MOUNTAIN LIFE - Coast Mountains | Fall Winter 2018

44 MLCM FALL/WINTER 2018 up there—Trennan Paynter, Dan Treadway, a bunch of guys—and we had a huge session. I got my first shot of JP Auclair that day.” By 1998, with more magazines and companies catching on to the new hot thing in skiing, Rowles found himself entrenched in a revolution, and shooting every minute of it. He couldn’t afford to pay the athletes he shot with, but he could teach them backcountry skills and show them new spots. “I’d shoot all day, breaking trail and skiing these big lines with a 25-pound pack worth $10k on my back. When the sun went down, I’d tune skis until the early hours, then get up the next day and do it all over again. I always tried to shoot a feeling, kind of like how I painted. So many of my favourite shots are ones nobody else liked.” Regardless, Rowles published photos around the world, in all the big magazines, for the top brands and with every film company that came to town. “And you’d still see your shots in real estate ads, or scanned and re- used somewhere else,” he says, the disappointment that an industry would disrespect someone’s art still very apparent even years later. And of course, life in the mountains is not all bluebird days and patio sessions. Over the years Rowles, like anyone who lives at elevation, has lost a number of friends to the very mountains he loves. “We lost Steve Smaridge in 1993,” he remembers. “And then Trevor—that was a shocker, I couldn’t believe it. And then Brett. And then Sheets died that day. Beeker, Lumpy, Jack, Lisa … acts of God. I don’t know, up here you just aren’t expecting these amazing people to die.” But in the mountains, that is the game we all play. And the only way to stay sane is to find a way to accept loss and honour the fallen by celebrating life every day. And for Rowles, that meant doing his best to help the next generation of Whistler skiers, kids like Sean and Callum Petitt and Kye Petersen. “Some people gave me a hard time,” he recalls. “They’d say, ‘Why are you taking Kye out there?’ But they didn’t realize he was already going out there with his friends. I felt obligated to help show him the right skills and knowledge, out of my respect for my friendship with Trevor. And I knew Kye would be a role model for other young kids.” TOP LEFT "Rex Thomas was one of my favourite athletes to shoot. He understood the work." BOTTOM LEFT Chilling on the dark side aka: Blackcomb Mountain. LEIF ZAPF-GILJE ABOVE Ski all day, work all night...almost.