[MUSIC PLAYING]
BRYAN IGUCHI: Yeah, so you know if the rest of you guys
split we can all just partnership with Trav, film,
and like, these jumps are already built.
So it's really just a matter of going out and just
sessioning.
And these guys are pros.
That's why, my gut feelings is just to stick with our plan
and not try to start from scratch again.
Because, I think we've been out there.
We know the snow's good.
And we know what's going on.
We're confident in what we can do, at least.
And then just to reset a whole new plan, right now, I think,
would be counterproductive.
PAT BRIDGES: Probably around the time that Subjekt
Haakonsen and those movies, he moved to Jackson Hole, which
is like the big mountain mecca, as far as the lower 48
states goes.
Here's a guy who consciously went against what was
marketable about him, what his sponsors expected of him, but
he did what he had to do as a snowboarder.
DAVE DOWNING: I know we went to Jackson Hole, actually, I
remember the trip.
It was with Standard Films.
We were filming for this, I think it was TV5, and we had a
really sick week in Jackson Hole.
It was super sick.
Like powder, epic.
We were filming on the resort and stuff.
And I think he just fell in love with the place, you know?
And he just made a decision to just live there, and just
became a mountain man.
KEVIN JONES: And I believe that next year, I believe
that's when, I think, Burton dropped him, basically for
moving to Jackson Hole, of all things.
It's like, oh you could never be a professional
snowboarder out there.
He was so ahead of his time.
And I think that he really found himself, in a lot of
ways, and what his snowboarding
was going to be about.
MIKE RANQUET: He moved there at a time when his career was
pretty high.
And he didn't just move there, he disappeared there.
And he didn't go there for fame and glory.
He went there for mountains and snow.
BRYAN IGUCHI: I was at a point where I felt
stagnant in my riding.
And I saw the only progression as be a big mountain,
freestyle, snowboarder.
And that was the way, where I saw the sport going.
And that's why I wanted my film parts to be able to get
these tricks off cliffs, or off natural kickers in the
back country.
And that's what I saw as my progression.
WILLIE MCMILLON: He was a pretty big deal.
Jackson was still pretty low key at that time.
And I've always been pretty protective of this place.
So when he moved here, I don't know if I was threatened by
some big name coming here.
Or just kind of worried about him blowing this
place out, or something.
But I kind of gave him a pretty hard time
when he moved here.
I don't even know if he even knew I was vibing him.
But I was just kind of a dick to him.
BRYAN IGUCHI: I had a realization, I think, that I
was this professional snowboarder and I didn't
really know anything about the mountains.
You know?
I knew how to ride a snowboard.
I knew how to do tricks.
But I didn't know anything about
avalanches, or what was possible.
Or how to get around the mountain safely.
The reality sank in that, man, this is a dangerous pursuit.
And I've got to get to know what I'm riding.
And I wanted to explore more of the back country.
WILLIE MCMILLON: He played it so cool.
He didn't come into town and just bring all these crews in,
and do all this shit, whatever.
He like, laid really low and just kind of naturally became
part of the scene.
We're like, this guy's got to be pretty cool if he gave up
all this fame and stuff, in California, to come out here
and just hideout, and ride powder.
BRYAN IGUCHI: It was kind of like a career
suicide, in a sense.
It was taking myself out of everything that I had built,
the snowboard park, freestyle snowboarding thing.
And just going exactly opposite.
I wanted to keep snowboarding fun for myself, not for
necessarily my sponsors.
I saw a different way to progress.
PAT BRIDGES: He was the first rider to sit there and put his
money where his mouth was.
A lot of people are like, oh yeah, I'm going to go and I'm
going to work on big mountain freestyle, and make it
technical in the big mountains.
He really laid it all on the line.
And for a while, I mean, he kind of paid the price.
Because it wasn't what his sponsors, at the
time, wanted from him.
So he was kind of in the wilderness, as
far as that's concerned.
But I mean, he was riding every day.
WILLIE MCMILLON: He was here for a while.
I think his sponsors were cool with it, whatever.
And then it just seemed like at one point it was just a
domino effect of his sponsors dropping him.
You know?
And at one point he was printing t-shirts for
Bluebird, getting like $10 an hour.
He was just back in the working class, dealing with
like, what the fuck do I do now?
BRYAN IGUCHI: I just kept snowboarding.
Because whether I was making good money or not, I was still
doing whatever I had to do to snowboard.
I started apprenticing as a sushi chef, and working at the
local sushi bar.
And I just kept riding, though, regardless of what was
going on with my sponsors, or with my career, I guess.
It was just more about the riding.
WILLIE MCMILLON: And it was just kind of a crazy winter.
Because you would just kind of see this aftermath of that
crew up on the mountain.
And that's kind of when I started to maybe really have a
lot of respect for him.
You didn't see those guys hit anything, but you just saw
their lines.
And people would be like, oh yeah, Guch did this today, and
Johann did that.
I was kind of bummed, at that point, that I was like such a
dick to him, because I was like, I want to go shred with
those dudes, you know?
TRAVIS RICE: We were out at Teton Village
riding here, in Jackson.
One day were out there in the morning, and they used to have
this tram tower that had a clock with a bell on it, and
it would ring like every hour.
It was like gong, gong.
My buddy and I were walking along the path, going up to
the ski resort.
We're rolling out.
My buddy stops me and we both look up, and here's Johan and
Bryan Iguchi like walking.
And it was so weird.
I remember it so specifically to this day.
Right at that moment, dude, the hour clock gonged.
And it was like, I think it was nine gongs long.
It was like right at the beginning of the day.
And just, gong, this thing was like, it was slow motion.
And sure enough, Bryan and Johan
Olofsson go walking along.
BRYAN IGUCHI: As a snowboarder that was only way I was going
to progress.
It was going to be doing another rotation off a jump.
I wasn't really that interested in continuing to
keep spinning into oblivion.
I wanted to be able to ride a big mountain, and be able to
ride a steep line.
And be able to do tricks within that line.
And basically, Travis Rice is exactly what I wanted to be.
That's kind of funny.
I might not have achieved it, but it was cool
seeing him do it.
TRAVIS RICE: Seeing Guch, every now and then, even
though he was a resident at that point, it was kind of
like seeing an albino Buffalo, or something rare.
Something mystical, perhaps, I don't know, some type of horse
with a horn coming straight out.
He's a mystical creature that lived in Jackson.
You never saw him though.
He's like an owl.
BRYAN IGUCHI: My riding's evolved.
And it's still evolving.
I'm progressing more on trying to educate myself and get in
my head wrapped around the mountains.
And trying to do what I do, and do it safely.
And it's all timing in the mountains.
And you've got to get out there when it's good.
And you've got to know when to pull back.
TRAVIS RICE: So yeah, years went on, years went on, and
the Guch actually took me into the back country
for the first time.
Later that year, the same filmer, Rich Goodwin, actually
invited me down to tag along with Lance Pitman and Bryan
Iguchi go down to go to Superpark, which was this big
event that they do in Mammoth Lakes, California.
Which is like this big park they built.
They invite all the pros in the world, come shred.
And I went down there, I wasn't invited but Guch was
able to have some kind words with the guys that were
putting the event on.
And got me in.
And I ended up, after like five or six days, getting MPV
Superpark, which is kind of how I got started in
snowboarding.
BRYAN IGUCHI: These photos are taken by Ari Marcopoulos in, I
think, 1997.
Yeah, this is kind of the first years here in Jackson.
And you had like Jamie Lynn, and Terry, Johan.
Johan actually lived here for a little bit then, in '97.
Spent two season's out here with me.
Grillo lived with me, as well.
And my buddy, Tim.
We grew up together in California and
moved out here together.
Kind of came here for a season, to Jackson Hole, and
ended 16 years later still doing it.
PAT BRIDGES: It wasn't coincidence that he was out
there on the hill when the cameras came back to find him
in Jackson, because he would be riding, no matter what.
He would be rolling sushi at night and
riding during the day.
That's what Guch did.
Anybody who went to Jackson, for the last 15 years, you
knew you could find him in the lift line.
That's what he did.
And unlike a lot of other people in his peer group from
that first big early '90s, freestyle movement, a lot of
those guys maybe they wanted to do what Guch did.
Maybe they tried, but they didn't have the patience that
he had, for the sport to catch back up on him.
WILLIE MCMILLON: He wasn't even like getting paid or
anything to snowboard.
He started shooting with the Grenade and somehow he just
like carved his way back in with this
eternal legend status.
There's like this or three year period where he was just
working his ass off, filming every single day, just like
stepping up his riding, everything.
Before you knew it, he was just like, back in the mags,
back in videos.
Volcom picks him back up.
All this great stuff started happening for me.
And now he's where he's at now.
And he's like the dude that everybody calls when
they come to town.
DAVE DOWNING: Yeah, some people could say, Bryan's
making a comeback.
Or he's a sponsored snowboarder again.
And that's true.
But I don't think Bryan really went anywhere.
He was still snowboarding.
He just wasn't doing it in front of a camera.
WILLIE MCMILLON: And him and Lance Pitman just started
exploring all these mountains.
And I'd probably say that Guch and Lance found 90% of the
spots that people are filming at now.
Now Guch brings--
he's got to show the Volcom crew around,
and all that stuff.
But it's kind of like, well he kind of found all these spots.
TRAVIS RICE: He came in, fresh eyes.
He's like, there's mountains 360 degrees
around Jackson Hole.
That's why it's called a hole.
Wonder what's up there, or up there?
So he set off on a quest to go to discover what
the hell was up there.
And I was lucky enough to get on board years later.
And he kind of showed me the ropes.
WILLIE MCMILLON: It's kind of the place where when people
just get over the nonsense, they come out here.
And now there's like enough cool people out here, that
it's accepted.
Like, I'm moving to Jackson, and your sponsors
are like, right on.
BRYAN FOX: For like a kid in Southern California to see
someone from Southern California leave and turn into
a back country, more or less like wilderness snowboarder
type of guys, that's definitely inspiring.
WILLIE MCMILLON: I think Harrison Ford is
kind of like the Guch.
You know, like, Harrison Ford made it cool for Hollywood
people to move out here.
And Guch made it cool for pro snowboarders to move out here.
-Oh, good.
We got all the dirt on you now. dirt on you now.
BRYAN IGUCHI: Oh, no.
WILLIE MCMILLON: I talked so much shit, dude, it wasn't
even funny.
No, I kept it clean.
-Your career is over.
BRYAN IGUCHI: Damn it.
You spoiled it.
WILLIE MCMILLON: No.
We kept it family style.