Holt Photo – www.aholtphoto.com | www.rightcoastphoto.com
Norris Moments: Level 1 Mini-Epic Wyoming
Steele tries his hand at intentionally debateable double staging, double fronts.
As the summer rolls on I will be writing a series of posts I’ll call Norris Moments: Mini Epics of almost death. As the great one would be undoubtedly proud of the pure athleticism that has occurred during some of this winter’s missions I too would like to pay homage to these stories. Short and sweet, stay tuned.
It was the second to last day before shipping out of Wyoming. The crew had just switched out, Steele and Stefan stepped into the Teton backcountry with fresh legs and gassed sleds itching for action. We had scoped a cornice zone the day before that was ripe for the picking. One of the only areas unbombed by the highmark olympics of slednecks. Hours after waking up, slaying a cup of coffee from Java The Hut (true story), Steele had picked out a double stager with serious bacon.
I took one look at the setup and decided the best vantage point was a tele shot through the trees. Not the most intimate capture but, shit, this whole deal had TEETH. A second look through the glass confirmed it, Steele was confidently positioned and itching to start his day, no holds barred. Berman’s set, I call set and moments later Steele sends phase one. Air section of phase one: good, landing section: bad, very bad. Although soft in all of the surrounding areas that particular shaded segment turned out much punchier. Steele popped through the first couple layers and bottomed out, sending all of his momentum directly up and forward.. over phase II.
Part II went considerably further into unplanned territory despite Steele’s convincing that, “yes in fact” he was attempting to recover from the front seat miscalculation in pure Morrisson style. In a matter of seconds Steele double fronted his way directly to the final landing zone and into the my personal memory bank of the most utterly terrifying moments I’ve shot to date. An errie silence struck just before a torrent of shouts and requests for signs of life to Steele broke through the fog of the moment. Despite punching over the second cliff head first and losing one ski mid-“Jackie Chan” Steele landed feet first.. and the second ski dropped within a yard of his bomb hole. Too bad there weren’t any liqour stores close, we could have made it RAIN with lottery tickets.
Double front debauchery out of the way we all moved on and adjusted the cliff drop game plan for the day. Steele shoveled a little snow from his helmet, I began breathing again and Berman rewound the footage for a couple of front row viewings. Attached are before and after photos.
Don’t try this at home kids.
