Powder & Rails catches up with pro snowboarding legend Bryan Iguchi in the backcountry of Jackson Hole, Wyoming (i.e. the middle of nowhere). He demonstrates his mountaineering man-skills in a snow pit boning up on his knowledge of snow pack densities. The Guch has become an experienced backcountry guide and all-around snow wizard while maintaining his reputation as a pro snowboarder. We find out what the heck you’re supposed to do with a loop, a crystal screen, a big saw knife, and a snow pit.

Bryan takes us back to his Southern California roots as an up-and-coming skateboarder introduced to snowboarding at Big Bear Mountain. Around that time, Bear had become the first resort to let snowboarders, with the help of Mike Parillo’s chainsaw, build their own jumps, rails, and halfpipes. In this D.I.Y. terrain park setting Iguchi flourished, emerging as one of the leaders in the new snowboard park agenda. In turn, Bryan’s career with Burton took off and soon he became a staple of video parts with FLF Films, Mack Dawg, and Volcom. The culmination of this work came when Bryan and a bunch of friends camped out in Sonora Pass, CA with a few super 8mm cameras, their snowboards, and some serious bro vibes, yielding Volcom’s The Garden, one of the most classic videos of all time.

At the height of his freestyle snowboarding career, SoCal-bred Bryan Iguchi traded snowboard park notoriety for mountain man obscurity by permanently relocating to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Most of his sponsors dropped him as a result, leaving him, as Pat Bridges said, quite literally alone in the wilderness. As the sponsorship checks disappeared Iguchi made ends meet by printing t-shirts for Bluebird and taking an apprenticeship as a sushi chef. But The Guch was now able to pursue his own mountaineering agenda, resulting in the pioneering of 90% of the filming spots now used in the Jackson Hole backcountry.

While scouting jumps to shoot via snomobiles, the crew pass by Mt. Maran and explain a fiasco in which Bryan and fellow pro-rider Jeremy Jones got lost while trekking to the peak. Without their combined mountaineering know-how, they may have both gotten permanently lost in mountain’s maze of gullies. Iguchi finds his favorite jump spot and lets the Volcom guys go on ahead, launching out on a one-man demonstration of why the Guch is still a pro.

A cast consisting of Travis Rice, Kevin Jones, Dave Downing, Bjorn Leines, Mike Ranquet, Billy Anderson, Pat Bridges, and Jackson Hole O.G. Willie McMillon throw in their take on Iguchi and why he’s become so important to snowboarding. Oh, and we also dig up some dirty ole hoars—surface hoars, that is. Like, frost.

Powder and Rails with Bryan Iguchi