I set off for Asia in August. After three months of travel I got the call that I was needed as a volunteer in Niseko starting on December 15 for the entire ski season. My Japow dreams were actually happening. I was to work 2-4 hours per day… snow clearing in the morning and restaurant work in the evening in exchange for accommodation, food, and lift pass from December until March. This was set up to be the deepest season of my life. I quickly changed my plans and flew back to Utah. I had a week to see my family and friends, handle personal matters, and get my ski gear before flying back to Asia.

I arrived in Niseko and it was dumping. This was actually happening. But what I arrived to was not what I was promised by the lodge owner that I made the arrangement with. In fact, the owner was not even there. He was sitting in Australia collecting profit while myself and two other unpaid volunteers ran his lodge for nearly 100 high paying guests. We had a chef, bar staff, and cleaning staff but everything else– snow clearing, running the restaurant, office work, reception, shuttle driving, and all guest interaction was carried out by three of us… and none of us were paid. After three weeks of working nearly 24 hours on call I started to lose it. My stress level and frustration with the situation got the best of me. I’d flown back and forth across the Pacific Ocean and given up Christmas and New Years at home to be here. So I left. (A mutual departure between myself and the owner).

With nowhere to go, I headed back to Sapporo to reevaluate my situation. I suddenly had 2.5 months free, and I had my ski gear. I could go anywhere in the world. Leaving that situation was liberating, yet crushing at the same time. Perhaps I would not be able to ski Japan for the winter. After three days in a Sapporo hostel, I could no longer sit on my laptop looking for a job any longer. So, I decided to go skiing. There is a lesser known resort only 20km from the city center called Sapporo Teine that is accessible by public transportation within 40 minutes. I shot this video on that single day of skiing. As it turns out, Japow is accessible all over Hokkaido… even a short commute from the center of a city of 1.9 million people.

I must add.. despite a few ultra deep days, the weather in Niseko did not help my frustration. During those three weeks it rained three days, winds reached 90mph, and there were bright bluebird days and a few days of serious snowfall. It was not the consistent nuketown that is shown in every Japan edit ever.

To update: I’m back in Niseko now at a different arrangement. This one is much more fair and I shall be here until the end of February. Niseko is still a bit behind on snow, but it is possible to get a faceshot on any single day in Japan if you search hard enough.

I had some big goals for this season. I planned to compete at Freeride World Qualifier events in Squaw Valley, Big Sky, and Telluride. I am working on a startup ski film/environmental activism production company by the name of SFC Productions. We are just starting up and planned to put together a few web edits this season to get our feet off the ground. I was supposed to manage and get in front of the camera for SFC this season. I planned to explore much more of Utah’s backcountry, including skiing the Uintahs, faces on Olympus and Timpanogos, and parts of Southern Utah. Unfortunately, I’ve had to halt these goals after experiencing the roughest week of my skiing career.

Thursday, December 19th was a great day to score some of the first face shots of the season. My good friend/photographer Jon took some deep morning laps under the Gad 2 chair at Snowbird. After snapping a few photos of some powder turns, we headed in for a break at the Snowbird Center.

After a quick defrost and peek at the photos from that morning, we headed back out to see if we could score some time in the white room along the tram line. We decided to traverse into Mach Schnell in the Shot 12 area for those familiar. We crossed past the cables of the tram into what was shaping up to be some deep afternoon goodness. Jon was behind me and out of sight. I came to a clearing from the trees and I felt it hit me. I was up to my waste in moving snow. I turned my head uphill just in time to see the forty-foot wide river of white flowing directly at me.

Somehow, without being swept from my feet, I was able to point my boards directly downhill into the trees. I skied with the avalanche for a bit before cutting hard skier’s left out of the path of the snow. Jon came around the corner in confusion, to see me washed 200 yards down the uncovered slope. I was lucky. Had the slide taken place outside of the resort boundaries, it would have been manageable. But I was ill prepared for the three-foot deep fracture avalanche to take place in the comfort of a ski resort. I was not wearing my beacon, not carrying my shovel and probe, and not concerned with the safety of the snow I was sliding on. The ropes of the resort had provided me with the false sense of safety that could have cost me my life.

The next day, we were back to the grind. This time, Jon and I strapped our beacons on underneath our jackets and cruised up the lifts. An hour or two in, Jon decided he wanted to take off the camera bag and try to hand drag over a snow-covered knoll under the Gad 2 lift. He dropped in with speed, and leaned back on the lip of the jump. His body contorted to the left and gravity pulled him to the earth. The friendly staff of the Snowbird medical clinic worked for over three hours to jam Jon’s arm back into his shoulder socket. Numbed by opiates, he had to be transported to the hospital and finally had his arm fixed up by 10pm that night.

I took it easy the next few days. I skied in the mornings and didn’t push myself too hard in fear of the negative karma that I’d been plagued with Thursday and Friday. I spent Christmas night at my favorite East Coast transplant city/skier girl, Sophie’s condo, just above the bypass road overlooking the Mt. Superior and the Salt Lake Valley. We charged the next day, taking hot laps across the entirety of the mountain. It was still not prime conditions to leave the resort boundaries, but with the opening of new terrain and heavy uphill winds, the snow was soft and fast, and the sun was shining!

After lunch at Sophie’s place, we headed back out to get in a few more laps before the lifts came to a stop. By 3:45, shade had swept over the slopes. I traversed skier’s right from the Peruvian chair to the top of a few menial chutes. I dropped into one and caught a little air into the opening. Upon impact, the inside edge of my left ski caught the settled snow and ripped from my boot. I was plunging straight into a steep field of 4’-6’ pine trees on my right ski. Unable to regain control at such high speed, I fell to my side. I felt the blunt impact of a tree trunk directly above the cuff of my left ski boot. My body disengaged from the tree and I rolled several more feet with my left leg dangling from its tendons.

Sophie sprinted up the hill towards me as I keeled over in pain. She shouted at the observing tourists to call ski patrol while I struggled to maintain consciousness. She held my hands and supported my body on the steep face while we waited in agony for patrollers to get there. I somehow managed to stay conscious through the entire ordeal. Patrol arrived on the scene and straightened my limp leg into a splint while I screamed in the worst pain I’d ever felt in my entire life. They loaded me into a toboggan and put me on oxygen to rush me to the ambulance waiting two miles away.

After two nights in the hospital, I was released back home. I now have a titanium rod running through my tibia and secured with a few screws. My fibula was reset and my entire leg put into a cast to be removed in a few weeks. I’m going to be on crutches for a while and my ski season is most likely over (keeping my fingers crossed for some turns in June and July). My goals for this season have been replaced with a list of books to read and shows on Netflix to watch. My expectations of deep turns and huge cliff hucks are now to be soothed by fantasizing over ski films and web edits. For the first time ever, I can’t wait for the warm weather of summer to return.

At this point, I’m doing what I can to stay positive. Injuries like this are bound to happen, but always have to do so at such inopportune times. I’m going to continue to do what I can to get SFC Productions off the ground with some other athletes this season, but I’ll be behind the viewfinder and the laptop instead. I’m excited to get back on my feet and regain my strength in the next few months, and I’m stoked to be able to make a full recovery and get back after it soon enough. For those reading this, get some turns for me, I’ll be lying around at home eating ice cream and watching Netflix for now!

In late May, a friend of mine, Kyton, sent me an email. He told me that I was good to go if I wanted to stay at his hotel in London for a couple nights. So I packed a few changes of clothes, a tent, some other essentials, and my longboard and I hopped on a flight across the pond. Somehow, in all my travels, I’d never ventured to Europe. I figured what could be a better than exploring Europe via a longboard-backpacking trip through cities and sleeping in a tent in the European countryside for a few weeks by myself?

I landed in London without any plans other than to meet Kyton since I had a place to stay for a few nights while I figured things out. I walked to baggage claim to find out that my bag which contained all my necessities for the next couple weeks had not made the connection in New York City and would be arriving the next morning. I left the airport on a busy train with nothing but my board, passport, and a copy of The Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell that I had been reading on the plane. I skated through Picadilly Circus, into Hyde Park, and down the River Thames on a sunny day. I’d spend the next two nights in luxury, staying in a Marriott Hotel overlooking Parliament and Big Ben.

I went to retrieve my bag from Heathrow the next morning. It was sitting on the carousel unharmed. I opened it up to find a note from TSA explaining that they had inspected it for security reasons. My tent poles were gone, probably sitting in a dumpster outside JFK airport in New York. Suddenly my sleeping arrangements for the rest of the trip were gone. I left the airport for the second time in disgust, trying to make the best of my rough start.

I explored London via my longboard- cruising past tourists and businessmen in fancy suits, while I carried my life on my back exploring underground tea shops, pubs, and exquisite architecture in the modern metropolis. I bid farewell to Kyton a couple days later and set off by night coach (bus) for Manchester. I passed through rolling, green meadows and fields while the sun rose en route to the grungy city.

I arrived early in the morning and headed into a coffee shop as soon as I left the bus station. I checked my emails on my iPhone for the first time since landing in England. The first thing I read was a message from my mom. It made my heart drop and eyes swell like I had never experienced before. “Daniel, I’m not sure how much longer Mae is going to make it. If you are near wifi, please Facetime me so you can see her.” I immediately Facetimed home; my mother panned the camera onto my furry best friend whose eyes shifted toward the camera at the sound of my voice. She was having trouble breathing and looked empty for the first time in her life.

I knew that I would regret living in the world if I did not pet her soft ears and run my fingers through her fur one last time, but I was 5,000 miles away and had already booked a ticket to France for the following day. I made the decision to continue a little further with my journey. I arrived in Paris the next day with my belongings, but with the inability to speak even three words of French. I took the metro downtown for a couple of Euros and wandered my way through the streets to a small hostel that had been recommended to me by another traveler. After the sun went down on the city of lights, I ate dinner at a small café with a few fellow backpackers from Chicago. I’ve never been as overwhelmed with compassion and empathy from other human beings as I felt from them after I told them of my situation. They paid for my dinner and wine and took me to the steps of the Sacré-Cœur at midnight to overlook the city of lights.

The next day I rode through Paris’s historical streets and looked upon all of the clichéd icons. I skated around the Louvre, walked through Notre Dame during Mass, walked around the Arc De Triomphe, ate a lunch of wine and a baguette, and drunkenly climbed the steps of the Eiffel Tower. That night, I repacked all my belongings, grabbed my longboard, and found my way to Charles De Gaulle Airport to cut my adventure short. I slept on the ground in the terminal and woke the next morning to board my non-stop flight back to Salt Lake City.

My dad picked me up from the airport in the afternoon heat and we drove back to my parents’ house. I hadn’t showered in a few days and was exhausted from my unfortunate change in itinerary and flight home. As I walked through the door, Mae’s ears perked up and she labored over to me. I hugged my best friend like I never had before. I pressed my face into her fur and felt the same connection I had with her when I was ten years old. A day later she passed away. My childhood best friend and hero was gone. I’ve never felt comparable emptiness in my life as I did then. I knew that I’d made the right decision to cut my adventure short to come home see my dog for the last time.

A few days later, as I stood atop Mt. Olympus overlooking Salt Lake as I had many times before, I reminisced on all the smiles she put on my face whether I was coming home from high school to study with her, taking her for walks around lakes, or on rides in my 4-Runner. I think it is important to take sacrifices to be with the ones you love. Whether it is your spouse, boyfriend, girlfriend, father, mother, kids, siblings, best friend, or your dog, it is equally important. As much as I live life for my own adventure and exploration, my loved ones will always be the most important aspect of my life. Every face-shot this winter will be in loving memory of my dog and best friend, pray for snow. Rest in peace Mae, I love you.