The Garrett Russell Experience, Episode III

Garrett Russell has chosen to live life of unadulterated passion. He has committed himself to humble mindfulness and unyielding contrast to trends. Early in his pro career, he felt that contests were bastardizing his passion, that he was losing the authenticity of his creative expression by curtailing his interpretation for the judges approval. During his last contest, he skied without poles, was DQ’d, and henceforth abandoned competitions. 

Since then, his career has been an odyssey to achieve new goals and to arrive at new internal creative destinations; pushing further into big mountain knowledge and freestyle expressions, and combining them into his own unique style. He looks at skiing aslant, and by opposing the fads of the day, he progresses his art. You will not see Garrett interact with a human-made or natural feature in a way which would mimic another or echo a familiar style. Rather than straightlining the run-in of a jump to gain speed for a regurgitated spin, Garrett may noseblock the lip, deploy a backpack grab, and ride away switch from the direction he came or hand drag to cartwheel to seal dive to who knows. Garrett’s style is the essence of invention, the core of innovation.

He thrives on humor, individuality, and style. The attractive nuances of his expression are bolstered by those who feed his creativity, making his art simultaneously tangible and otherworldly. The members of Line’s Traveling Circus are among those who fan Garrett’s creative fire. The vast glowing empty canvas of snow, the metal and plastic of the park, the trees, the rocks–everything becomes rich with possibility in their shared experience which has been so well documented in LTC’s 7-year webseries. His passion is driven by his ambition and character and his influence spreads with his bounding drive; all of which reach new heights when Garrett is around those he loves and admires.

The maligned Midwest–like Garrett, too often and overlooked by the ski industry–was, strangely, the only option for skiing in November. The West Coast was just at the early stages of its winter-long drought. Its bleakness ate at the members of the Traveling Circus. So, Garrett, Andy Parry, Will Wesson, and Shane McFalls traveled to Minnesota to find snow, the absurdity of it all adding to the grandeur—pro skiers descending from the mountains to find snow in the anthills of the Midwest. How fitting for the Garrett Russell Experience.

Of course, the oddity and eyebrow-raising nature makes sense really. Garrett Russell is never predictable. He looks for the strange and unconventional storylines because that is all he knows and all that he desires. Greatness, even when overlooked, is never achieved by following convention. Garrett is in a realm all his own, and it is a bright and bold great, strange dream. 

THE GARRETT RUSSELL EXPERIENCE–ANOTHER TIME, ANOTHER PLACE–EPISODE III

Brought to you by: The-House.com, Under Armour, Gear Junkie, Line Skis,SASS Global Travel, Marker Bindings, and Teton Gravity Research

Executive Producers: Paddy O'Connell & Dana Westbrock
Videographers: Shane McFalls, Paddy O'Connell, Dana Westbrock, Jake Strassman, Dan Bjork, Brett Spur
Editor: Jon Riley, Teton Gravity Research
Original Score: Brendan O'Connell aka Sidepart

Music Mixed and Mastered by Steve Shirk from Shirk Studios

Special Thanks: Wild Mountain, Shane McFalls, Ryan Dunfee