Jeremy Jones Bigger better greener deeper
Big-mountain charger Jeremy Jones ventures out of the safety zone into greener pastures new.
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Jeremy Jones has been a tad busy of late. When we catch up in February, he’s just returned from a trip to Capitol Hill where, as the founder and face of Protect Our Winters (POW), he met with lawmakers and Congress on the issue of climate change. Now the big-mountain charger is back on home turf in Tahoe for a few days before heading to Europe to showcase his new snowboard company, Jones Snowboards, at goliath trade show, Ispo. But before the political activism and entrepreneurial duties, Jeremy was venturing into new-found territory in Antarctica, clocking up numerous first descents on previously untouched peaks while filming for his mould-breaking, two-year movie project, Deeper.
It’s exhausting - just thinking about the exploits of one of the most multi-faceted athletes of our time. And yet, at thirty-four, Jeremy shows no signs of fatigue. In fact, it’s like someone put dynamite in his snowshoes as Jeremy continues to push snowboarding into entirely new and untapped territory, showcasing snowboarding as a survival sport and driving the renaissance of freeriding, while proving that $100 a day lift passes no longer need to stand in the way of transcendental snowboarding experiences.
It seems like you’ve entered a new phase in your snowboarding career. Not only have you left long-term sponsor Rossignol to create your own snowboard brand, you’ve also upped your political presence with POW and pushed backcountry exploration into a new heli-free realm. Are all these things the outcome of a conscious decision or are they part of some subconscious evolution?
It is an evolution. With everything in my life I am trying to gain more and more control of my world, surround myself with very passionate people and reduce my impact on the environment. I always knew I wanted to take my snowboarding further away from crowds and into the vast unridden zones that are hard to reach. I am now finally doing exactly what I want to do with movies, boards and more.
Protect Our Winters, the non-profit organisation that you established in 2007, seems to be gaining momentum - what with your recent presence on Capitol Hill to discuss the issue of climate change. Did you get a good insight into the political forces shaping an issue so close to your heart?
It was intense to see the inner workings of democracy on Capitol Hill. The people we met with had a strong passion for making the country a better place to live and put everything they had into their job. Their passion for democracy is very similar to my passion for the mountains.
Having always been involved in the development of your boards with Rossignol, was starting your own board company an idea you secretly harboured for a long time?
Up until a year ago, I had not given it much thought. I was looking for change. I wanted to be surrounded be people that had the same level of passion for the sport as me and I really wanted to give freeride boards the attention they deserve. It became clear to me that in order to achieve my goals, I needed to start my own company.
How do you feel about park kids who can put down a double cork yet can barely snowboard their way to the kicker?
I call that ‘the lost art of the turn’. It is sad because I often see established pros who want to evolve into freeriding but they have a bad turn and you cannot hide a bad turn when filming freeriding. It is really only a problem in the US. Every mountain in the US has a sick park with its own lift so that kids never have to find their own jumps. In Europe it is much more raw and the riders are much more well-rounded and can ride anything. Guys like Nicolas [Müller], Gigi [Rüf] and Wolle [Nyvelt] are good examples of this. One of the only guys in the US that can hang on that level is Travis Rice and that has a lot to do with the lack of a park at his home mountain, Jackson Hole.
The trailer for Deeper, your movie project due out this Autumn, is pretty dramatic. Should we be expecting a lot of drama in the movie?
The whole movie will not be as dramatic as the trailer. In parts of the movie, we are riding very critical lines in hard-to-reach areas making what we are doing very dramatic, but there will also be some fun-loving, pillow-bashing pow.
Finally, we have to ask: does it drive you mad if people mix you up with Jeremy Jones, the rail dude?
I do not get that much, but it does happen. It is something I have grown up with and has never made me mad. Jeremy is an awesome rider.
For the full interview check out HUCK#020, out now.
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Jeremy Jones (text) by Zoe Oksanen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
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