This was Blake’s first drop of a glacial expedition in South Central Alaska. It was a warm-up lap, so to speak.

At this point, I had never put a lens on B.Mo. I knew who he was, and I was well aware of his style and prowess in the big mountains, but I hadn’t spent any time with him out there. There’s always a solid bit of learning that happens the first time you shoot with someone—figuring out how they read terrain, how they like to communicate about line choice, where they’re going to make turns, where they’re comfortable taking chances. 

Right out of the gate, he snapped this pocket Frontside 360—it seemed quite nonchalant amidst a short shot to open up the trip. As things developed, I began to realize that this was the epitome of Blake’s riding—there’s an ease to it that can disguise how serious the stakes are. 

We shot it, liked it, and moved on into one hell of a trip. 

While out on the glacier, I must have given this frame a touch of an edit and cropped pretty aggressively—and didn’t really think much of it until I was buttoning up submissions this summer. More and more these days, I’ll ask my wife Michelle to take a look through the work, especially in these environments, as she’s spent the last two decades skiing film lines in big terrain and sees the mountains through a rider’s eyes. She looked at my crop and basically said, “You can’t crop it like this… there’s too much more going on here.” She squared it back out and noted just how tight the margins were in Blake’s landing. 

Suddenly, that seemingly nonchalant warm-up lap looked a lot less nonchalant. 

Psyched seeing this land on the front of the book—a strong reminder to get another perspective. I was focused on Blake, the mechanics of the air, the ice screw dangling off his harness. Michelle was looking at the mountain—B.Mo most certainly was too. 

Here’s to leaving it to the riders— 

Congrats, Blake—champagne soon. 

–AARON BLATT