Travis Rice’s, The Art of Flight is one of the sickest and most influentual snowsports films of our time, but there may be a price to pay for such radness. Now, I may be about to sound like an old curmudgeon and feel free to call me out if I am, but these guys are riding as if they’re invincible.
When I ride the backcountry with snowboarder buddies they don’t act like this, so why do the ‘pros’? Rice doesn’t seem far off from wiping out half his riders based on the backcountry protocol in the film. I am all about pushing the envelope and am not the most conservative backcountry skier out there, but six huge slides in the trailer?
Is this an avalanche promo or a snowboard film? Now there’s typical snowboarder antics like shooting fireworks at moving cars and fording an icy river in the backcountry, but these don’t hold a candle to the bad example set when the riders are dropping into lines. Riding big lines 3 at a time with sluff ripping everywhere? WTF? The real concern here is that these athletes are skilled enough to outride most slides and have eyes everywhere on them- 99% of the groms watching this, envying these guys and emulating their every move don’t have a clue.
Will they be dropping 3 at a time in the backcountry this winter? Will they have any of the gear from Brennan’s post ? Will they be above me? The glorification of outriding slides thoughout the film is unrealistic. You can rip me apart for this becuase I’m not nearly as rad, but the progression of these films and riders without safer protocol may have a scary reality…
(powdercanada.com)
