Apart from those other riders there is a whole production team [ of The Fourth Phase] behind the cameras too, hauling hundreds of kilos of fragile and awkward filming equipment up those same frozen landscapes. They're the real heroes.

I've been to Japan so many times, but I still constantly stumble across things that are so foreign to me.

Even getting one amazing shot in a pristine environment is what I live for.

The idea [of the Fourth Phase ] was that by taking a closer look at where our weather comes from, and the processes involved in making it, we could all walk away with a greater appreciation of water in its various magical forms.

I realized pretty quickly just how big and aggressive some of the mountains were down in Nagano Prefecture.

It would be really nice to have a venue stop in Japan someday. Japan would be perfect for it.

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.