The Snowboarder's Journal - frequency 17.4
THE HUMBLE BEAST: Matt Wainhouse Peaks Late
Words: Ben Shanks Kindlon 2020-01-23 20:10:35
Matt Wainhouse has always been a late bloomer. Between the chiseled chin and broad shoulders held up by his solid frame, at first glance you’d probably guess he captained his varsity football team. But in high school, Matt claims to have felt like a pipsqueak. “I was only 95 pounds when I was 16 years old, always smaller than everybody else,” he says. “I was always the littlest kid, the smallest kid, the last one to hit their growth spurt. I feel like it kind of put a chip on my shoulder.”
Matt’s snowboarding career is flourishing in a similarly belated fashion. His riding has been well-respected in the Pacific Northwest for the better part of a decade, but after landing the opening segment in Absinthe Film’s 2019 feature, Isle of Snow, the snowboarding community at large is taking notice. The 31-year-old’s success follows an unusual trajectory in a field full of talented young upstarts, but Matt takes it—like he does most things—in stride. “To film for your first big movie at 30… I’m not sure that’s ever happened,” he says. “I think about it all the time—peaking late.”
Matt was born in spring ‘88 to parents who met on a chairlift in in winter ’83. “My dad actually ditched his buddy to get onto the lift with my mom who was loading ahead of them,” he says with a laugh. That chance encounter in Sun Valley, ID would lead Matt’s dad, Wilf, cross-continent from Toronto to be with Matt’s mom, Diane, in Bothell, WA. Bothell is where Diane grew up, and where the couple raised their kids and still live today. Wilf worked in construction for nearly four decades, climbing the ladder from production engineer to chief operating officer of Sellen Construction, while Diane owned and operated a furniture store. Both avid skiers, Wilf and Diane had Matt and his older sister, Lauren, on the slopes at Stevens Pass, WA by the ripe ages of 3 and 5 years old.
Matt skied weekly until he was 10 years old, but that quickly changed when he found his own soon-to-be true love at Sun Valley. “We were on a family trip and my dad rented a snowboard for himself, me and my sister, and we all went together for my first time,” he says.
But snowboarding didn’t immediately consume Matt’s life—that obsession would set in a bit later. He remained a steadfast weekend warrior, and rode like one too. “I was never a prodigy, and my parents never put me in a snowboard program,” Matt says. “Our crew just ripped around and straight-aired all the jumps. We had no idea of what was cool and what was smart. We’d send the biggest rock to flat landing and be like, ‘Yeah, we hit it!’”
During his younger years, baseball was a bigger priority. “But I was tiny,” Matt says. “I was coordinated, but I couldn’t hit the ball with any power, so I had to quit. It was tough. Then I wrestled for five years throughout junior high and high school, and that took a lot of time away from being on the mountain. I was in the lowest weight class and in junior high I was pretty good, but when I got to high school I got pounded. Dudes were cutting to get to 103 pounds, and I was still like seven pounds underneath that, so I’d get tossed.”
Despite his drive, Matt’s physicality never matched up with his competition. “I was pretty much just hanging out with my friends doing the high school thing—partying, whatever,” he says. “Then I started growing around junior or senior year—finally. I probably gained 40 pounds and six inches in those two years. When you’re 19 or 20 years old and got all these new muscles, it’s a good time to get really into snowboarding.”
Despite plenty of powder and backcountry access at Stevens Pass, it was the parks that hooked him. And once Matt decided to take snowboarding as seriously as the sports he’d poured himself into previously, he discovered where his natural talent lay all along. “It helped to have friends I was progressing with, like Ryan Brown—we’d been friends since before snowboarding,” Matt says. “It was always an, ‘If he can do it, I can do it,’ thing between us. About two years into it, I ended up getting a shop sponsor with Stevens Pass Snowboard Shop. They watched me go from backside 180s to 720s and were like, ‘Oh, this kid wants it.’”
While honing his skills in the park, more established Stevens locals began paying closer attention to the up-and-comer. “I feel like I earned the invite from some of the older locals to go ride the powder lines Stevens Pass has to offer,” Matt says. “One of the first dudes to take me under their wing was Ian Wood; he showed me lots of lines that I still love to ride. My very first backcountry jump was Powerline Gap, which there’s actually a shot from in my part this year.”
Around 2011 Matt started riding with a GoPro and landed five “Video of the Day” clips on their social media channels. “It was weird because it made me a bit of a local celebrity at Stevens Pass,” he says. “And I was never really trying to be a celebrity. I’ve just always been into making videos, even outside of snowboarding, and those two things went hand in hand.”
In addition to the viral GoPro clips, Matt was putting together season edits, which by that time were chock-full of backcountry hammers. His 2013 highlights caught the attention of another Pacific Northwest legend: 686 Team Manager Pat McCarthy. “I guess I had a knack for landing on my feet that season,” Matt says, “but I think I just got lucky.”
“Yeah, that is what Matt would say,” Pat says. He’s quick to call bullshit with regard to Matt’s so-called luck. “He puts in the extra work, or puts a bootpack into some sneaky zone by himself, and he’ll be the guy that says, ‘Let’s leave at 4 in the morning instead of 6.’ With his overall outlook and the way that he carries himself, Matt is the humble beast. The way he works, the way he stomps, the way he always gets more pop than other people, the way he interprets terrain and jumps—he’s definitely on that level.”
Pat also notes that Matt’s understated nature may be what’s held him back in the past. “The one thing about Matt that is so awesome, but could also hinder him a little, is that he’s so humble,” Pat says. “When you’re a pro snowboarder, you’ve got to kind of be your own hype man and build yourself up, talk a lot of game and then throw down. Matt has more of a Northwest approach to it: He lets his riding do all the talking. I think that’s why it took people a bit longer to grasp on.”
Matt hasn’t had the same financial support as some of his counterparts when it comes to traveling and filming. So he’s been paying his own way, working construction jobs every summer since he graduated from Western Washington University in 2013. Fortunately, Matt’s skills speak volumes reaching 11. He produced a standout video part for 686’s first team movie, 686 Seconds (2015), and backed it up with another in Rabbit Hole (2017). Those parts, in addition to word of mouth describing Matt as the people’s champ of the Northwest, helped convince Justin Hostynek to invite Matt to film for Absinthe Films’ Isle of Snow. “At the [Mt. Baker] Legendary Banked Slalom, Justin came up to me and was like, ‘I want to give you the golden ticket, wild card rider spot in our film this year,’” Matt says. “Justin came to Stevens and slept on my couch for a week, and we filmed together one-on-one.”
Matt led Justin around his home turf and stomped several hits that would later end up in the movie before heading off to Nelson, BC and Salt Lake City to film the rest of his part. In September, Matt traveled to Europe on his first international tour with Absinthe Films. He came into Isle of Snow’s global premiere giddy with anticipation, but was ultimately shocked to see that he’d scored the shared opening part with fellow Northwest rippers Blair Habenicht and Mark Rainery. “I was in disbelief the whole time,” Matt says. “I think the music helped a lot, and Blair’s footy helped a lot too.”
There he goes again—consistently quicker to talk up others before giving any credit to himself.
Like a sapling becoming a full-grown Sitka spruce, Matt seems to have strengthened with age. He doesn’t seem to be letting go of that chip on his shoulder anytime soon, and his work ethic remains firmly intact. During the off-season he’s transitioning from concrete work to landscape construction, and he’ll continue spending winters filming for his next big thing. “It’d be rad to film another year with Absinthe, and I’d also really like to be a part of some Northwest-focused movies,” Matt says.
Pat has even higher hopes for the humble beast. “I think the future is in Matt’s hands,” he says. “Matt can make whatever he wants out of snowboarding; he’s obviously proved that. Every time you bring him out, he brings more to the table than he takes. You just can’t lose when you have people like that.”
Photo Caption: Matt demonstrates his best three-point stance, circa 1994. Photo: Wainhouse Family Archives
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