Words: Trevor Husted 2017-12-12 17:57:04
“Every time you climb a mountain, you bend your perception,” Jesse Wilfley says. He’s at home in Truckee, CA, and has already described everything from a harrowing winter ascent up Half Dome in sub-zero temperatures to the hit-and-run accident that left him in a coma for 45 days. Indeed, his vision of the mountains goes farther than that of the average snowboarder—he tends to look beyond the immediate horizon.
Wilfley started adventuring at a young age. Growing up a mile from the end of Highway 4 near Bear Valley, CA, winter access to the mountains came via skis or snowmobiles with his family, members of the Bear Valley ski patrol. Spending time in the mountains was family tradition—his grandfather was a mountain guide and pioneer in the Sierra as well. Wilfley learned to ride in the clear cuts behind his house, before progressing to the family-oriented Tahoe resorts of Donner Ski Ranch and Boreal at age 11. Although he went to college in coastal Santa Barbara, he continued to ride as part of the University of California, Santa Barbara dual slalom and boardercross teams, both ranked nationally. With degrees in fluvial geomorphology and environmental studies in tow, he moved to Africa to guide the White Nile where he founded an infrastructure-development company. But he realized quickly he needed snow back in his life.
So Wilfley returned to Tahoe, where a job as a ticket-checking manager gave him free access to Alpine Meadows on the clock. Boardercross and freeriding remained passions—he’d began racing on the Rahlves Banzai Tour and met Winter Olympian Jayson Hale, who motivated Wilfley to train with him in preparation for the 2014 X Games. A spot on the U.S. Boardercross team seemed feasible. Then he was hit by a car while skateboarding home from the gym in Truckee. “I spent 45 days in a coma, which led to a shift in my mental status,” Wilfley says.
He came out of the coma 30 pounds lighter and with the mental capacity of a 2 or 3 year old. He made progress from there, but for the first two years after the accident, his doctors gave him just a 35 percent chance of survival due to the risk of secondary injury, drug and alcohol abuse or suicide, which often accompany traumatic brain injuries. During his long recovery, he discovered a new therapy: running. “I got into running and just moving around seemed helpful,” Wilfley says. “My neurologist said it was good because it helped me to take in all these new stimuli, as well as make decisions and keep active.”
Six months after his accident, Wilfley competed in the 50 km Lost Sierra Endurance Run. He placed in the top 10 for his age group. “I learned to take advantage of the fitness, nutrition and mental conditioning that ultra [running] could provide,” Wilfley says. “And it just so happened that this translated into the snowboard world.” He helped develop a splitboard with G3 and began snowboarding again with the knowledge that another head injury was not an option. “Splitboarding became more of a meditative thing,” Wilfley says. “I was always engaged, calculated, and riding as well as I possibly could. I began going places where falling was not an option because falling was no longer an option, ever.”
Friends from the snowboard community like rider and photographer Moss Halladay began to accompany him into the backcountry. “It was amazing to see him combat the mental side [of his return to snowboarding] by pushing himself in the outdoors and setting some big goals,” Halladay says. “His approach was a bit different than the average snowboarder you meet—his goals were very personal.”
Perhaps the biggest of these goals: climbing and riding the most challenging routes on California’s fifteen 14,000-foot peaks, a venture he first began in 2001. Entering 2017/18, he only has five peaks left and is already making plans to summit and ride all of California’s 13’ers.
“I spent my life guiding rivers and mountains from Africa to California,” Wilfley says. “I got to a point in my recovery where I was starting to amaze myself. My job as a guide was taking people into environments where they didn’t belong, or didn’t know how to be. After the injury, I got to a point where I wanted to do the same thing for myself. Now, no matter if I’m feeling high or low energy, I can go have a good day. Sometimes I ride 800 feet in my backyard on a pow surfer, other days it’s 10,000 feet of vertical and riding a face that no one’s ever snowboarded before. Snowboarding is one of the few activities where you feel better afterward, no matter what.”
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