“Snowboarding is my excuse to explore, travel, and see places most people won’t ever see.”
New Mexico. Not exactly the place that comes to mind when you think ‘snowboarding.’ It is not at the center of the snowboarding scene, to say the least. At resorts across the country – Aspen, Mammoth, Copper, Bear, to name a few – riders are basically born with a board in their hands, bred to become champions from age 2 and on. In a place farther removed from the epicenter of the snowboarding scene, a place like New Mexico, it takes true passion for the mountains and for riding to create a truly gifted and knowledgeable snowboarder. Snowboarding as a trend has no place here, instead it is a lifestyle that is sought out, that shapes those who abide in it.
Enter, Moss Halladay: Pro snowboarder, obsessive adventurer, unexpected photographer.
Raised in Los Alamos, NM— which actually sits 1,000 vertical feet above his current home in Tahoe — Halladay cultivated a love for snowboarding, taught and influenced by “a group of people that were wise and in tune with the mountains,” including his uncle Wes and friend Jason, who took him into the backcountry at a very young age. Halladay left Los Alamos for Vail before making moves and planting roots in Lake Tahoe, cutting his teeth on Squaw Valley’s terrain. As Halladay states, “Riding Squaw is unlike riding any other resort. The level of talent that comes from Squaw is ridiculous. I mean it’s where people like Shane McConkey and Jeremy Jones call home.”
Fast forward to present, where Halladay is well known throughout the snowboarding world as not only an incredibly talented rider, but a ridiculously impressive photographer. He will be the first to tell you that he never set out to be a photographer, but life as a professional snowboarder means getting to see some of the most spectacular places on the planet, and it seems Halladay’s natural instinct to capture his adventures uncovered a talent he didn’t know he possessed. After being surprised by the avalanche of fans that his work earned through Facebook and Instagram, Moss’ photography now funds his passion for exploring untouched terrain.
One look at his work, and it quickly becomes clear whether he expected to become one or not, Moss Halladay is a photographer.
“I was able to connect with a group of people that were wise and in tune with the mountains. It taught me a lot about life and that it was possible to shape a life I wanted instead of doing what other people thought I should do.”
“At one point my High School wanted to expel me because I was taking time off to compete. They told me it wasn’t a real sport. It really motivated me to take it more seriously. You can do anything you want if you apply yourself and sometimes it takes someone saying it’s not possible to make it happen.”
“I don’t quite know where photography is going to take me. It has become a way for me to help fund my life, which is amazing. It allows me to have a similar freedom and creativity to snowboarding, which is special and hard to find.”
“I always enjoyed being on top of a mountain with a small group of people instead of having lots of people riding next to me. The emotion and feeling of being on top of a mountain with just a few people has always been special to me. Jason was always documenting our trips with his camera so maybe that influenced me a bit to pick one up.”
See more of Moss: Facebook | Flickr | Instagram | Twitter
