Red Bull Skiing: March 2008 Archives

Red Bull Skiing recently had the chance to sit down with Tanner, in his Park City home, and talk with him about the season thus far. Tanner can talk for hours about skiing with little prompting, so the standard interview format doesn't always work out. Fortunately what we are left with is the man himself, uncut and uncensored.

In the second installment, Tanner discusses dealing with injury, the reality of making ski movies, the Provo brothers (Ian and Neil), and the Pettit brothers (Callum and Sean). Enjoy.

This week I’ve been seeing everyone getting up at 6:00 a.m. and getting out of the house at 6:30 a.m., to go out on sleds and just kill it the whole time. It’s tough, man. Like I said back in “Teddy Bear Crisis”, I’m one of the most active kids in the world and once you take that away from me it’s like taking medicine from a dying person. One of the toughest things you can deal with in this job is an injury. But just being off my skis for the last little bit and going up yesterday—knowing my ankle’s not ready—and knowing what I have to do to get to a full recovery, just makes me that much more stoked to get back on my skis. Once I get back on it the murder mission will definitely continue and I’ll be that much more ready to put a hurtin’ on the mountains, because I’ve been off my skis for a little bit and it’ll be time to get back on it.

The whole month of February was kind of botch for us, because we’re used to going to a lot of places where the pow’s always nice—getting work done—but this is the first year we’ve kind of had to deal with getting botched out on snow everywhere we’ve gone. It’s almost been a full month of not getting super banger shots. Then all of sudden the boys came out here and the first day coming back from skiing they were grinning ear to ear and I knew something good had happened. CP came in and said it’s back on and just to hear those words was super comforting to me. Even I was getting nervous from not getting shots for a month and the pow staying away. You start to think everything is working against you, but like I said you can’t play with Mother Nature. It’s just on of the things in our sport we have to deal with and you take it as it comes. The more you respect the mountains the more they’ll respect you back and they’ll love you just as much as you love them. So, that’s what we’re doing right now: positive vibes. I knew we come back 180 degrees going from negative to positive and it’s all good. We needed these couple days of the boys going out and getting good snow and getting banger shots.

The Provo brothers, I’m super stoked on these brothers. They’re probably the coolest pair of brothers I’ve seen in a while, next to the Pettit brothers. The Provo brothers are out there. They’re the most mountainous type of kids you’ll meet. In the summer they’re fly fishing all the time and rock climbing, just being out in nature. These kids just love the life that they’re living and the vibe they live is all about righteousness. They are all about positive. That’s the word of the winter. It’s just that much easier to do your thing and hang out with these kids. When you’re out there doing what we are doing—watching people get sick—it’s so cool to see kids that are so level headed. They are my neighbors and they are two of my best friends in my life right now. Seeing them work together, they are best friends, they do everything together. One snowboards and one skis. Neil kills it really hard, you’ve probably seen him in Technine movies throughout the years. He’s really trying to progress his skills and he’s really focused on the backcountry like his brother. It’s a lot harder to go out and ride the mountains than it is to go in the city and hit a rail and those kids realize that and that’s what they are trying to push now. No taking away from sliding rails, because we all like to do it. It’s so fun to go in the city and slide some rails, but the real adventure of what we are doing is them getting out on their snowmobiles and waking up at 4:30 in the morning and getting to the trailhead at 6:30. Getting that morning light and being up there until 5 at night. Working, hiking, skinning, building jumps, finding lines; they are all about it. That draws me to those kids a lot more. We’re all into reggae music, we’re all into a positive lifestyle, and I feel like I’m blessed everyday to have two kids like that in my corner.

The Pettit brothers, just like I said about the Provo brothers, just two of the coolest brothers I’ve ever met in my life. They are still pretty young. You know the Provo brothers went through it when they were younger too. Always fighting all the time, always bickering at each other, but in the end the love is always there. They might not know it, but they are best friends. They do a lot of stuff together and spend a lot to time together. I can see Callum is the older brother, trying to look out of Sean and stuff. In certain situations sure they are going to have their fights and tiffs and quarrels, but that’s like every brothers. Me and Tyson did that at that age. Neil and Ian, it was insane how they used to fight at the skate park here in the summer. You see little fights and quarrels from the Pettits and sometimes they can take it too far and sometimes it’s all good, but the coolest thing is they are there for each other. They are always looking out for each other and the skills that these guys have on their skis is really scary, man. Callum is way different than Sean in a lot ways, but they are so similar in a lot of ways. I think Callum right now has been hanging out with Kye Peterson a whole bunch and is maybe starting to get a little taste of mountaineering. Skinning and hiking and getting into bigger mountains and I think that’s such a righteous thing. Callum’s gonna learn so much from just wanting to know about a mountain and know what’s gonna slide on him and know about wind-loaded pockets and know about temperatures of the snow and know about layers and know about digging pits. He’s already learned so much stuff and it’s already coming in really handy in his skiing skills, especially launching big cliffs. It’s amazing, the kid fully charges 100 percent. Then when you look at Sean, the kid is the murder machine right now. I look at it to the point right now where the kid’s 15 years old and what he did this year up in Retallack and what he did up here, when the kid is my age he’s gonna be on top. He’s gonna be running the world. The ski world is gonna be Sean’s world. Just keep these kids on the righteous path and they know what they want. The eyes they have for the mountains when we go out and film: they are  looking at the same lines I am. They got the eye to look for the good line, to look for the gnarliest thing right in the middle of a face and that’s so sick to see young kids to do. Most kids Sean’s age are worried about training pipe and park and going to the X Games and winning. Sean maybe wants to go to the X Games one day, if you ask him he might say yes, but I don’t think that’s in his mind right now. I think what’s in his mind is world domination. And he’s on the right path. You stick him in a halfpipe he’s gonna do what everybody else is doing. Off of jumps he’s got crazy artillery. Put him on urban rails. Put him on park rails. Whatever. Now stick him in heli and put him on big mountain lines. Stick him on pillow lines stick him on a backcountry booter. If nobody out there has really realized what we’ve been trying to do with skiing, well, it’s an all around thing. Skiing is just fun and I can see in Sean’s eyes it’s really an all around thing to him. The sky’s the limit for the kid, he’s just gotta grow up a little bit. Sean’s still got a little kid body, wait until he’s a full-grown man. I mean he’s stomping 60-footers right now to flats, he’s gonna be stomping 100-footers no problem. Maybe. Right now I don’t where his progression is going, but I’m just stoked on the Pettit brothers.

Red Bull Skiing recently had the chance to sit down with Tanner, in his Park City home, and talk with him about the season thus far. Tanner can talk for hours about skiing with little prompting, so the standard interview format doesn't always work out. Fortunately what we are left with is the man himself, uncut and uncensored.

In this first installment Tanner discusses striking out in St. Anton, coming home to Utah, and what lies ahead for the remainder of his winter. Make sure to check back for the continuation of this conversation with Tanner. Enjoy.

Tanner Hall:  We got to St. Anton with high expectations. I’ve been there a couple times before: the place is off the meat rack with features and just a bunch of cool stuff that lets you get a bunch of work done. I was super stoked, got off the plane and talked with a couple kids in Munich that had just been to St. Anton. They said it wasn’t looking so good, so right from the beginning we weren’t hearing what we wanted to hear about the conditions. CP (Tanner’s filmer) got in a hour after me. Met up, drove up, and of course it sucked, but you gotta deal with it. We tried to go out anyway, tried to get a couple things done. Callum ended up launching a 70-footer, sent it to the flats. It was probably a solid 25-foot drop, but he just took too much speed and launched. It was super sick. Me a Sean tried to do a little thing and it just didn’t really work out. We were about to pull the plug, but I saw a nice natural feature. I wanted to ski into it switch, try a cab 5. No stepping it out, no doing nothing to it. Got into it, skied in, started picking up a lot speed and launched a cab 5. I went way further than I thought, kind of over rotated and backslapped. I ragdolled through the gnarliest, nastiest, wind-crusted, sugary, crappy snow. Just the worst conditions possible. I ended up slamming my ski in the snow and twisting my ankle. I came to a dead stop and knew my ankle was super jacked. It felt like a high and low sprain, and I was in pretty insane pain, so we pulled the plug and came home.

The last few days I’ve just trying to heal up: icing my ankle and going to physical therapy as much as possible, just trying to get healthy. I’ve got a couple of big trips coming up. We’re going up to Terrace, B.C. in a week and then going up to AK. I want to be super healthy for those trips and I want to be ready to push the limits when I get in the heli. I want to ski some stuff that is going to open some eyes and just charge. My confidence is super high right now in my skiing ability and it’s been going really well. Since I’ve been icing my ankle things have been all good.

Right now we have Sean Pettit, Callum Pettit, and Ian Provo out here getting it done. They’ve gone out to sled zones in the Uintas and done some really cool, unique, and pretty crazy stuff. Ian really stepped it up this week and it was pretty sick, man. He’s coming off I-80 in Tahoe where he had a face rip out on him and then coming back here and basically putting a hurting on some lines. He’s been in his element. That kid is one of the skiers out there that could be pushing the top limits and creating a style of his own if we put him in his element. We finally did that and I was super stoked that he got it done. It was also super cool to see the Pettit brothers rally in and it was cool crew. We had everything working out in our favor, we had good snow, good sun, good weather, good everything. “Massive” might have some sunny shots in it this year.

I went out yesterday and tried to get a couple things done. My ankle is still pretty sore, but I got one shot. I did a kind of corked up backflip off this little pillow, all natural style and I was stoked. I went up and tried again in the sunny light and crashed. I ragdolled and kind of tweaked my ankle again, so I’m back off my skis for the next week. I’m icing again and going to physical therapy. This is just the name of the game, this is what we do. It’s part of the job. I’m just thankful I didn’t take out a knee or break my ankle again, so that’s how I’m looking on the bright side. It could be a whole lot worse than it really is and I’m just super stoked to get healthy and get back up in the heli.

I’m going up to Terrace with Ian McIntosh. As you know I’m usually riding with Seth out there, but he’s on a different program this year and I’m super stoked for him. I hope he’s killing it. I’ve heard he’s just been murdering it out there. But I’m switching it up a bit this year and going out with another super crazy skier who likes to step it up in the bigger mountains. Ian McIntosh, with the lines I’ve seen him ride, is definitely one of the most powerful skiers I’ve seen riding the bigger stuff. I’m really excited to get out there and have my confidence brought up, because I know when I’m skiing with somebody like that everything gets up to a whole new level and I’m super stoked.

Up to AK right after that with Dana Flahr. He’s just another righteous big mountain shredder. We both have kind of similar styles in skiing. We both love all around stuff. It’ll be nice to go up to AK and if we want to build a jump and pull the doors off the heli we can get some sick shots. We’ll ski spines, we’ll ski big lines and if all goes well in AK with the budget we have—having our own chopper—I think it’s a recipe for making one of the best segments ever. The way the stuff has been going this year it’s been really insane. I couldn’t be more proud of everyone that’s been involved with the new movie and we’re gonna keep it going. The season’s halfway done and now the second half starts and this is the most intense part of the season. Getting up in the heli is a lot different that going to a contest and a halfpipe and doing what we do all the time. I’m going out there and I’m basically gonna be risking my life, but this is what I want for my life. I want to do what I want to do and fulfill the goals I have set for myself. Hopefully, I can give the people what they want to see in the new movie. I’m just gonna keep pushing it out there. The sky is the limit.

*Part Two

After having our well-laid plans of powder domination destroyed by sledneckers up North in Logan, we regroup back down by Park City for another sled mission to find fresh in Utah. It’s somewhat of a gamble as temperatures are unsettlingly spring-like across the state, but Ian and Neil Provo know of a zone at high altitude with North facing aspects.

It’s not a cakewalk getting to this spot. More than thirty miles in from the trailhead, it’s difficult to figure out if our light-headedness can be attributed to the altitude, or sucking two-stroke fumes for the last hour. Cutting the engines, it only takes seconds to see the toil was worth it. Silence envelopes us like a flood and the ridge before us—rising from a frozen alpine lake—is a natural terrain park covered with at least a foot of fresh snow that is still good.

Sean Pettit sets up and tees off a big Cab 540 off a sizable drop. Stomp. Neil Provo sends a floaty backside three across the fall line into a powder apron. Stomp. Ian Provo slashes a pow turn on top of a hanging field and drops a 180 off the edge. Stomp. Callum Pettit arcs turns down a tight chute and throws a 180 off a pillow at the bottom. Stomp. The crew is beside themselves. The best footage in over a month hits the can and at this rate the utah segment in “The Massive” is sure to blow minds. The zone gets slayed for the rest of the day with similar results. Everyone is riding high.

Tanner Hall feeds off the good vibes coming from the crew after the first two days. His ankle is feeling better after some intensive icing and physical therapy for a week. He heads out on day three with us to scope this zone and test out the ankle. He’s got about a week to some heli time up in Terrace, British Columbia, and he’s itching to see if he’s good to go.

Of course Tanner can’t help himself when he sees the zone we’ve been hitting the last two days. He sets up on a steep, tight chute with mandatory air at the bottom. Dropping in, he busts off one quick turn and points it off the 15-footer at the bottom, sailing between rock slabs barely wider than his shoulders. He stomps it and quickly lines up a launch off a pillow. Nonchalantly, he throws down a smooth backflip, all Japaned out, and skis away through the powder, which is still holding up in the high altitude.

Utah ends on a high note. Tanner is back on skis, shots for the movie were definitely got, and we spent a week skiing fresh in the middle of nowhere Utah. Keep checking in to www.redbullskiing.com as the season, and the snow, gets deeper.

Click here for the full photo gallery!

“I have no idea where we are,” CP (Tanner’s filmer) screams. He rests his forehead on his fists and then bangs them violently into the steering wheel. “Oh God, we’re lost,” he continues as the truck sits at the head of a long driveway to a big new house in a massive subdivision outside Park City. More banging. This goes on for five minutes or so, all the while Callum Pettit is growing more frantic that CP is freaking out.

“CP, just get out to the highway and drive,” Callum shouts, “We’ll figure it out man, jeez!” Feverishly, looking over one shoulder, then the other, Callum is trying to see the highway through the houses and fog forming on the windows in the truck’s cab. CP is driving Callum and Sean Pettit from the Salt Lake City airport to Tanner Hall’s house, which he says is a good two-hour drive. It’s only been 45 minutes. CP lets out one more shout, and then sighs like he’s just plain given up. Callum is terrified, eyes growing wider as CP puts the truck in gear and continues up the driveway to the house.

“We’re here,” CP cheerfully exclaims as he throws the truck in park. Callum is stupefied. CP laughs wildly, walks into Tanner’s garage, and leaves Callum in the truck with his bags.

A simple practical joke? Perhaps, but it may also be a barometer of how on edge Tanner and his crew are after spending a week flying to Austria, finding out the snow was terrible, and flying back to Utah to continue the mission to get footage for Tanner’s next film, “The Massive.” And the thing with the Austria debacle is that it was just the last event in a month long string of poor luck with finding good snow for filming. Utah has to be better. It surely can’t be worse.

Utah delivers and the skies puke for the next two days. We loaf about Tanner’s house and watch the snow pile up outside the two-story windows in his living room. Tanner spends the days icing his ankle and attending physical therapy religiously. He tweaked his ankle a bit in Austria and will be off it for a week or so. In the meantime, the crew—The Pettits and Ian and Neil Provo—load up a trailer with a handful powerful mountain snowmobiles and prepare to invade the backcountry around Logan, Utah.

We arrive at the trailhead well before sunrise. A quick three-mile buzz up a groomed trail, we spill out onto a frozen lake. The scene that lay before us is hard to describe. The small lake is rimmed by ridgeline probably a mile long. It’s littered with spines, chutes, flutes, pillows, and mandatory airs. And it’s steep. The sun crests the horizon and the face is aglow in pinkish light. The line possibilities are endless.

For an hour the silence is only broken by the yells of “three, two, one, dropping” and the hoots that follow. Inevitably, we hear the drone of more sleds ripping up the trail. We knew we wouldn’t be alone out here, but nobody was prepared for the fury that was about to be unleashed upon us.

The scene that now lay before us is equally hard to describe. Somewhere in the neighborhood of fifty slednecks descend on our zone and roost around the lake in deafening two-stroke. They gather in a group for a few minutes and the chaos is reduced to the low rumble of idling engines. Then the guns come out. Just some good ol’ boys shooting off in the air, but the sound of clips being unloaded sends some of instinctively diving for cover. The icing on the cake comes with the helicopter. Out to film the mayhem for the slednecks, its arrival triggers a symphony of brap-brapping.

Spreading out like locusts on a fresh crop, the sledneckers devour every single inch of fresh snow that their sleds will take them to, which is pretty much all of our landing zones off the ridge. Game over. We move up the valley a bit, set up a shot with an untracked landing, and seconds before Sean Pettit is set to drop in a rouge slednecker arcs a highmark across Sean’s line. Game over.

We do manage to get off a few nice shots in other zones for “The Massive,” but our day ends a bit earlier than expected. The disappointment runs deep. We literally traveled across oceans and spent a week preparing for this day, but such is life in the ski game and such is life when you are accessing terrain with sleds. We are still clinging to one last hope. A zone in the Uintas the Provo’s know about. North facing with high-elevation, it’s our only chance for good snow in Utah. Back to the trucks, the journey pushes on.

Click here for the full photo gallery!

When and in what circumstances you decided to combine skiing and
BASE-jumping?

2003. I'm a pro skier and an experienced base jumper. It would have been irresponsible of me not to combine the two! The first one I did was with JT Holmes here in Lake Tahoe California off a 400-foot cliff. It was much easier than we expected.

What did you feel while you jumped your first BASE?

Scared shitless! That’s what makes it so fun!

You often declare that you’re skiing just to finance your hobby, BASE-jumping. And what about financing your own family? How do you earn your living?

I ski for the fun and passion of it. I am very fortunate that skiing as well as BASE-jumping earns me a living for myself and my family.

Tell me about the moment whet you’ve felt fame?

Well, "famous skier" is kind of an oxymoron. Nobody in America knows who skiers are. I only feel that sometimes in the ski community and at skiing events and functions. It’s weird because I'm just a normal guy. The only difference is that a lot of people see what I do. That's how I get paid.

Which of your deeds or jumps you consider to be the most crazy?

The ones where I screwed up really bad. I made a really bad decision to BASE-jump off a cliff once in horrible wind conditions. I got slammed into the cliff wall twice and almost died. Had to get rescued. My dad and wife were watching. That really sucked.

You’re fanatic about monoskiing: a sport completely unknown in Russia. Tell us what is monoskiing itself? And what are its advantages and disadvantages if compared with snowboarding, for example?

Monoskiing was mildly popular in the 1970s before snowboarding was invented. It’s basically a really fat ski. It looks like a snowboard but longer. You stand on it with your feet glued together. It works really well in powder. It’s like skiing in the way that you are facing forward and wearing ski boots and ski bindings and poles but like snowboarding because you are standing on one board. It is faster than
snowboarding, but not as versatile. It’s better than skiing for powder but that’s about it. The technique for riding the things is exactly the same as mogul skiing technique - plant your pole, drive both hands forward, wiggle your hips, get laughed at by everyone. If you can be comfortable with the fact that everyone out on the hill is laughing at you then monoskiing is actually pretty fun.

Can you calculate how much times you’ve been close to fatality?

Five times BASE-jumping. One time skiing.

How do you amuse yourself when injuries prevent you from skiing?

Whenever I am injured I dive full on into the business side of skiing. My desk finally gets clean. All that stuff that I am normally way behind on gets done. I own a few rental properties so those get neglected less when I'm injured. I do things like start the International Free Skiers Association and design new powder skis and dream up weird new BASE-jumps to do. Does anyone remember Saucer Boy? That was an extremely successful idea bred from an injury.

Considering your biography, I have a feeling that you’ve ridden on everything that’s rideable. Is anything left?

I've never used an Airboard yet. Really want to try that. I have never done any speed flying yet either. That to me looks like the coolest and most fun new sport in the world.

What do you consider to be the marker of skier professionalism?

When your sponsors take you to a function and introduce you to any and all of their business partners you should have the ability to act like a responsible adult and make a positive impression on everyone you meet. There are a lot of spoiled bratty pro skiers out there who expect to be treated like royalty all the time. No one likes an asshole. I have seen many top level pro skiers ruin their career
simply due to their behavior off the mountain. I too have made this mistake a couple times.

High level athletes have their own style. What does your riding style look like?

Well, I'm old for a pro skier. I'm 38 so I would guess that my style is considered old. I have no problem with that. I'm not going to change my style. What's more important to me than style is to keep on doing interesting, new things.

Tell about your favorite place for powder skiing and the place for BASE-jumping.

The best place for powder skiing is anywhere there is a helicopter and  a maritime snowpack. In my experience, that usually means anywhere along the Coast Range of British Columbia all the way up to the Chugach Range in Alaska. However, as far as lift-accessed skiing goes I would have to say any of the little ski resorts in Europe that most people haven't heard of. I love skiing in Europe. I love the Alps. For BASE-jumping the best place I have ever been is Baffin Island, but access is very difficult and expensive. Norway and the Alps are a close second.

What’s the most useful advice you’ve got in your life?

Don't take yourself too seriously. No matter how much you shake and
dance, the last 3 drops go in your pants.

Let’s talk about goals. How do you plan to surprise
the world in the near five years?

I think if I am able to maintain the level of skiing and exposure I'm at right now for the next five years that would be pretty surprising. I have a couple tricks up my sleeve though. Keep your eyes on the Discovery Channel around August and you will see what I mean.

You are not a young athlete. What’s the main difference that you see between young Shane and 38-year-old Shane?

Without a doubt the answer is seeing possibilities. Now I see possibilities: interesting ideas and different ways to do things. When I was younger this was not the case. It was all just skiing down hills and jumping off cliffs. That’s what skiing was to me then. I think as you age you develop the ability to see the sport and the world a bit more creatively.