Pioneering sled-accessed shredding in the Sea to Sky.
Photography & captions :: Kurtis Croy // Words :: Feet Banks
Someone has to go first. It doesn’t matter whether you’re dropping into a line, setting a skin track or getting out of the tent to fire up the stove, in the mountains we need those willing to put themselves into the unknown for the benefit of others. All hail the trailblazers.
And when it comes to snowmobile-accessed shredding in the southern Coast Mountains, the pioneers were a handful of young snowboarders chasing fresher snow, new terrain and better photos and film clips.
“There was no roadmap,” says cinematographer Brad McGregor. “It was purely instinctual and we didn’t even know we were getting in over our heads. We just did it.”
In 1995, while filming for Whistler-based film company Adventurescope, Brad, photographer Kurtis Croy and a few young snowboard pros embarked on their first alpine snowmobile mission: a foray up Mount Sproatt.
“Al Crawford and Doug Washer were running a local snowmobile tour business,” Kurtis says, “and Matt Domanski talked Doug into taking a group of us out. He was a great sledder and had a Summit 670, but we were on Ski-Doo 583s with 136-inch tracks with maybe inch-and-a-half paddles. It was Brad, myself, Matt, Dave Stirling and James Kurylo, and none of us were ready for Sprout. We got stuck a million times, crashed into creeks, floundered. It was a shitshow. But I did get a photo of Kurylo published in Transworld from that day.”
And more importantly, the day gave them a taste of what was available. “Within a year we had our own 670s and were really good on them,” Kurtis says. “But it was different back then. Today’s machines can just put in fresh tracks and power through, but back then we had to take multiple runs at things. Just getting up the S chute in the morning was not easy, especially if it had snowed a foot or two.”
“Snowmobiles were like a bowling ball,” Brad says of those early machines. “If you throw a bowling ball at a hill it will follow the lines of the terrain. The snowmobiles wanted to do the same. We had to learn to sidehill, how to use speed and momentum. We couldn’t stop or we’d get stuck, so a lot of it was pushing the sled almost as far as possible then quickly turning around and going back downhill. That way we could build a runway. We learned to read terrain in reverse, to pick our way up a line, to plan a few moves ahead.”
One of their few early mentors was ski guide Eric Smith. “He taught us to bring snowshoes,” Brad says. “In zones through the trees we would stomp a line with the snowshoes, something we knew we’d be able to hold speed on. We’d make a road in.”
“If you throw a bowling ball at a hill it will follow the lines of the terrain. The snowmobiles wanted to do the same. We had to learn to sidehill, how to use speed and momentum.”
“It was a bit lawless back then and Kurt was more adventurous than I was,” Matt says. “He’d drop into places and it was like, ‘I guess we are going. I hope we can get out.’ But that was how we found a lot of spots and new zones… Of course, we sometimes had to leave a sled and come back the next day with a come-along to haul it out.”
“When we were going out there, it was really like, I wonder what’s over that ridge? I wonder if we can cut through there?” Brad says. Each venture out seemed to unlock a new playground.
“Sometimes we’d hear of old-time sledders getting into the same spots,” Kurtis says. “But for the most part we were out there alone and, in the early years, we were the only ones snowboarding.”
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“Kurtis would drop into places and it was like, ‘I guess we are going. I hope we can get out.’ But that was how we found a lot of spots and new zones… ” –Matt Domanski
The sleds gave Kurtis and Brad—and their expanding crew of snowboard pros with machines—the ability to find slopes and features that had never been photographed. “Natural jumps, drops and spots where we could do tricks on big lines,” Kurtis says. “Or spots to build big booters. With that kind of stuff you have to do it more than once, so we could build stuff, practice it, move around and find the best angles, then come back the next bluebird pow day to shoot. All without spending the kind of money you need for helicopters. That was the magic of the sleds.”
As the photos and footage from the Sea to Sky sledland reached the public, more and more snowboarders got machines of their own. By the turn of the millennium, even the skiers had joined the fun, partially due to the innovative racks snowboarder/sledder Dave Basterrechea invented to secure boards and skis to the snowmobile. “I couldn’t believe no one made them,” says Dave, whose company Cheetah Factory Racing changed the entire industry. “It was a thing of need.”
So was old-school tech like topographical maps and Forest Service Road guidebooks. There was no Google Earth, no inReach, and, early on, not even cell phones. When problems inevitably arose, all the crew had was each other.
“In snowmobiling there is strength in numbers,” Kurt says. “You need to know what you are doing back there. I like going with a big crew and learning from each other, helping each other and celebrating together. Sitting on an empty ridge watching the sun go down with your favourite people. Those are some of my best memories.”
Matt agrees. “Bluebird, fresh pow, wide open, pinning your sled as far as you can see—and you’re there with your buddies. It felt like how it felt when we were kids.”
To celebrate that camaraderie, and the youthful spirit of a crew chasing light and lines into the wild, we’ve collected a few of Kurtis Croy’s favourite shots from an era of Coast Mountain history that was raw, risky and unwritten. “It’s easy to follow tracks now,” says Brad. “Back then, we were making them.”
Kurtis is working on a coffee table book of photos from these days as well as the crew’s legendary work with Treetop Films from 1998–2002. Stay tuned.
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