Ben’s first time in Alaska, he found the terrain per-fectly suited to his high-speed approach. Frontside 360 in Haines in 2014. Photo: Dean “Blotto” Gray What’s James like? He’s quiet at first, but once you get to know him, he’s hilarious and he’s a sweetheart. The coach thing began on this trip to Colorado where he ripped everything apart. I didn’t even ride pipe for the first two days. He didn’t like the way I turned my board at the time, so he made my stance narrower and rode behind me and told me what to do on groomers. I was like, “This is bullshit,” but it worked. You got on the US Team? By 16 or 17 I really started to figure it out. I was doing it for myself because I loved it. I started to ride the way I wanted to ride. I started to find my own style. That’s when I rose up. They would do their Gold Camp every spring with kids and coaches. We’d stay up at the Mammoth Mountain Inn. It was rowdy. I did well at the camp and the next year I was on the team. I also qualified for this Youth Olympic contest, won pipe and got second in slope. I was locked into the US Team then, getting invited to the Canadian Open and some other bigger contests. That Sochi Olympic year [2014] I ended up getting third at the first qualifier at Copper. It came down to the very last contest in Mammoth, and it was between me and Danny [Davis] for the final Olympic spot. I landed one of the best runs of my life and was sitting in second, then Dan came down, did the switch method and laced his run and went to Sochi. It was probably for the best; Dan deserved to go. That last quali-fier podium was Shaun [White], Danny and me, and it was unreal. I was so hyped and didn’t care about not moving forward. Did you feel a step away from riding powder by then? No, I was just riding more and more. I started shooting with Pete Al-port in Bend and he taught me a lot: how to cut blocks, build jumps, build an inrun, how to operate in the backcountry. He showed me a lot of spots in Oregon. I never missed riding powder because I always just did it. But from 2014 on you were steadfast on the contest scene? From then it was always decent contest success. I would usually make finals and I’d either be on the podium or not land a run. It was very focused on halfpipe with the US Team. I would sign up for slope-style, but since I was riding so much pipe that’s where my results were better. It was a bummer, but it would have been really hard to continue to do both—no one really does that these days. Peetu [Piiroinen] was the last that I saw doing both. You’d have to be a freak and work so hard to compete at a high level in both these days. Peetu was still trying to compete in both in Pyeongchang [South Korea Olympics, 2018] but the scheduling wouldn’t allow it. There were overlapping practices. You can tell there are producers at some of these events trying to get this done as fast and cheap as pos-sible to make a TV show. You were filming too? I did the contests and started to put out full parts at the same time. I went to Cooke City [MT] for the first time with Dan [Davis], and [filmer] Timmy [Manning] and that was the first year I went to Alas-ka as well. The crew was Timmy, Mikey Rencz and Blotto [Burton photographer Dean “Blotto” Gray]. We shared a bird with Absinthe on one day and I rode with [Brandon] Cocard and [Austen] Sweetin. I fully took it for granted—we had a solid run of blue days and I was just a kid getting shots in Alaska. I didn’t know why anyone was bringing me up there. I was so afraid of getting taken out by my sluff that I would just go as fast as I could. I would get lucky, air over some spines, go fast—it was the fastest I’d ever gone in my life, some of the best snow I’d ever ridden, and the most scared I’d ever been on a snowboard, but it was epic. Somehow, I felt like I was ready. You ended up riding with Pat Moore’s crew as well? I flew from Haines to Anchorage and we rode lines in the Chugach. It was crazy to go and ride both those places. Again, I was just a kid, wide-eyed. Tell us about that switch back 180 method from Pat Moore’s Blue-print —that was a standout moment. It was the first time I had met Pat and my first time riding with John Jackson. We were up top and Pat looked at me and said, “You’re the guinea pig, that’s why we brought you out here.” He was asking what I wanted to do and I said, “Switch back 180.” And he said, “You sure you want to hit it switch? Not one of those nice methods you do?” I made the trick the first time and then put one more up after. BEN FERGUSON 043
The Snowboarder's Journal frequency 17.2: Page 43
