Video: Cooks Do It All on Snowboard Expeditions
“For nearly two decades, Jeremy Jones has traveled to Alaska in the spring to explore new zones. On these trips, in which snowboarders are often dropped into remote areas by a bush plane, space is at a premium. Consequently, Jones and Teton Gravity Research must carefully calculate the resources needed to support and film their expeditions. When selecting team members, they look for people who are as versatile as they are dependable. No one embodies this better than the crew’s camp cook.
For expeditions to Alaska, the camp cook is tasked with more than making oatmeal. Essentially serving as the base camp manager, the cook assists with everything from melting snow for drinking water to belaying snowboarders during descents. As a result, these individuals tend to have “the most dialed mountain skill set around,” Jones said.
And as much as cooking over a camp stove is rewarding, Jones reveals that “the real payout for the cook is to shred.” In Jones’s most recent film projects, the crew’s camp cooks were especially strong riders. While filming for “Further” in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, Canyon Florey turned heads with his descents. Similarly, Lucas Merli surprised Jones and his colleagues on a trip last spring to the Eastern Alaska Range to film for “Higher.” In addition to impressing crew members with his cooking, Merli satiated their appetite with his riding.” – nytimes.com