is different than most other places. Your average Vermonter is liberal, but in a practical and actually involved manner; typically pretty rugged, independent and self-made, especially when we grew up, pre-internet and pre-Subaru. In retrospect a lot of that comes from the funny blend of 60’s-70’s era hippie people moving away from the cities and blending with your more libertarian Vermont natives.

This all comes into even clearer focus the more you travel. Vermont had a special reputation everywhere, even if our biggest pop culture exports were Phish and Ben and Jerry’s. And Vermonters certainly like to glom together elsewhere, too.

I guess the main ways that Vermont influenced me were by having a really supportive and interesting family around, living in a small town that was easy to walk around, having friends that I still keep up with, 25+ years after leaving high school, developing that yankee can-do attitude, and of course coming up riding the best the east coast had to offer. Last but not least, after 18 years in Vermont I was compelled to move as far away on the US map as possible, which started my experience of living in some key landmark locations in the US and Canada— at this point in my life, I would say that experience of living elsewhere has influenced me just as much as anything in my trajectory and approach to life!

7YW: During your early years of riding in Vermont, you were around one of the more forgotten teams in snowboarding history. For the youngsters, can you describe that Original Sin team?​

JESSE: Even when you are just a kid in Vermont I think you start to get an idea that in general the culture here is different than most other places. Your average Vermonter is liberal, but in a practical and actually involved manner; typically pretty rugged, independent and self-made, especially when we grew up, pre-internet and pre-Subaru. In retrospect a lot of that comes from the funny blend of 60’s-70’s era hippie people moving away from the cities and blending with your more libertarian Vermont natives.

This all comes into even clearer focus the more you travel. Vermont had a special reputation everywhere, even if our biggest pop culture exports were Phish and Ben and Jerry’s. And Vermonters certainly like to glom together elsewhere, too.

I guess the main ways that Vermont influenced me were by having a really supportive and interesting family around, living in a small town that was easy to walk around, having friends that I still keep up with, 25+ years after leaving high school, developing that yankee can-do attitude, and of course coming up riding the best the east coast had to offer. Last but not least, after 18 years in Vermont I was compelled to move as far away on the US map as possible, which started my experience of living in some key landmark locations in the US and Canada— at this point in my life, I would say that experience of living elsewhere has influenced me just as much as anything in my trajectory and approach to life!

7YW: Oh man, I have to ask because I love stories from those early days, can you give us one story from that roadtrip that sticks out in your mind?

JESSE: I’d have to say the NYC sidebar was probably the craziest... Other than that it was a RV from Vermont packed full of dudes and snowboard gear; the bathroom quickly became the board storage area, stickers were on every surface, and sleeping surfaces were at a premium. I’m pretty sure Lukas and I slept on the “couch,” aka a flat board with a tiny bit of cushioning on it.

For some reason, we went to Chicago on the way. Mainly, I think so those guys could skate the classic cobble-stone volcanoes that Ricky Oyola shreds. Herb took us on a further “detour” to this reststop in nowhere Wyoming because he had heard there were these cool pyramids to skate... It was so windy the RV almost blew over and we had to go park at a gas station and wait it out.

The snowboarding was really fun, but in retrospect we were literally just riding the Vail trails and bowls and trying to milk a catalog out of it. The older dudes got really drunk a lot and one morning Rehbein couldn’t even snowboard, which as a teenage guy on a roadtrip to Vail pre-season I thought was really funny, like what a waste of shred!

Other than that nothing was too crazy... Just average shred stuff on a RV tour, hah. Weirdly again, we detoured on the way back to Florida. I don’t remember why but Herb wanted to check the ocean out I imagine. We drove through Oklahoma and other southern states, and it was literally the first time I seen so much trash on the side of the roads and so many people smoking cigarettes. Yankee fear for sure! Florida was extra bizarre because it had just got hit by a hurricane and literally everything was closed and nobody was around.

Then we drove to NYC and that story is below...

7YW: Besides being a solid team, Herb George was a bit of a pioneer in artist collaboration. What sticks out in your mind for art from that time?

JESSE: Again, this is something that you don’t really realize as a teenager, especially from Vermont at that time— you’re so isolated. But what Herb did with the brand was certainly pioneering and to a degree really hasn’t been achieved since. He brought on artists like Thomas Campbell and Phil Frost to do the graphics, while Campbell literally curated the catalogs and came on our first Colorado trip to shoot photos. No one was doing this at the time, it was like 1996! This was an era where snowboard graphics and snowboard design in general was nearly 99% horrible, boring, blocky and totally risk-averse.

From the layout of the catalogs, to the board graphics and the print ads, this was a seriously progressive collaboration with artists that would become recognized as the leaders of the “street art” movement, as seen in “Beautiful Losers,” etc., It was pretty amazing stuff to see in person, and looking back I have to imagine it influenced me in some ways that just took a while to gestate and express themselves.

Herb obviously had some deep NYC connections, which I didn’t realize until we ended that winnebago tour with a stop in NYC, to visit all the artists at a show at the Max Fish on Ludlow Street. We literally parked the winnebago on Ludlow, went in a partied at the Max Fish (under age team riders and all), meet the artists, then slept in the winnebago to make sure no one jacked it. Things were dicier around there back then! I’m pretty sure Herb slept in the driver’s seat.

The next morning we woke up to see that Phil Frost had tagged pretty much the entire vehicle exterior with his sharpie... That was pretty mind blowing to me at the time, and I’m sure those guys didn’t get their damage deposit back from that rental!!

7YW: After Vermont, you eventually ended up in British Columbia. What was it like to go from the East Coast to riding backcountry with the Campos’ brothers?

JESSE: This kind of relates back to my sentiment about growing up in Vermont. It’s nice and builds up great “character,” but especially as a kid consuming tons of snowboard media, you know there’s a lot more out there in the world. BC people are generally pretty nice, so that jives well with the Vermont perspective, but as far as the riding, it was the complete opposite and I loved it! A side note, I had spent my first season out west between Jackson Hole and Utah, so we were right into the backcountry (for better or worse), right off the bat.

Lukas had gone out to BC first, and met Jon Cartwright, who knew Shandy Campos (or something like that). Shandy would show up with Shin sometimes for laps on the hill, and we would just chase after them. All these guys were BC locals so they gave us a proper tour of the place and showed us how it was done. Although Shandy and Jon were just a bunch of 19-20 year olds too, going crazy in the mountain, so to a degree we all came up and learned a ton about filming together, especially that first full year I spent out there, on the Momentum movie.

I would say the terrain up there, and getting to ride so much with Shandy and Jon really shaped my snowboarding for the first part of my pro career: just go huge!

7YW: While living in BC, you were in the film Momentum. As far as I know that was one of the only films that Mike Michelchuk was in. What story best describes riding with him?

JESSE: Oh man. So that project was an honor in the first place, because Adventure Scope, the production company that made Momentum, had a collection of other BC-based shred films that we would just wear out on our VCRs in Whistler getting pumped to go jump off some gigantic rocks.

For Momentum, we just got to film with him on a few occasions, and it was always the “Michelchuk” show. The first time, we snowmobiled deep into Brandywine to this cornice line with a steep and seemingly never-ending landing. I was pretty nervous about punting off the thing, but then Michelchuk was like “We’ll build the jump back there...” Under his direction we shoveled up a kicker at least as big as a VW hippie bus, 30 feet or more back from the cornice lip. So it was pretty much a park-sized table top, but then the landing dropped out from underneath you, and you fell at least as far as the distance you had jumped out! I got a 360 of it and called it quits. Other people just did a straight air or didn’t hit it, and Michelchuk went for a 720, over rotated and just tomahawked the entire run out, and then didn’t hit it again.

That was kind of what his scene was like. We’d build the craziest mutant kicker situation and then one or maybe two people would get a shot and everyone else would get worked. I remember the filmers just getting angsty because they weren't getting much done, but Michelchuck had last part in Momentum, and it was pretty ballistic!

7YW:Since leaving the world of professional snowboarding, you have established yourself as one of the better snowboard journalists. Given your background, I am curious your thoughts on the responsibility of the snowboard media to challenge the industry?​

JESSE: Honestly, I don’t aspire to challenge the industry. But the media outlets do have a role to play in creating an authentic and principled voice within it. My original intent was to work for non-endemic publications, like the New York Times, and I have done that, just not as much as I would like. I’m not here as a whistleblower or muckraker, but I do have a journalistic education and work experience in the “real” media world where expectations are much higher, and honestly the stakes and the reward are higher too, because you are working for, and speaking to, a broader audience. And if it is via the New York Times, it’s thrilling because you know the publication will only take your best work, and that people that read their paper demand that.

I would say that people should just up the level of their quality and that would be a challenge in and of itself. The quality of snowboard imagery has never been lacking, but of course the writing and storytelling side of things has gotten somewhat gratuitous, and that’s too bad. Again, most of the time the impact and significance of another snowboarding story is not going to compare against most US or National news items, but that doesn’t mean you can’t write it well. Not to break out the hobby horse, but I remember travel articles back in the 90’s that were so abstract, weird and wonderful. Of course there were a lot that were bad, too...

I don’t know Seth! I guess it would be great if the snowboard media took a stance on things, but in the end, aren’t they just reporting on a culture that revolves around gear that these companies sell? I think the great thing is about the internet age we’re living in is that people can and do seek out higher-quality reporting and storytelling, along with all the ad-vertorial that they want.

Another tangent and then I’ll be quiet on this... And it is related to “media” in general. Basically, no snowboard writer or photographer is getting paid very much unless there are some sponsor dollars involved; it’s more “for the love,” or the “lifestyle.” So, just like the trajectory of mainstream media where newspapers are getting shuttered and more people are turning to the internet for “opinion” instead of “news,” can we really expect people to put out “challenging” work if they are not getting properly paid for it? Media is a business too, not just a watchdog service. I would offer that if media creators were compensated fairly and competitively for their work, they might be more interested in producing the quality, in-depth, dialogue-sparking, storytelling that in their hearts they would prefer to engage in.

7YW: That is an interesting point and one of the reasons I feel there is cause for all of us to be concerned about either a perceived or real decline in snowboarding. As you pointed out, it is coinciding with the trend in media as a whole that makes it difficult to earn a living as a journalist or photographer. If the industry is consolidating, it makes it more and more difficult for such a wide cast of creators to be compensated. Given these circumstances, some possibly overblown, what do you see as the future of media in snowboarding?​

JESSE: That is a really tough thing to project... There are lot of concerns and plenty of debate over the death of print journalism in general, and you can’t really argue with the fact that newspapers are shuttering all around the country and more and more people look at blogs, etc., as their source of “news.”

In regards to snowboarding, the business of writing or shooting for a living has always been marginal at best... You can’t really make a “living” as a freelance writer in snowboarding, at least not by just writing for publications! I don’t know if you could have once, either. I guess it’s probably always been a “for the love” sort of thing, and at least for photo, you have to have a healthy mix of editorial and commercial work in order to keep afloat.

My main worry is that without a magazine or media outlet supporting media creators, every piece of content will end up “branded” for the sake of getting it done, which can diminish the expression and authenticity of the people putting it out there. Not that there has ever really been much true editorial content in the snowboard world anyway. And really, it’s kind of nice to be able to check out media from such a broad spectrum of people, who pre-internet, you’d never have seen their stories or photos or videos. So of course it’s impacting the financial viability of giving a few groups the resources they need to produce really high-quality stuff, but in return we’re seeing more and more perspectives, which is of course nice.

So you could end up with quantity, not quality, breadth instead of depth. Or we will be relying solely on the good deeds of people like yourself who are willing to put in the effort for modest to no compensation. And I’m not sure if that will preface the “decline of snowboarding,” but things will certainly be different that it for sure. Honestly, I can’t say what will happen! But if all the magazines go out of business, or continue to thin out their original coverage and feature content, and we’re just looking at the internet, then that will be a sorry state.

7YW:You have concentrated a lot of your reporting on the environmental side of snowboarding. How do you think the industry is doing overall to move beyond “greenwashing” to real sustainability?​

JESSE: That’s a great question. I haven’t really had the opportunity to take the temperature out there since the advent of “green” products spiked. My hope is that as consumer interest in these products have waned, companies are integrating the products deeper into their lines and moving away from the model of having some flagship “green” board, boot, etc., to a more holistic approach... But honestly I just don’t know. If it were truly successful, we wouldn’t see so much marketing hype!

7YW: Where do you see the greatest opportunity for improvement in this regard?​

JESSE: Again, I would think that if companies can take their inspiration for making a particular board or jacket, and just apply that to their whole company, we’d be moving forward. I know there are a lot of intra-industry efforts to certify sourcing for products too that sounded like decent initiatives. In the end, it’s going to be up to the companies with the biggest leverage over their material vendors to demand these materials at a competitive price! That, and a whole lot of reliable eco-friendly materials that companies can plug into their lines with no loss of performance.

Another thing snowboarding needs to look at is the consumer buying cycle... I know the industry revolves around putting out a new product every year, but man even if every product were 50% “eco-friendly” that seems like it’s just going to generate more and more waste and use more and more energy!

Getting on some Cradle to Cradle tip would be a great idea if we’re going to continue a business model based on people buying a brand new kit every season. Personally, I have been riding the same boots for 6-7 years. They smell bad but work great. And most of my jackets have a similar vintage... So I would say people should just buy less stuff but then what will the industry do for revenue?

7YW: You have also covered snowboarding’s return to its roots, in particular you were one of the first to showcase PowderJet and then expanded to the SNOW CRAFT series. I am interested in how that series came about.​

JESSE: PowderJet coverage was pretty simple— I had just moved back to Vermont, and become re-acquainted with Jesse Loomis and Shem Roose. I was doing lot’s of ESPN.com Blogging, and the PowderJet story was an obviously cool and newsworthy story to cover... At first I saw it as a “roots” thing, but after riding the board I understood that it was really a progressive thing, adding another dimension and way of looking at/interacting with the mountain on a snowboard. I had recently become obsessed with surfing, so I loved the new sensations the PowderJet was bringing to my snowboarding, and when Shem Roose, my brother Lukas and I went on a sandpit tour of Vermont three winters ago for Frequency, the idea of riding these boards in truly epic conditions and terrain got stuck in our brains... SNOW CRAFT was 99% self serving. We pretty much just wanted to go on a trip that was all powder riding and so we reverse engineered a subject that suited that goal— powder boards!

Of course there was/is a genuine trend afoot, so we had that going for us. And once we had locked into some amazing characters for the Japan trip, it was looking like a really good series. Honestly, we didn’t know a ton about the Japanese guys until we went over there, so it was a journey of discovery, couched in a lot of really amazing powder riding. Crazy to interact with such different cultures, and ways of experiencing the same passion for mountains that we have over here (just with less powder).

In a nutshell, it really wasn’t planned out very much and I suppose that is how the best things occur, they just happen.

That said, we did our best to plan out another SNOW CRAFT series, which will feature PowderJet again, along with Corey Smith of Spring Break and the late Tom Sims, RIP.

7YW: Jesse Loomis told me this story of how you were corrected by the Japanese for using the term “slash”. Can you describe the Japanese powder culture?​

JESSE: Haha... I think it was the offending word was “shred.” the Gentemstick guys didn’t really jive with that concept; the aren’t in an oppositional, aggressive relationship with the mountain, they are more going with the natural flow and honestly trying to “blend in” with the environment. So less tearing things apart and more being one with nature. It sounds hokey, but over there it is an entirely serious and authentic approach to life in general, and that and all their onsens (natural hot springs) probably contribute a lot to them being more relaxed and at peace in general.

7YW: How do you think that culture is influencing snowboarding as a whole?​

JESSE: Do you mean Japanese pow shred culture? I don’t know how much that particular ethos is going to influence the general snowboarding population. For instance, the Gentemstick guys were in Niseko, and over on the main island in Tenjindaria, the TJ Brand guys had a more aggressive, street culture-influenced take on pow riding. They all live in Tokyo and then drive up to noodle out in the mountains, so they have to balance the importance of city culture with that reverence for nature. So even across the islands IN Japan, that Niseko powder culture isn’t 100% blanket.

I would say just the availability of those sort of boards will influence people. When you get on one you can’t help but ride different, and approach that mountain in a more considered and graceful manner. It’s like going to from a high-performance, aggressive surfboard to something looser and more aesthetically-inspired; of course your style, technique and wave choice are going to have to change a bit.

7YW: As alluded to earlier, a lot of attention has recently been paid to the state of snowboarding. Moving beyond the “it is fun, it will be fine” argument, what have you seen in your reporting that makes you optimistic?​

JESSE: Haha, by that are you referring to my now lamented and only ever appearance as an “expert” on WCAX? Um, well I guess my optimism stems from a lack of concern for snowboarding in the first place. The question of “will it be okay” just doesn’t occupy much space in my head. It’s a sport, a lifestyle, a culture, a billion dollar business, and a lot of other things too. There’s lots of moving parts in there, and I’m confident that whatever happens, people will still be snowboarding and thus things will turn out alright.

As far as the state of snowboarding... I guess I am optimistic when I meet people like Chris Roach for the first time as I did in Mount Baker this year, and he is still super pumped and amped to snowboard and be a snowboarder! I am also pumped when I meet groms like 20-year-old Ralph Kucharek, who we filmed with in Vermont for the next SNOW CRAFT series; he’s a super nice kid, totally authentic character, he rips and has amazingly “adult” style. That makes me psyched to see in person.

Really I am not as concerned about what company or organization or ski area does what... It’s what the people that are snowboarding that seems to matter most. And as far as I can tell, people are still enjoying themselves and doing and making cool projects. Getting to be involved as a media maker and sometimes snowboarder with the SNOW CRAFT series has been really eye-opening; there are a lot of people out there doing their own thing with snowboarding, making their own boards, snowboarding in their own ways, and they are getting coverage and some success. And, as we learned this year, there is for sure a cast of legends and pioneers that paved the way for us all, and are still stoked on snowboarding. So that seems like an indication that there’s still hope for the sport growing in an interesting way.

On a totally self-serving level, my basic barometer for the “state of snowboarding” is my own ability to be amazed by actually doing it. And it’s pretty great these past few years, especially at the epic level we got to experience once again in Japan and Washington, and even this March in VT. Getting to ride with guys like Elan Bushell, who is also another “old” guy that just flat out rips, and riding some steeper NW lines than I had in over 5 years makes you realize that there is a constantly renewable source of stoke out there, and that it is possible to look at the sport from a life-passion level, which means a lot to me!

7YW: Do you feel like there are areas of concern, or better stated, areas to improve?​

JESSE: Again, I really am not an industry spokesperson. I am just trying to put out my best work into the sometimes-middling level of content, but it’s not like I am trying to lead by example or anything. I guess just respect the sport’s roots, respect that it actually has a history, respect your own passion for it, respect the quality of work you aspire to by producing at that level, and hopefully that will equal some improved vibes overall.

Actually, I can’t get away without trying to appeal to people to buy less stuff, burn less gas and overall don’t fool yourself by ignoring global warming and our place in it. Or the fact that we likely have already screwed up the chance for our kids and their kids to enjoy a “normal” winter, especially here on the east coast. And that is sad. We can wax on forever about the “state of snowboarding,” but if there is little or no snow, there’s no snowboarding, and there’s no talking our ways out of that.