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If you’ve seen any of our annual films released in the past nine years, odds are that you’ve seen Griffin Post tearing it up. Post has been a TGR staple, and for good reason: He absolutely rips. More at home on 50+ degree slopes than most of us are on the bunny hill, he’s made a name for himself as a dedicated big mountain skier. We’ve sent him around the world in search of steep, scary lines, and he hasn’t let us down yet. This year was no exception: Post laid tracks in the Alps and the Chugach, shredding alongside Fabian Lentsch, Sam Smoothy, Elyse Saugstad, Angel Collinson, and Nick McNutt.
Griff lays one in while heli-skiing in Alaska. Nic Alegre photo.
Where did you ski this season? How would you describe your season as a whole?
We filmed in Austria and Alaska this season—two of my favorite places—and got both of them in pretty amazing conditions. We went to Austria on a bit of a whim after they had an amazing early season with literally meters of snow. Driving into Innsbruck, the place looked like Alaska with these massive spines and faces. If you didn’t know what you were looking at you could easily mistake some of the glide cracks for crevasses, there was that much snow. While it was absolutely dumping back home in Jackson, we were skiing perfect, stable snow in bluebird conditions, so the FOMO wasn’t too bad. I hit up Alaska in April and had more of the same—stable and bluebird—which, as anyone that’s been to Alaska can tell you, isn’t always par for the course. I’ve been mostly camping and hiking lines for the last few seasons and definitely forgot how intense the heli trip can be. There’s just so much more going on and while you can definitely cover more terrain, you don’t always get to examine the lines the same way you do while hiking. There’s definitely a different skill set there I had completely forgotten about, but it was nice to have Angel, Elyse and Nick there to give me some pointers.
What was your favorite line of the season?
We had a couple of early mornings in Austria— starting in the dark and topping out at first light. We were just outside the resort, so we could see the towns starting to come to life as we were about to drop. It’s always special being in the mountains at that time of the day; it just seems like there’s so much potential.
That's a complex line right there. Mathäus Gartner photo.
Did you have any particular goals for the season? If so, did you reach them?
I really prefer hiking and climbing my lines as opposed to mechanized travel, so this season was definitely a little weird for that. I’m probably one of the few pro skiers that would opt for walking, but as long as I’m developing my skills in the mountains I’m pretty happy— and a heli definitely offers a lot more opportunities for that. I might try to sleep in a tent a little bit more next year.
You were born in Austria, but have you skied there much before?
I spend a lot of time in Austria because of my work with Kästle, but this was the first year I felt like I actually set up shop there and really figured out the different ranges. It takes a long time to work out different zones and then get them in proper conditions, and even though we skied some amazing, rarely skied lines there were far more that we didn’t tick off. Being born there, I feel like I have a special connection to the place and that only grew this year.
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What was it like to see the Hahnenkamm downhill?
I grew up ski racing so going to the Hahnenkamm has always been on my bucket list, but I was never sure if it was going to happen, and it was actually pure luck that it happened this year. I was supposed to fly out on Saturday, the day the downhill usually takes place, and at the last minute they changed the race to Friday so all the sudden we could make it. Not all the crew has the racing background I do so I tried to emphasize that missing this race would be like not going to the Super Bowl. We rallied and I think everyone was pretty quickly impressed. As cool as big mountain skiing can be, racing down that course on that ice is a totally different beast.
Watch the skin track, MAN. Mathäus Gartner photo.
Any goofy stories from the season?
There’s always funny shenanigans, but not all of them are safe to tell, even by internet standards haha.
Any questions I should have asked/things you’d like to add?
I think the easiest thing to miss is the behind the scenes crew that’s rarely in the film besides the credits: the filmers, producers, and editors. Particularly with the trips that I was on, when you’re rarely apart and often living in pretty close quarters, the crew makes all the difference and must say they were all-time this year. A lot of the crew lives in Jackson and when I get home, they're still usually the first people I hit up to hang out with, so that should help paint a good picture of just how awesome they are.
