The Whistler crew is at it again with the second year of the their “Get Outta Town Project” webisodes series. Ryan Tiene, Devun Walsh, Iikka Backstrom, Eero Niemela and Benji Ritchie jump, drop, jib, slash and butter their way through the Whistler backcountry, which also happens to be their backyard.  Year after year they manage to stay ahead of the game thanks to a huge mix of natural talent, big stylish tricks and a serious work ethic. This is the second season the boys are producing their webisodes, so we decided to do a flashback feature to see what went down this past winter. Buckle up because this crew sends it, proper.

Is the name Get Outta Town, specifically for you and all the other Aussies in Whistler?

I would love to think the name of the web series was all revolved around my heritage but the truth is we have a mixed bag of riders and none of them are locals to Whistler. Dev’s from Prince George, Benji is from Montreal and then there are the two Finns. We have all found something in common; a love for boarding pow and a love of the terrain in Whistler! We kinda make jokes about “Get Outta Town” because we never really leave whistler!

Every interview with you has the question “how is it to ride with Devun Walsh?”, does it ever get old?

Yeah it gets pretty old but on the other hand he is a legend and people want to know what he is like and of course, what he is like to be around. I did ask the same questions before I got to ride with him, so I get it. (PS: He is a real asshole. Haha!)

What do you find the hardest part about filming a web series compared to filming a full part?

I didn’t think it was harder at all, if anything, it was easier. We get to choose to ride with each other and not get crewed up with people you might not get along with or have different ideas about jumps and how to build a kicker. We are all on exactly the same page which makes life way easier and way more productive.

You guys aren’t known for throwing doubles or triples, are you focused on style?

There have been a bunch of doubles in our episodes. When we build the right jump, we will have a go but it just doesn’t always work out because we tend to hit quite a lot of step-downs. There is no pact not to throw any doubles or shit but I like to think our crew concentrates more on style than chucking our meat off everything we build.

What was your favourite feature that you got to hit this season?

It was probably when Eero and I got to hit ‘Perfect Jump’. The whole crew tried earlier in the year but two of our sleds blew up and we had to get a helicopter to lift them out of the backcountry. We were bummed we didn’t make it out that day.

A few weeks later when the weather was clear and the sleds were running again, Eero and I got the chance to get back out there and we had a really fun session on it. It’s definitely one of the best jumps I’ve ever hit!

What was your best memory from this season?

My best memory would be when Eero’s snow-mobile ended up at the bottom of a lake in the backcountry! That lake is called Grizzly Lake and there is always this small area that doesn’t freeze completely because of a small stream that runs into the lake.

A lot of people ride their snowmobiles over that open water (pond skimming) and unfortunately Eero’s sled didn’t make it and stopped halfway across, it sank to the bottom while Eero swam out of there with all his snowboarding gear on. We were able to locate the sled using avalanche probes and it was about 20 feet deep under water. It took some time but we pulled it out of there using hooks and ropes and the sled eventually started up again and he was able to ride it out of there.

Crazy shit!

How do you feel about online edits? It has obviously changed the way we get snowboard media...

In my opinion there are both good and bad sides to web edits. The good side is being accessible and free for everyone who wants to watch snowboarding at any time and they can be shared and embeded to many different platforms and websites easily. The bad side is that after a couple weeks of being released, webisodes seem to get lost in a sea of other web edits and it can get annoying trying to find a specific one through video archives on snowboard websites.

I love snowboard movies but they are difficult to film in one season. That’s why we are seeing more and more multiple year production movies and I think that’s the best way to do it.

Do you think it’s harder to film constantly and produce a web series or do you prefer to film all season and put out a part?

It’s obviously a lot harder to produce a web series that you are stoked on if you release the footage straight away. You have to fill the space with what you have at the time and because we are filming mostly in backcountry (specially at the end of the winter) when the snow sucks down low and you need it to be really sunny to film in the alpine it makes it super challenging.  Sometimes it ends up that you don’t get to film for weeks, so yeah, I think it’s harder to film a legit web series.

So what we did with “Get Outta Town” was to film as much as possible and do trips like you would do when you film for a regular movie and at the end figure out what trip and what footage makes a good episode. We didn’t want to fill the episodes up with shit that would make us or snowboarding look bad, you know, there is enough bullshit out there already.

We heard on the last day of the season, you drove your sled into a lake? What happened?

Haha! Yeah that was funny! Well, funny now, I mean. It could of been a lot worse and I’m talking about that I nearly could of drowned.

There is this little opening on a lake that is pretty much always there from the glacier water flow. We have been crossing it for years and you go do it every time you get a chance. So it was not like something new. That day we were filming our intros for this year’s series and thought it would be a good idea if we would all go film some pond crossings on our sleds. We were doing it for 40 mins, doing follow cams and all kinds of different shots; taking photos as well. We were pretty much done but wanted to get one more shot of Dev filming me.

I ended up getting a bit too close to Devun and when I hit the water of the wake from Dev’s sled it shot straight up my exhaust pipe and killed my engine. So there was nothing I could do, other than try to glide as far as possible and try to jump off my sled. I knew I wasn’t going be able to swim too far in my snowboard gear, boots, full backcountry back pack with a board strapped on to it and a full face helmet on. I used every bit of my power to take the biggest strokes that I could because I knew there would not be anytime for anyone to help me. Luckily on my last stroke I got my arm on the ice and managed to pull myself up.

So now that I took a bit of a polar dip in the glacier water and got myself out it was time to figure out how to get the 300 kg snowmobile out. I was really cold but I think the adrenaline kept me warm.

The first thing was to figure out how deep the water was. It took three 12ft avalanche probes taped together to hit the bottom and it took us about 30 mins to locate the sled with the probe. It was much harder than you think. Then JP walker, along with Simon Chamberlain and Blair Mckinney showed up to help us. We had a few tricks going at the same time; one with a water bottle filled with rocks and a rope attached, which we dropped down to the depths and tried to hook the handle bars and other one was a self built hook from an old broken ice scratcher attached to the triple probe. Both systems worked well enough to get the sled to the surface and then we got another rope attached to the front bumper. Then just pure manpower to get the sled on to the ice. This all took about 3 hours. I then had to drain all the water from the engine and air box and from the fuel which took us another 2 hours. Finally she started up. At this stage I was freezing, I could barely feel my feet or arms but I managed to drive the sled back to my truck and load it on the back. I ripped off all my wet clothes and got toasty in my truck as hypothermia was kicking in.

What a day. HA! I can tell the story and laugh about it now but it was pretty heavy at the time. ▲