East Coast Motions Volume III

Snowshoe Crew ’92

Snowboarding was brand new and gear hard to come by. The hard-cores at Snowshoe WV were on it early and learned the hard way. Guys like Bernie Wheeler, Gil Willis and my OBX Surf Tribe were loving it.

This project was funded by the proceeds of my previous film, East Coast Motions Volume II, Hatteras Surf Feast. A difficult production as access was limited by the resort and I literally had to smuggle my gear in and out of remote locations. Back then it was a two piece 3/4″ Set Up with exposed wires, plugs etc. As you can imagine it was a nightmare to keep the gear dry and in working order.

Snowshoe was so remote that I had to use the payphone in nearby Slatyfork to conduct business. I would pull my van up to the window access phone and sleep while I waited for return calls from by various video clients and distributors.

To make matters worse, I broke my leg and got laid up for a while at the end of the season. My production company folded up at this time and I had to do the edits on overnights at various production facilities.

The entire documentary now on Amazon Prime

Lots of funny stories from that winter. The vehicle of choice was an old 3/4″ ton work van with a load of firewood in the back for weight and some snow tires for traction. I drove to Timberline for one of the segments with a snowboard friend from France that didn’t speak much english. On the way back my transmission went out during a raging blizzard. Reverse was the only gear that worked and I had to drive up backwards on the mountain between Buckannon and Elkins. Michel kept muttering “Mon Dieux Mon Dieux”. I had the door cracked and just followed the edge of the road up. We turned around at the top and coasted down the other side to the relative safety of a service station. I had to call the OBX to score a local Elkins contact to come get us. I ended up selling the broken down Van to a farmer that wanted the firewood and needed a dry place to store it.