THEME: The Travel Experience
PHOTO: Scott Serfas
RIDER: Rusty Ockenden
LOCATION: New Haineswick, British Columbia
CAMERA: Canon EOS 1 (analog)
WRITER: Arlie Carstens ©
To a tremendous extent, big mountain riding is often not about snowboarding at all. Rather, it’s about waiting for the weather to clear, the skies to open up, and the snowpack to stabilize. This can sometimes require weeks of patience. Just ask Rusty Ockenden.
In 2013, while on the production for the Absinthe feature film Dopamine, Ockenden rode just four out of fourteen days total. He spent the other ten days in the loft of the RV obsessing over weather maps, watching snowboarding films, and generally driving himself crazy. In the language of Absinthe, these are called down days. As in, days when the helicopters are grounded and cannot take riders to the mountains. When we got the greenlight to go, Ockenden was ready and able to deliver. When you watch his part in Dopamine, you’ll know exactly what we mean.