A reminder that everyone belongs in the (sometimes extreme) environments many of us take for granted.
“It was funny,” says Clayton March. “I was in my wetsuit, all ready to go and we were rolling my chair down to the beach. This guy came up with a real concerned look.”
“Are you guys okay?” the fellow asked Clay and his brother Tanner. “The trail is a bit steep ahead.”
You should see some of the waves we’re gonna ride, Clay thought. The slope of the trail is the last thing to be concerned about.
But this is the life of an adaptive surfer. Clay was born with cerebral palsy, the first to arrive of three triplets. With limited mobility, his journey to becoming a surfer and skier relied heavily on his brother Tanner. The duo recently finished filming Forward, a feature documentary exploring the limits of what’s possible and a reminder that everyone belongs in the (sometimes extreme) environments many of us take for granted.
“We started surfing together six years ago,” Tanner says. “My dad used to strap a chair to his windsurf board when we were kids and take Clay windsurfing. Every summer our family goes to Tofino so I just started bringing Clay out, starting in the whitewash and eventually we got out back. But every time we went out, a crowd would gather on the beach to talk to us when we came in: Why are we doing this? How? Some people would get pretty emotional. That gave me the idea that there might be a perception that needs to be changed.”
Tanner ran the idea past an old friend, filmmaker Nic Collar, who came to the next family Tofino trip and shot some proof of concept footage. “Nic and Clay and I talked about it,” Tanner says, “and decided why stop at surfing? Let’s get more people involved and check another dream off the list and get Clay out cat skiing.”
Clay had a bit of experience riding in a sit ski with his family on their home ski hill in the Okanagan, but he’d never skied with Tanner at the helm and had little to no experience in powder. Producer Ryan Scott came to the project with the idea to include adaptive athletes at the top of their game, so after a few training sessions (including a rip around Whistler Mountain with Whistler Adaptive Sports and local sit ski slayer Alex Cairns), Clay, Tanner and crew found themselves at Skeena Cat Skiing with Paralympic alpine skier (and badass snowmobiler/freeskier) Mac Marcoux.
“He is crazy,” Clay says of Mac, who became legally blind in 2007 and has since won five world championships and six Paralympic medals for visually impaired skiing. “Watching him ski, especially in the film,” Clay adds, “the lines he takes…I wouldn’t ski that stuff even with full vision.”
Also featuring professional adaptive surfers Victoria Feige and Kai Colless, one of the goals of Forward was to showcase what can be achieved with resilience, inclusion and the power of community. “This is a celebration of adaptive sport,” Nic says. “So why not showcase what is possible at the beginning of that journey and at the highest end as well.”
“Why stop at surfing? Let’s get more people involved and check another dream off the list and get Clay out cat skiing.”
“It was so cool to meet and learn from Victoria and Kai,” Tanner says. “Just to see the lives they have been able to live through sport.”
Although, as the film outlines, not everyone is willing to give adaptive athletes a chance. “We tried to do an avalanche course,” Clay says. “The instructor was really gung ho for it, but the insurance company was not.”
Apparently, the insurance company for the guiding company offering the avy course required all participants be capable of standing in the snow for at least four straight hours.
“That’s the hardest part,” Clay says, “overcoming peoples’ perceptions of what is possible and not possible.”
At Skeena Cat Skiing, just outside of Smithers, BC, the Forward team found a willing crew with open minds, everyone ready to help. “When Tanner pitched the idea, their response was, ‘How can we make it happen?’” Clay says. “They were so good adapting to whatever we needed. At the end of each run the cat driver would build a ramp to make it easier for us to get the chair back in the cat.”
With no shortage of powder in the Skeena terrain, Tanner says it took a few days to get Clay’s equipment dialled in and for him to learn how to navigate deep pow with a sit ski. Safety was the top priority.
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“We went into it worried about Clay being submerged,” he says. “And that happened on the first run. I got dragged down and the chair was stuck above me. I was dangling by one arm, useless. Luckily we had a guide right there to dig out Clay’s face. Then we ate shit all day on day two, so we made some changes—shifted Clay’s weight way back and started to make progress.”
In a sport so hung up on powder and face shots, Clay—sitting just a few feet off the ski—enjoyed a complete whiteout for the entirety of every run. “It was fun,” he says. “I think it speaks to the trust I have for my brother and our team. Going down the slope, I couldn’t see anything. But I knew he’d have my back. I loved it.”
“I have never heard him say, ‘Stop,’” Tanner says. “He always wants to go faster.”
“I think,” Clay says, “the best is yet to come.”
Forward is competing as part of the Mountain Culture program at the 2025 Whistler Film Festival.
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