Take us back to the start. Where did you grow up riding?

Tyrol Basin – a pretty small hill outside of Madison, Wisconsin. Two hundred vertical feet, three chairlifts and a rope tow. My parents would drop me off pretty much every day after school and I'd ride from five to nine, then all day on weekends. They had a really good park growing up; the park managers were just killing it. Mostly rail-heavy, which is pretty much where I cut my teeth.

I heard you've never had a proper powder day. Is that actually true?

Yeah, that's kind of true. I've had leftover powder days, but I've never had a proper you-don't-feel-the-bottom day. The most I've had is probably a foot, but you can still touch the ground. It'd be sick to get a proper waist-deep day where you're just not touching the bottom.

We need to fix this, Sam! Japan, maybe.

For real. I always find it hard to take myself away from the rails, but I would love that.

“I've never had a proper powder day where you don’t feel the bottom. The most I've had is probably a foot”

Who were the riders that inspired you growing up?

Jed Anderson, Danimals and Louif [Paradis] were the top three. Jed was always number one – his trick selection and the technicality of everything he did, combined with the style he had, just blew my mind. The first part I saw of his where I was like, 'who is this guy?' was Shoot the Moon. That was just ingrained into my head. And then Deja Vu – Louif’s' part in that is unreal for the time. Forum and all the Videograss videos were super formative, and Working for the City was another one I just watched on repeat.

What do you think makes a video part stand the test of time?

The riders that go above what everyone else is doing, or look through a different lens. Jed was doing stuff nobody else was capable of. Danimals had spot selection that was always outside the box. The best filmmakers and editors have the snowboarding stand first – like Colton Feldman right now does this insanely well. Tommy Gesme’s riding with Colton's filming and editing is just top tier. They've worked together so long that anything they do is going to be a masterpiece.

Words by Ed Blomfield, Photos by Ben Haley, @B3n_haley & Trevor Slattery