IN JULY 2011 , I answered a phone call from my sister. She was checking on me after the death of my close friend, rid-ing and filming partner for the last couple of winters—the most impossibly charismatic individual I have ever encountered, Aar-on Robinson. She didn’t know that I didn’t know. “Holy shit— WHAT?!—There’s no way—they just got to Chile a couple of days ago—what about Blake?” Barely three months prior, in the spring of 2011, Aaron, Sam Tuor and I were squatting in Jackson filming for Aaron’s video project, which would become 2012’s “Manifest.” We’d been stalking storms across the looker’s left side of the Lower 48 since December, jumping off whatever and sleeping wherever. It was April, but as far as the weather was concerned, we were still in deep winter. After a full day blocking up a cheese wedge, we were driving down the pass when Aaron asked, “What’s up with your boy Blake Paul?” Riding shotgun, having just licked the edge of a rolling paper, he was inquiring about the then 17-year-old who I had previously mentioned as “like my little brother.” I first met Aaron Robinson (or A-Rob as he was known) in a muddy parking lot about 19 miles outside of Valdez, AK, in 2009. He had driven his 1989 Chevy Blazer towing a brand new 2008 Ski-Doo Rev 800 from his hometown of Whitefish, MT. He was 22 and on his first trip to Alaska. A road-stripe-yellow bumper sticker on the top of the Blazer’s rear window frame read in black text, “CLEAR THE ROAD, I’M SIXTEEN!” Aaron was living in a wall tent. His gear was scattered around the floor near a wood stove not much bigger than a can of beans, which seemed to be having a hard enough time heating the tent, let alone drying wet gloves strewn below it. It symbolized his trademark cavalier optimism that seemed to get him into or out of whatever situation he wanted. When we met, he was tripping that I was from Jackson: “Damn, Jackson Hole for real? Travis Rice, baby! Is that dude crazy, or what? He’s so sick! KING of the backcountry.” After I stopped laughing, I felt a magnetism I had never felt outside of a romantic context. A moment in his pres-ence felt like standing up on a wave for the first time—an experi-ence so unique that you instinctually adjust the puzzle pieces of your existence to create more opportunities to feel it. That April day, Aaron suggested we invite Blake to hit our jump the next day: “The kid rips! He’s so steezy…” “He doesn’t have a sled,” I volleyed back, knowing how much better at jumping Blake was than me and feeling a bit of brotherly rivalry. I thought his lack of transport would be a deal-breaker. Aaron didn’t see it that way: “I’ll double him out. Let’s get some dope Blake Paul clips in the movie!” I acquiesced and later thanked Aaron for the lesson in humil-ity and kindness. This was part of hanging with Aaron. His way. His Tao. His energy was so pure and present that it sometimes felt absurd until you understood that every behavior is a choice, and the bright side is always on the menu. Aaron and Blake took to each other right away. They couldn’t have been more opposite operators. Blake ensured he always had his gear clean, dry and organized, plus backups, just in case, for a day in the mountains. Aaron made sure he had four to six joints pre-rolled and packed safely in the waterproof case he wore around his neck, plus two lighters in case one got wet or lost. He figured everything else would work out. It generally did. After that first day out, Aaron accidentally bestowed a nickname on Blake: “If T. Rice is the king of the backcountry, Blake must be the prince.” Blake joined the crew for the rest of the season. Aaron had been exploring parts of the western Andes for the previous three summers to keep his endless winter dream alive. Aaron planned to head down there early that July, scout some zones, and get everything dialed in so when the rest of us made the trip down later that summer we’d be set to make an epic seg-ment. Blake, with an open schedule and having never been to Chile, joined Aaron for the early part of the trip. Upon arriving in South America, he remembers Aaron getting straight to work. It was only their second day snowboarding near El Colorado in Chile when Aaron, stoked as always, dropped in and joyfully surfed a little spine with his one-of-a-kind off-script style. Just as he rode out of Blake’s view, he took a tumble. They were riding with a few locals who, once getting down to Aaron, began to yell for help. Blake raced down to the scene. He saw what no person should see, at his age or any. Our friend, whose presence encour-aged everyone around him to live every moment as if it were their last, proved his point in the worst way possible. People come into and out of our lives to shape our character and inform our perspective. This is a sentiment I tend to lean on when I’m perplexed by life and love. “Why” is the outcast among the more concrete monosyllabic questions starting with the letter W. It seems to evade even the most scholarly of us, often being rel-egated to the hallows of vague sentiments like “life is crazy.” I will never understand why Aaron left this world on that day in Chile in 2011. But I know now, more clearly than before his departure, that he completely changed how I see the world. Most people who knew him will tell you the same thing. Blake included. BLAKE PAUL 075
The Snowboarder's Journal The Snowboarder's Journal 21.2: Page 75
