Geoff Brown is a Bullfighter: Sandbox Heli Shoot '11

Geoff Brown is a Bullfighter: Sandbox Heli Shoot '11

Brian Hockenstein photos

The ‘new-shit-on-an-annual-basis’ mantra of snowboard videos today sucks. They rarely touch on the obviously massive gap between how hard today’s tricks are and how easy pros make them look. Films are so full-bore that we’re barely allowed a bail section anymore.

What happened to conflict? You know? Good old fashion bullfighting? A story is almost worthless without it. A ‘versus’ is needed to keep the people from losing interest, especially in this day and age (plug, plug) where a distinctly nurtured epidemic of ADD is unsettlingly abounding around us.

When attempting to entertain, an obligatory bobble must always arise. But not to simply kill-time before yet another tired and predictable Mighty-Duck-esque happy-ending, rather to provide an accurate sense of real-life – which has always and will always contain conflict.

At $2000/hr, a helicopter is as about an expensive filming platform as you can get

The helicopter was roaring loudly above us all, hovering magnificently still, awaiting Sansalone’s signal for each rider to drop. Momentarily after, Geoff Brown sent word through the walk-about two-way radio that he was next, and the bird roared away with the mere tilting of its blades.

Mid-session on Whistler Blackcomb’s ‘Lemming’s Leap’ (the run next to the glacier-accessing 7th Heaven chairlift) featured a custom-built, cheese wedge-shaped, 80-foot jump. It was baby huey, baby – huge. The take-off was almost thirty feet high and Sandbox scheduled the shoot for just the right kind of weather: an active sunset was prepped to unleash itself behind it all. I helped hand groom the monstrous feature, therefore giving me access to the plethora of hammers being dropped that afternoon, sunset and evening

The bright red helicopter with Clayton Larsen filming inside, watched Brown man-handle the in-run and hunt for just-the-right speed, at high speed, before igniting off the behemoth lip: unlatching the cage on a backside double cork twelve. He dropped past the knuckle, out of sight and we, the fortunate public, didn’t cheer, rather, politely gasped. With ear-to-ear smiles on, we assumed the trick was taken to his feet. Hell, it looked so perfect.

Strangely though, no more than twenty seconds later, Brown’s on half-a-snowmobile, roaring to the top of the drop in for another stab at what would prove to be the night’s most livid bull incarnate.

“The first one I tried ended up going almost triple,” Geoff Brown later recollected. “And a few times I over rotated past twelve and face-planted so bad that my goggles completely filled with snow. I actually had to change them midway through the session because of a face-plant where my lenses blew off the frame and I didn’t want to waste time trying to fix them. I had my eye on the sun which was setting faster and faster and I kept coming so close that after each time, I thought, ‘ok I’ll land this next one for sure.’”

Backside 7, stomped

Zack Stone, Kevin Sansalone, Clint Allan, Scotty Brown, Wiley Tesseo, Logan Short, Jake Koia and Trevan Salomon, who once awaited clearance to drop in beside Brown had dwindled with the sun and eventually, only he Geoff remained. They either got all they wanted (insanity btw: doubles and twelves and bulls oh my. Get the video) or let ones not happening just ride – opting to observe Brown as he continued on developing, and developing, and developing.

“I joked with Belzile at the start of the day that it would take me 43 tries to land the double…” Brown said reflectively, “maybe I jinxed myself? I tried it 20-odd times that night.”

Everyone at the spot was an onlooker at the first attempt, shaking their heads at one another after each time as if to say “that was it, right? That HAD to be it.” But to our surprise, Brown: sweaty, worn and mind-bogglingly endurable, Brown – time after time whipped past us via sled-shuttle to drop in once more. His attacks on the high-octane – utterly death-bull-esque – mechanism that a double cork twelve at that magnitude is, were relentless.

“It was great working with Geoff that night,” said Sandbox’s Larsen. “He tried the double corks at least 20 times and had some hard falls but just kept going.”

Imagine the madness masked behind Brown’s Sandbox ball-park helmet, goggles and taut bandanna. Include of course: the impending deadline of the falling red, laser-pointer-like sun a-sinking down, the ever-ascending price tag of a helicopter following him into each attempt, the almost tactile pressure in the air and the five distinctive cameras documenting his every move.

“I tried to shut off everything else, everything around me,” Brown says. “There was a point near the end of the sunset when I was standing at the top of the in-run, alone, shaking as much from being exhausted as I was from feeling tired and stressed. I saw the sun setting behind the mountains and I knew I would only get a few more tries.

Last try. Breaths held. 

It was all or nothing and I was looking at the dark and icy take-off, feeling pretty tired, wet, bummed-out, and truly surprised that it was taking me this long to get a double I’ve already gotten in the park.”

And that day – as happens more often than not – the sun went down while the bull stayed up.

“We were losing light for filming, and the landing was starting to ice up,” said Larsen. “And I mean, there is only so much your body can take and Geoff was really pushing those limits.”

Everyone walked away with a segments-worth of bangers, but for Brown, the dub twelve remained elusive. The sun was gone, and the lot of us had to pack up our gear and let the late May snow scream us safely toward the valley below. And in the otherwise pitch-black darkness, lead by the light of two ski-patrol snowmobiles, we left a well-scathed jump behind.

“If I could have had a chill-out night in some Jacuzzi after that session and then went back the next day, I would have landed it,” Brown reminisces, the smile fading only slightly from his face. “But sometimes one opportunity is all you get.”

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