Dave Swanwick Photo:Nathan Bilow [click]

Requires a FREE media player: [Windows Media] [RealPlayer]

What has been your most epic run in the last four years of skiing in Alaska?

LISTEN IN: [Windows Media] [RealAudio]

God, there are a million mountains that are just so much fun to ski, and there's so many that we went on and we didn't even name. Who knows if we laid the first descent or if another company did, or if somebody did five years ago, but as long as you're up there and there's no tracks on it, it's a great run.

One of the most amazing runs that I've EVER skied was a run that I skied this year with Johan [Olofsson] which is called "The Wizard Odin" and Johan named it. He's named a couple runs after Norse gods. He's Swedish and he has Thor and now he has Odin. And it was just incredible. [It was] one of the steepest runs I've ever skied and Johan just nailed the line, just flashed it so hard, and I was actually pretty darn scared up there. It was kind of cool. I usually don't get scared at the top of the run or during the run or after the run but I was pretty much scared during all three and that was kind of a new experience. It was one of the steepest runs I've ever been on.

If someone had told you when you were 10 or 11-years-old that you would one day be in a Warren Miller movie, would you have believed it?

LISTEN: [Windows Media] [RealAudio]

I don't know if I would have believed it back then, but it was always sort of a dream in the back of my mind. Especially with the Warren Miller movies because as a little kid that was like, what you always watched at the beginning of the season. And I was always like, I wonder if I could do that. Then it got to the point where I'd look at the movies and be like, 'damn, I could probably ski as well as those guys.' And then I started doing it.

Is working with Warren Miller different than with Teton Gravity Research?

LISTEN: [Windows Media] [RealAudio]

Warren Miller is more of an established program...I guess you'd call it. I get paid when I go on the shoots, everything is all set, first class, and you know, that stuff is kind of cool, but at the same time, you sort of have no control over the footage. Like you know if you fall, it's in there, for sure. Whereas, with TGR, you know if you fall, it's NOT going to be in there, for sure. And you know that it's only going to be the sickest lines, and long shots and the kind of stuff that I want to be portrayed as and that I want to see in the movies. Whereas in Warren Miller, all the stuff that .. you know, you've got to be on your toes and watching out to not do really stupid goofy stuff because it's going to be in there and you're going to look stupid and goofy. So, at the same time as it's really first rate, they're into portraying the silly goofy side... which is funny and when I was a little kid, I was way into that. I think of it more as like, Warren Miller's the Disney of ski films, and Disney makes great movies. But in terms of like, the Pulp Fiction and more new age movies... that's the TGR type movie.

Is it totally intense shooting the TGR movies? Where are some of the places you went with them last year?

LISTEN: [Windows Media] [RealAudio]

It's not always totally intense. I went on three trips with them. I spent twh-thirds of my travel budget this year travelling around with the TGR guys. We went to Italy and got skunked on snow, but while we were there we had one of the greatest times. It was me, and Micah Black, Tom Davis and Steve Jones and we just had the most awesome time. We had a killer photographer, GVD Greg Von Doersten, and this writer who was awesome, Allison Berkeley, and we just had such a hoot the whole time. We were just like drinking cafe shots all over the place, espressos, and espresso dopio, and grappa shots at the ski bars on the hill. Then we'd go — it was hard packed snow so we'd set up a kicker over the road and air over the highway and just do silly stuff.

One time we were airing over the highway and Peter Habeler, who was the first man on Everest without oxygen, with [Reinhold] Messner— he comes driving up in a brand new Audi and he's shooting this commercial for Audi, and he comes up and he's like, 'Can we take photos with you jumping over the car?" And we're like, 'yeah, sick!" And we're just out there in the middle of Italy doing this crazy stuff.

What is it like working with Doug Coombs?

LISTEN: [Windows Media] [RealAudio]

I've been working for Doug for four years now and it's great. It's basically the best job I've ever had. The concept of getting paid to go heli-skiing is pretty amazing. I've been guiding up there long enough that I have a pretty good grasp on the terrain and the type of conditions that we're going to be looking at.

I guide on the private heli up there — I don't guide on the public ship usually, and so I really get to know my clients well and we build a relationship that we can really... I trust them to act a certain way and they trust my judgement out on the mountains, and so there's sort of a running dialog about that that we almost don't have to speak about.

We get out of the heli and I don't have to worry about everybody staying close to the heli pad, they just do naturally. And before they go off and walk somewhere they always ask, 'can I go this way?' and they know that when I'm out on the slope not to drop in — stuff like that, so, it's just such a great job. And the fact that I get to ski with the Hatchet film crew for like five to seven weeks of the time that I'm up there; they're a snowboard film crew. And it actually works out great because they shoot all the snowboarders first, and if I'm the last to go, they roll out their film on me and then provide TGR with that footage, so that works out great.

I'm basically going skiing with the best snowboarders in the world -- Johann Olofson, Jim Rippey, Victoria Jealouse, Tom Burt — all these guys who are just the sickest snowboarders there are— so that's an awesome experience for me to go ride with these guys and it just makes my skiing that much better.

— Dave Swanwick