In 2015 I was invited to join Brainfarm Cinema on a trip to document: Travis Rice, Mark Landvik, Mikkel Bang, and Shin Biwajima. We headed to Hakuba, Japan for a month, and the photos were used for Travis's film "The Fourth Phase". This was a line that we needed early ups at the resort to ride. Like most mornings, it was a mad dash to get to the spot before the temps got too warm. What we didn't account for, is that the avalanche danger had spiked because of the inversion. Travis quickly got into position, and we all knew there was a good chance an avalanche or at least some heavy sluff could go down. Sure enough, on the first turn... POP, a slab crowned, and the avalanche/sluff tumbled down the gully to the left. Travis being hyper aware of everything around him navigated each spine to shelter himself from any avalanche debris. While exiting the bottom he was forced to ollie right into his sluff, and then dissapeared into the mist of the inversion. The only way we knew he was ok, was the hooting and hollering of pure stoke. This photo ended up being the opening spread to The Fourth Phase book. Travis is one of my all time favorite people to shoot with. Laser focus, creativity, and calculated risk management make him one of the greatest to ever do it.

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