Shin [Biyajima] rides down with this big ol' Japanese grin and giggle and I'm like what? Two years later, when I started planning the trip, I knew Shin was from the Hakuba area, and I didn't want to come film in Japan without a Japanese rider. Shin had the time and availability, and it worked out perfect.

Experiencing the world through Endless secondhand information isn't enough. If we want authenticity we have to initiate it.

What is snowboarding to me? I'd say it's when I feel passion. That is, if passion is a combination of utter joy, frustration and rage. It's my life.

One of the deep routed motivations for looking at our connection to snow and its journey to our mountains came from Bryan Iguchi, who I rode with a lot when I was just a teenager.

Ultimately it's a snowboarding film [Fourth Phase], of course, so the main thing that we wanted to celebrate was how awesome snowboarding is! Secondly, we wanted to celebrate the environment that we all shape our lives around. So the film documents myself and other like-minded individuals attempting to follow the hydrological cycles that shape the worlds we've committed our lives to.

Pretty much everywhere we went we had crazy weather. I think Russia was probably one of the toughest places for us weatherwise, but even Alaska, the last three years have been somewhat subpar when you look at historically how Alaska can shape up.

I'm really interested in revamping the Supernatural contest, so I'm going to put a lot of effort and energy into that going forward.