The Tokyo Dome Big Air contest (in 2003) was my first trip to Japan. I think I won it with a double back or something. Those events were fun. I was underaged, like 19 or 20, and going over to Japan in the very beginning was insane. It was amazing.

I love to snowboard with no cameras: 100 percent.

We started out making a film [ The Fourth Phase] about the incredible snow we get at home in Wyoming, the journey soon macroed out into this epic 16,000 mile trip around the North Pacific, taking us to locations in Japan, Alaska, the Kamchatka Peninsula in far-eastern Russia, and back to Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

Over the past six years, my girlfriend and I live on our boat two or three months a year. It's just one of our seasonal homes at this point.

Inevitably it's always a set-up; you go somewhere, bring your own expectations, you think you have an idea of what you want to do but then the minute you get there everything changes, so trying to work with people who are able to ride in a lot of different conditions, sub-par conditions, people who are able to make the most of any situation.

Sometimes storms come through with wind and blow the features off or sometimes they come in heavy and grow the features to the point where we have to shovel them off again. Leading up to the window for our event we try to get everything lined up and safe for the riders.

I knew I wanted to shoot in Japan early on. Years ago, we did a Japan segment in "The Community Project," and at the time I felt it was one of the better Japan segments ever captured.