Freeriding's Godfather
Jan 27 2007 / Los Angeles, CAFreeriding's Godfather is gone, but how he still inspires is plain to see.
Thunder on the mountain, rolling like a drum Gonna sleep over there, that's where the music's coming from I don't need no guide, I already know the way
– Thunder on the Mountain, Bob Dylan
To see Craig Kelly ride -- then and now -- is to watch and learn. Our collective mouth is still agape at his moves, snowboarding's first glimpse at natural grace.
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So you couldn't blame my friend Mike, mouth agape, at the deep end of a halfpipe dug by a snow cat to resemble a skateable pool. None of us early snow shredders were sure what to do with it -- except Craig Kelly. He carved the rim at speed and put up a head-high air before crashing in the flat bottom to avoid Mike. Then he scolded him for not getting out of the way and hiked back up. Another chance at perfecting his winning line gave us our first glimpse at the flip side of Craig Kelly's legendary drive.
That drive served a young rider from Mt. Vernon, Washington well in the snowboarding boom of the late '80s. Growing up riding BMX, he learned to snowboard from Jeff Fulton, the son of the bike shop's owner, and soon he was leading a pack of MBHC (Mt. Baker Hardcores) through that mountain's Alaska-like backcountry. When contests began to happen, Kelly dominated every discipline -- racing, moguls and freestyle. His oft-repeated image established the method air as the trick and his design and image collaborations with Burton Snowboards were the catalyst for their growth into the industry leader.
Close to a decade later, on a cat-skiing trip in the Canadian Rockies that would become his home and the site of his untimely death, Kelly thoughtfully considered his views on the competition scene that had made him a star. Four world championships. Three US Open titles. Three Legendary Mt. Baker Banked Slalom trophies. Incalculable amounts of respect.
With the same laser-like intensity he used on my friend, Kelly said quietly, “I can't do contests. I got too intense. Competitive. Too serious. It's bad energy for me.”
In his greatest interview ('The Tao of Physicis, The Point of Diminishing Returns, And The Man Who Didn't Want a Million Dollars' -- Snowboarder Magazine, October 1995), Kelly explained to fellow Baker local Jeff Galbraith that he hadn't really left competition at the top of his game. The opportunity to film had presented itself, like an opening off the face of a narrow couloir and Kelly had simply taken it, elevating his stature and the stature of freeriding itself in ways no one could have predicted.
Those films, most notably his series with Adventurescope, would become his greatest legacy. In them, especially 'The Smooth Groove', Kelly's power, flow and conservation of movement realized full potency. Riding with Kelly on that British Columbia cat-skiing trip, we watched, mouths agape, as he hopped over saplings and poured down pitches nimbly as a jungle cat taking down prey.
Disappearing into the snowbound tundra isn't the way to become a superstar. Or is it? Craig Kelly was snowboarding's Bob Dylan -- mysterious to a fault and like a true visionary, with eyes on a different horizon. Kelly would have rounded the corner of forty with the release of 'Let It Ride', culled from the best of his travels with Adventurescope. Without his tragic death, an ending of rock-star proportions, the film could have cataloged his timeless influence just as well.
In an interview just before his last winter began, Kelly talked with enthusiasm of his backcountry guiding, with admiration of the Olympic halfpipe sweep by Powers, Kass and Thomas and with affection of his girlfriend Savina, young daughter Olivia and their life in Canada. Just a few months later he would be buried in such a forceful avalanche -- killing six people and trapping eight -- you have to wonder if global warming added to its catastrophic power.
More than once, Kelly said that he was not a risk-taker on the mountain. He even recounted how he had declined filming a line for Adventurescope when he was already halfway to it. He also repeated how his biggest fear was to die when he was “too serious.” “I think that would be the greatest tragedy,” Kelly said. So we look forward to how 'Let It Ride' will tell the Craig Kelly story. We'll remember the appropriateness of the 21-method salute thrown in his honor at the Legendary Mt. Baker Banked Slalom. In the end, to see Craig Kelly ride is to feel a part of the freedom, fun and powder he could've spent forever trying to taste. That's the picture that lives, keeping bad energy at bay.
-Billy Miller
