With a final identify like Leeper comes vital expectations. It is not on the nostril as, say, Gnarly, however Leeper, nonetheless, conjures pictures of a rad skier who leaps off issues. To be one thing else—perhaps a skier who prefers to maintain their bases planted on the snow—may invite ridicule. Fortunately, for skilled skier Owen Leeper, there presumably had been no struggles with having been dealt a misnomer. Why? The Jackson, Wyoming, transplant reliably goes large.Right here’s proof within the type of his newest season edit. Maintain studying for our Q&A in regards to the video.
Leeper first arrived in Jackson in 2013. Earlier than that, as a College of Colorado pupil, he competed within the halfpipe and slopestyle circuit. However the attract of the large mountains proved too tough to disregard, and Jackson, with its mixed backcountry and resort entry, grew to become his subsequent dwelling. Since then, Leeper’s placed on a freeride clinic along with his self-produced seasonal video choices that, with out fail, embody drops that fall someplace in the course of the “snowboarding” and “skydiving” spectrum. Right here, the margin for error is, unsurprisingly, skinny. However Leeper clearly does his homework—in any other case, he could not proceed making it out of the mountains in a single piece. Fellow cliff-hucker Julian Carr calls him the “cyborg” due to his chilly and calculated method to pulse-spiking traces.
Photograph: Courtesy Owen Leeper
To study a bit extra about Leeper’s newest edit—and what else is new in his life—we shot him an e mail.Of all of the traces you skied final season, which one stands out from the remaining? How come?”So lots of the traces within the edit are basic Jackson traces, however the large cliff I hit was the spotlight of my Jackson season. I solely get the possibility to hit the large ones each couple of years and the frenzy is superb. My favourite journey of the season, not within the video, however we skied round in Austria, explored traces in Norway and even obtained a couple of runs in Iceland, which had been all bucket checklist places.”What’s your course of for tackling monumental cliffs? How do you make sure that you keep protected?”An important half is the touchdown, I probe the touchdown earlier than storms and ensure the snow is deep sufficient proper the place I’m going to land. A rock or laborious layer within the snow can imply the distinction between snowboarding away and the hospital.”As knowledgeable skier, you’ve got leaned closely into the self-publishing content material route on YouTube. What are a number of the advantages and challenges of placing out all of your content material by yourself? Do you edit all of your movies your self?”By filming all my content material and self-producing, I personal my content material. I’ve shot with different firms earlier than and so they find yourself with all of the rights to it, and if it does not make the film, generally I by no means even get to see it, not to mention use it. I discovered posting content material and offering it to sponsors all through the season is extra helpful for each of us. It’s quite a lot of work, and you need to put within the time, however I take pleasure in enhancing my movies and reliving the moments after I undergo all of the footage. What I like essentially the most is that I’m in full management of the place I get to ski and when.”This can be a less-skiing particular query, however I observed that the primary music in your video sounds prefer it’s a Jackson Gap-themed rock music. What is the deal there?”Ha, sure, I spent hours in search of licensable music to make use of in my video, and after nearly giving up, I made a decision to check out AI music. I believed the lyrics and beat had been fairly good, and one thing totally different so I made a decision to attempt it out. Discovering music is the very first thing I need to sub out for making movies, so if anybody desires the job, ship me a DM.”What are your plans for this upcoming season? Extra snowboarding at Jackson Gap? Any journeys on the docket?”Massive modifications this winter, we predict our first child in December, so I’ll seemingly” be spending most of my time round Jackson with brief journeys chasing storms.
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