This story initially appeared within the print journal POWDER 2026 Photograph Annual. Copies are nonetheless accessible whereas provides final. Click on right here to get yours.
Flying the Line
A lone skier drops into the razor-sharp ridgeline of Precedence I, a 1,800-foot backbone in Alaska’s Tordrillo Mountains. The pitch averages 40 to 55 levels, however he’s not hesitating. He flashes a double cliff drop up high, floats a large corked 360, stomps it clear, and caps it off with a backflip. Unseen to the skier—however felt within the air—a drone follows, weaving between cliffs, rock bands, and fluted spines to offer the viewers with a novel viewpoint of Craig Murray successful the primary ever Pure Choice Tour (NST) ski championship.What the skier doesn’t see, viewers do: a floating ride-along that feels as should you’re snowboarding the road your self. Behind the goggles, first-person-view (FPV) drone pilot Gabriel Kocher is locked in, anticipating each transfer. Within the air above the athlete, Kocher is rewriting the language of ski movies, one high-speed body at a time.”Gab,” as his pals name him, is a Swiss-born pilot whose obsession with snow and velocity began early. He grew up snowboarding and hang-gliding together with his father within the Alps. That love of flight finally collided together with his technical curiosity, main him into the fast-paced world of FPV drone racing.
Photograph: Chad Chomlack
Recognized for his or her velocity, agility, and immersive really feel, FPV drones are piloted with goggles that feed dwell video from the plane—primarily placing you within the cockpit. Kocher wasn’t simply good at it—he was elite. He positioned 2nd general in each the 2017 and 2019 Drone Racing League (DRL) Allianz World Championships.“Once I’m flying, I’m driving the road myself,” Kocher says. “I’m attempting to match the athlete’s tempo, to circulation with them. Identical to they’re searching for a circulation state down a giant Alaskan line, I’m studying their emotion, their physique language, and attempting to amplify the results of the terrain with the digital camera. How do I make this bounce really feel larger? How do I present the publicity of this second?”His piloting doesn’t simply comply with—it feels. That’s the distinction.“Gab thinks like a skier,” says Switchback Leisure’s Mike Douglas, the occasion director for NST Ski. “He understands terrain and might anticipate what’s more likely to come from the athlete. On the similar time, he is aware of the place the perfect backdrops are and does what he can to get the absolute best shot.”Kocher’s large break got here in 2017 when he dropped a mountain-flying video filmed within the Swiss Alps. Racing drones buzzed over jagged granite peaks and dove by icy couloirs in a means nobody had seen earlier than. The edit racked up over 1,000,000 views—and caught the attention of snowboard legend Torstein Horgmo and his manufacturing crew at Shredbots.That spring, Kocher joined them in Whistler to shoot R3BOOT, a movie that may change into a milestone in FPV’s integration into winter sports activities cinematography.“It was the beginning of FPV within the backcountry,” Kocher recollects. “I used to be inexperienced, and nobody had actually tried it earlier than. Then the climate broke—bluebird, excellent snow, golden mild.”However on the primary take a look at flight, the technological shortcomings of the time revealed themselves. “I couldn’t see something,” Gab says. “The screens again then had been so dangerous—all white, no element, completely unflyable.” Relatively than name it, Kocher improvised. He borrowed a neutral-density filter from the crew photographer that blocked the solar’s rays, taped it to the drone lens, and flew the shoot.The ultimate edit floored riders and filmmakers alike. FPV was a technological game-changer for motion sports activities.“I really feel like my entire profession is made of those moments—overcoming stuff you’re not ready for,” Kocher says.
Photograph: Leslie Hittmeier
Kocher’s not only a pilot—he’s a physicist. He earned a PhD from McGill College in 2018, which gave him a novel edge: he designs and builds lots of his personal drones. This technical prowess grew to become vital in 2021 throughout the first-ever NST snowboard competitors. There, he helped develop one of many first stabilized dwell FPV feeds for an motion sports activities broadcast—a tandem rig with a pilot and devoted digital camera operator that might chase athletes in real-time, at full velocity. They referred to as that drone “Golden Boy.” “We labored so exhausting to get 3 drones working for NST,” Gab says. “One way or the other considered one of them was simply higher, we saved on utilizing it and referred to as it Golden Boy.”The end result wasn’t simply one other drone shot. It was a cinematic evolution—one now commonplace throughout high-end winter sports activities productions and a cornerstone of the NST media aesthetic.Golden Boy advanced into the Magpie, which eradicated the necessity for a second filmer. “The distinction is I used an Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) on my head, which permits my head actions to be translated to the drone,” Gab says. “The second issue is, I exploit a gimbal to lock the horizon so we now have a steady horizon line for the viewer.”
Photograph: Gabriel Kochar
Nowadays, Kocher is working with a few of the largest names in snow, reminiscent of Travis Rice and Sammy Carlson—alongside main movie initiatives like Flyover Chicago and Transformers 7. However whatever the venture, his mindset stays the identical: “Ranging from the inventive, I tweak the shot, I design the drone for it. After which we go shoot it.”This story initially appeared within the print journal POWDER 2026 Photograph Annual. Copies are nonetheless accessible whereas provides final. Click on right here to get yours.
Peter Morning, Skier: Chris Benchetler
Try Kocher’s work within the Males’s Ski High 5 Highest Rating Runs video from NST Ski beneath.
Associated: Extra From The Skier’s Journal
