Hokkaido, January 2025
Another trip with nearly no notice, I found myself on a plane to Japan a few days before Christmas after getting project approval only a few days prior. Tenra Katsuno and I had envisioned working on a video project together during the famously snowy month of January, and Salomon gave us the greenlight with enough time to make it a reality. I arrived to Tenra’s hometown of Niseko on Christmas night, he took me skiing for the evening, then we spent the next three weeks hiking around the mountains and countryside of Hokkaido filming for our video Shometsu Zekkei. I was beyond impressed by Tenra during our time together, our days were perfectly balanced between working hard to achieve our vision while also allowing enough space and time to decompress and rest between our heavy days. Tenra had to leave Japan in mid-January, so instead of heading out with him, I opted to make friends with other local Hokkaido skiers, mostly new faces - Yuta Negishi, Yuji Goto, Kudo Taro, Kazuma Takeshita, and some familiar friends, Shiori Takahashi and Gen Sasaki. We filmed together to get footage for the Browser Video while Owen was on a big trip to Kansas City and eastern Canada working with the rest of the crew.
