I was pretty blown away by how vast and aggressive the terrain is in the Japanese Alps. You're looking up at peaks, and it's like Alaska seeing all kinds of amazing stuff that looks ridable, but it's 70 percent death defying; only a small percentage really goes.

When I finally got to go ride the mountains in Japan, it blew my mind.

Bryan [Iguchi] had this beautiful philosophy about our connection with these incredible cycles. There's a line from one of his poems that always stays with me about 'This process we follow; this cycle we ride' and it's almost become a strap line for the film.

It was just on a whole other level, getting to experience and ride that terrain. We spent a fair amount of time in the Hakuba Valley.

There's no doubt 'normal' is changing - spring actually came a month early in Alaska, for example, and we had to stop filming.

It’s not the destination but the adventure along the way.

When your location is a snowy mountain in the winter the obstacles are pretty extreme.