As a boy growing up in Western Washington, Kyle Miller didn’t have a lot of time for the outdoors. Instead of enjoying the majestic mountains looming not far from his door, he grew up sitting around watching TV, playing video games and living a fairly sedentary lifestyle.
Then he discovered snowboarding.
As a 19-year-old, Miller ventured up to the mountains with some friends and fell in love. It’s been all downhill – literally – from there.
“All of a sudden I just realized I needed to live,” said Miller, who grew up in Kent. “After that, I went up (to the mountains) every day. Whatever the conditions I didn’t care, I just wanted to do it.
“It became my life; my addiction.”
It’s been a pretty steep ascent for the former couch potato kid. Ten years after discovering the sport, Miller, who is from Kent, is now climbing giant peaks around the world and snowboarding down them. He’s also sponsored by a few snowboarding equipment and clothing companies and is starring in a short documentary called FreeRider, which makes its U.S. premiere in Seattle on Friday.
“I’m very fortunate to live the life I do,” said Miller, who already been snowboarding 20 days in January. “I get to do what I love year round.”
Time to split
After a few years of snowboarding, Miller got tired of the groomed runs at resorts and took his game to the backcountry. He joined groups of backcountry skiers and hiked up large peaks just so he could snowboard down the untouched powder.
After a year of that, he took up splitboarding, a sport that allows snowboarders to split their board in half length-wise so they can keep it on their feet as they ascend the mountain instead of having to carry it on their back.
“It gets old having the board hit you in the back of the head all the way up the mountain,” Miller said.
Soon Miller was trekking sometimes more than 25 miles up mountains and climbing peaks like Rainier, Shuksan and Baker and snowboarding down them. Since he’s started, Miller has conquered the top 25 peaks in the Cascades and top 10 volcanoes in Washington, but his favorite remains the peaks in the Glacier Peak Wilderness near Darrington.
“You have to love the outdoors,” Miller said of those who do splitboarding. “It’s 90 percent hiking and 10 percent snowboarding. But the views are incredible and the powder is unbelievable.”
Split sport
Splitboarding has been around since 1993, but the sport didn’t become mainstream until about two or three years ago, and Miller has noticed a difference.
“It used to be just me and a bunch of backcountry skiers,” Miller said. “But in the past few years there’s a much larger presence of splitboarders.”
Miller can spend months planning his trips: “I study topographical maps religiously.” On long trips he’ll carry packs weighing upwards of 60 pounds that contain food, a tent and a sleeping bag.
Many trips can either be canceled or postponed due to weather. Too much wind, snow or rain makes it too dangerous, often sending Miller to the groomed runs of local ski areas.
According to Miller, splitboarding takes a pretty heavy initial investment. Besides all of the backpacking gear and backcountry specific tools (see sidebar), a splitboard can cost twice as much as a normal snowboard. For those who want to learn how to splitboard, Miller said the Mountaineers offer how-to courses.
Splitboarding requires a healthy sense of caution, Miller said. You can’t get too comfortable or too complacent when you’re up in avalanche zones, and skinning along ridges and cornices is always dangerous.
Even so, Miller has seen some splitboarders let their guard down.
“You learn fast that nature will smack you in the face,” said Miller, who recounted one time when he took shelter under a rock as an avalanche rushed down a ridge he was climbing.
Free film
A few years ago Robert and Kathy Chrestensen of Crest Pictures, an independent film company in Edmonds, met Miller on a backcountry hike. After getting to know him they thought he’d make a great subject of a film.
FreeRider Trailer – Featuring Kyle Miller from Crest Pictures on Vimeo.
“Kyle is such an good natured guy and he lives such a ski-bum lifestyle we thought it would make a great film,” Kathy Chrestensen said. In the couple’s films, she does a lot of the behind-the-scenes work while Robert does most of the filming and editing.
They followed Miller around for a year as he attempted to scale the 10 highest volcanoes in Washington and snowboard down them. Robert filmed much of the every day life segments while outdoor photographers Jacob Hase and Jason Hummel got much of the backcountry footage. Miller also had a Go-Pro camera on him or his snowboard for some first-person footage of the descents.
The film made its world premiere in December in the International Free Ride Film Festival in St-Lary-Soulan, France and also was shown at the Canuck Splitfest in Rogers Pass, B.C., earlier this month. Kyle, who went to France for the premiere, said people who saw the film praised it.
“It’s amazing,” Miller said of the film. “I’ll have that for the rest of my life. It’s very humbling to see my adventures from different peoples’ eyes.”
FreeRider’s U.S. premiere is Friday, Feb. 3 at the Mountaineers Program Center in Seattle (7700 Sand Point Way Northeast Seattle, WA 98115). Admission is $10 and the doors open at 6:30 p.m. There will also be a screening of the film in Fraser Hall 4 on the campus of Western Washington University on Feb. 23.
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