It was a warm spring day at Mammoth Mountain in California. The season was winding down, with limited terrain under the gondola open to the public. Off on the closed side of the mountain, away from the crowds, the resort had built a series of massive jumps in order to host a private event called Superpark. The entire affair had been organized by Powder Magazine as a photo shoot and all the big names were there, including the hottest new up and comer, a seventeen-year-old named Tanner Hall.
As I made the drive from San Francisco up to Truckee, then down highway 395 to Mammoth, I could hardly believe my luck. Several friends from my ski bumming days in Lake Tahoe, now themselves big name pros, were in on the shoot and had invited me to tag along. I had met Tanner once before, at a ski movie premiere in Los Angeles, but I’d never watched him ski in person. To say I was impressed would be a big understatement. Tanner was launching the jumps bigger than everyone, while doing tricks I’d never seen before. And he was doing it with style. Little could I have foretold, how only a few years later our paths in life would become intertwined.
