Free rider, the new short film from The North Face
Sam Anthamatten and Victor De Le Rue take us to Alaska to draw new lines told through an exciting video
There are those who say that to know your worth as a freerider, to know if you were born for it, you need to know how to deal with ridges. To be a true freerider, it takes decades of experience and mastery of snowboarding and skiing on the big lines and a great ability to read the snow, carefully calculating the ratio of risk to benefit. Sam Anthamatten has spent his life traveling the world accomplishing extraordinary feats in snow sports and mountaineering, acquiring from trip to trip the knowledge needed to perform to the max and safely. Victor de Le Rue has a career full of breathtaking adventures in the big mountains, into which he has thrown himself headlong to experience snow like no one else.
Their long-standing friendship has resulted in some incredible expeditions and shared life-changing experiences for both of them. “Free rider” is the most recent example of this winning partnership: the pair of athletes set out to conquer first lines on treacherous ridges in a remote corner of Alaska. It was an ambitious goal that required a specific set of weather conditions, such as ensuring heavy snowfall, useful moisture to form the vertical spikes, and blue sky days for the ascent. After months of research and reconnaissance, the destination was set and the lines were drawn. This video is the story of two friends entering their alternate universe where nothing matters but the snow and their line of descent.
