For Oakley, I'm basically a media vehicle for them to promote the product. For me, it's both, I get a salary from them, but I also get great products so it just kind of works, continues on.
I didn't really get that into backcountry riding until about eight or 10 years ago and the main reason for it is the ski areas are more crowded.
I don't ride ski areas all that much, and I don't do contests and I don't go in snowboard shops and I rarely read the snowboard magazines.
I've actually been pretty out of touch with mainstream snowboarding for five or seven years, maybe even since I quit competing.
I've always been into powder, that's what I like riding, and now you've got to go farther to get it.
My experience and what I do in snowboarding is really quite independent of the industry and the more independent it is, the more pure and better I feel about snowboarding.
Oakley and Burton have been my main sponsors since '87. I've been riding for both of them.
Probably the average consumer, the average person seeing this interview, would probably know more about the sport than I do.
So I've been pushed farther and farther out into the mountains, but at the same time realizing that that experience is really nice and I'm glad I'm getting pushed out there farther.
The things that I do, I go out and snowboard, get in the magazines or on TV or whatever. It's still promotes their product.
He is 5'8" (1.73 m)
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