The Unheard of Podcast - Unique with Zeppelin Zeerip

Taylor sits down with one of the most interesting people on the planet few have heard about. Zeppelin is a former pro snowboarder who is now an environmental lobbyist on the side, runs a new nutrition CBD company and decides to do crazy feats every year...buckle up

HOW SNOWBOARDER ZEPPELIN ZEERIP BECAME A PUBLIC LANDS ACTIVIST

Zeppelin Zeerip was originally named after a blimp—the oval airship that sailed through the sky. Growing up with a mother who engrained the family motto, “fly high, go far” into his brain, it is certainly etched into his heart and soul.

I first met Zeppelin Zeerip when he was living in his truck camper in a driveway in Jackson Hole, Wyoming through a group of friends getting together to share a meal. Zep is an eloquent speaker—well versed with his words, making me Google vocabulary to understand what he’s actually saying.

We reconnected to climb and camp just outside Grand Teton National Park, while he was deep into multiple projects: editing a series of interviews with Gwich’in youth for THE WILDERNESS SOCIETY, launching his CBD e-commerce store SILVARA, getting ready to lobby with PROTECT OUR WINTERS in Washington, D.C., pitching new film projects, and talking to new snowboard sponsors.

A goal setter at heart, he is not one to take life lightly and moves through it with intention and purpose. Zeppelin flies high and goes far in life, and shows no sign of slowing down. He inspires others to join in the fight to make the world a better place.

It’s not too often I meet someone with a name more badass than my own (Fly is commonly mistaken as not real or some kind of ode to ‘being cool’). Tell us about your name and where it came from.

My dad was a voracious reader and came across the story of Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin, a wild German aristocrat and military commander who was first inspired to invent the Zeppelin airship after meeting a balloonist in St. Paul, Minnesota. His story of rallying the support of the entire country of Germany behind his idea is pretty wild and I think it must have resonated with my dad as he was constantly trying to invent things.

You are passionate about public lands and protecting them. Why?

After the 2016 election, my mom called me crying. She was feeling like everything we as a family stood for was being attacked, and I felt the same. I decided to choose one issue and put everything I had into standing up for it. Nearly everything I do—be it snowboarding, running, biking, or climbing—takes place on public lands and depends on a healthy environment. They have come under attack like never before by extractive industries and an administration that doesn’t support conservation or preservation of our environment.

When did you become involved with political activism and what inspired that? 

In 2017, I began to get more politically involved with PROTECT OUR WINTERS (POW). Up until then, it felt fairly easy to be complacent and things seemed to be going well for the environmental movement. The US had signed The Paris Agreement, coal plants were closing, and Bears Ears National Monument had been protected.

Things changed quickly after the Trump administration came into power, and that inspired me to stand up for these areas that I love. I saw huge areas being opened to energy development, environmental protections being systematically rolled back, and common sense measures being revoked and I refused to stand idly by. Working with POW has allowed me the opportunity to travel to Washington, D.C. and speak directly with our elected officials about protecting the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and working to combat climate change.

The other big component of my activism is a feature-length documentary that will premiere in 2020. We’ve followed a variety of public lands issues throughout the country and hope to inspire people to get out and vote with the environment in mind.

You have been snowboarding since you were just a kid in Michigan and competed professionally. How did you transition from being an athlete to an activist? 

I became more involved as an activist after I recognized how selfish of a pursuit snowboarding is; how it truly does not matter in the grand scheme of things. I love snowboarding with all my heart, but at the end of the day it’s still riding down a hill on a piece of wood. It doesn’t contribute to anything greater than itself, and with so much threatening our climate and public lands I felt it was important to stand up and do more. I think anyone with a platform or voice has the responsibility to utilize it for the greater good.

Why do you think it is important to be an activist in the outdoor community?

We, as members of the outdoor community, are often the ones that use these public lands the most, and therefore I believe it’s our responsibility to stand up for them when they are under threat. If we don’t act now we will lose access to our public lands, rivers, and places that we love and depend on.

You have spent a lot of time working on environmental and conservation projects in places like Alaska’s Arctic refuge, logging in Oregon and throughout Utah’s national monuments. You were recently filming in Alaska with the Gwich’in Nation. Can you tell us a bit about your work there?

First I’ll give a bit of background info: in 2017 a provision was included in the tax bill that mandated an oil lease sale be conducted on the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Every year nearly 40,000 caribou have their calves in that particular area and the Gwich’in people depend on the caribou for their existence.

This was a borderline illegal move and puts the Gwich’in people’s culture under threat. My team and I have spent time with them in Arctic Village and Fairbanks to showcase their connection to the land and dependence on the caribou in our upcoming film. The Gwich’in’s connection to the land and caribou is beautiful and rare in an era where so many other tribes have been stripped of their food security. It’s crucial that we don’t repeat our mistakes and continue perpetuating the injustices that have been committed against Native people throughout America for the past six centuries. This is an opportunity for us as a country to do the right thing before it’s too late.

When it comes to becoming involved with issues we are most passionate about, where do you recommend people start? 

Getting involved locally is the most accessible and impactful way to get involved. I would advise anyone interested in getting further involved to choose an issue—it could be climate change, plastic pollution, logging, protecting open land, or whatever matters most to you—and find a local or regional group that is working on that issue.

Every single city and state has its own public land issues and there is almost always a local organization working on the issue. For example, in Salt Lake City there are at least ten different groups I can think of all tackling different issues, from grassroots efforts to protect the Cottonwood canyons (Save Our Canyons) to larger nationwide efforts to reinstate the National Monuments that were reduced (Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance).

Patagonia Action Works is another great resource to find local environmental organizations. There are so many ways to get involved and so many events going on, it’s just about finding what feels best for you and where you can have the most impact.

Top three road snacks and top three road tunes, GO!

Smart Food popcorn, Mexican Coke, and Red Vines. “Jazz” by McJenkins, Iron Maiden’s “Run to the Hills”, and “This Girl” by Kungs.

We know your dog has traveled with you over the years. Does he have any nicknames and how does he like life on the road?

Mooks, the Prince (because he’s the most handsome man to have ever walked this land), Mr. Steal Yo Girl (for obvious reasons), the River Keeper, Snarles Barkley, and Sweets. Makoa loves life on the road. He came to every shoot during production of the public lands film, and if you’re lucky you’ll see him in the background of some shots.

I Did an Ironman Without Training. Then I Puked, Cried, and Fell Asleep.

He decided to swim 2.4 miles, bike 112, and run a marathon off the couch. This is what happened.

BY LAUREN STEELE AND ZEPPELIN ZEERIP

SEP 26, 2018

When filmmaker Zeppelin Zeerip, 26, first told me he wanted to complete a DIY Ironman—overnight, and without any training—I had my reservations. Actually, I had an opinion: This was a terrible idea that, at the very least, would lead to prolonged discomfort; and, at the worst, an injury.
I’m allowed to think this. I’m dating him. 

Besides that, I respect distance. I’m a runner with several ultra-marathons under my belt. I herald electrolyte mix as the elixir of life. I know that completing an Ironman—swimming 2.4 miles, riding 112, and running a marathon—is a lifetime goal of hardcore endurance athletes, not a nonchalant act of whimsy just to fill a Saturday. 

True, Zeppelin (yes, that is his birth name) is a naturally gifted athlete: He’s a sponsored snowboarder, and he’s summited plenty of peaks. But he doesn’t “train.” This is a guy who (prior to this) had never swam more than a few hundred yards, never ran more than 15 miles, and only bikes around town to do errands on his fixie. 

So why take on an iron-distance triathlon—especially one that you didn’t register, pay, or plan for? In short, Zeppelin enjoys a challenge. And when he gets an idea that he likes the sound of, he’s not letting it go until it’s a reality.

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But he can explain it better than me. Here’s Zeppelin’s account of his mission, from start to finish.

SEAN RYAN

6:00 p.m. Friday, August 3

Salt Lake City, Utah

I have a lot of badass athletic friends, and I originally wanted to do a DIY “off-the-ottoman” (because we were too fit to honestly call it the “couch”) Ironman with them just to have a spicy summer adventure, and do something way out of the weekend-warrior ballpark. It’d been awhile since I took on a big objective, and I wanted to prove to myself that I still could. But everyone turned me down with an intelligent “F*ck no.” 

So I put the idea on the back burner. But when I found myself bored with no weekend plans one Friday in August, I told my girlfriend Lauren, “I’m gonna do it tomorrow.” 

I Googled “Ironman race prep 24 hours,” only to discover I was six, maybe 12, months behind on training. I also read that nutrition is the most crucial component for finishing. So I went and had a cheeseburger and a peanut butter-chocolate shake from a local brewery (I did skip the beer because I figured I’d save that for the post-event celebration). After dinner, I designed a route on Google Maps: I’d do the 2.4-mile swim by repeating laps of Mirror Lake, about 30 miles outside of the city; then ride 112 miles of mountain passes from Mirror Lake to my house in Salt Lake; and finish with 26.2 miles of running on the city streets. I’d start in the evening and do most of it overnight, to avoid traffic on the bike ride and the sweltering August heat on the marathon. And I’d still have some time to recover before reporting back to the office on Monday morning.

My plan laid out, I tried to get some sleep. The Internet also said rest is important. 

11:00 a.m. Saturday, August 4

Salt Lake City 

Despite not training, stretching, or even owning a legitimate road bike, I honestly thought an Ironman would be relatively easy. I’ve lived in the mountains more than half of my life, and my weekends are spent completing big missions in the backcountry—traversing ridgeline linkups and splitboarding. When you know the pain of doing a 5,000-foot climb in the snow, at elevation, you figure you can tolerate the upper thresholds of discomfort. 

I used the daytime to prepare. First I went to the farmer’s market to buy my body weight in peaches. I eat a lot of peaches. Then I borrowed my friend Drake's road bike. He also kitted me out with bibs and a few bike lights.

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Lauren patiently coached me about why salt tabs are crucial, and I begrudgingly bought two tubes of Nuun tablets instead of one (later I’d be thankful I didn’t save that seven dollars). I also bought four Honey Stinger waffles and four ProBars. A trip to the grocery store rounded out my “nutrition” with a bag of beef jerky, two PB&J sandwiches, two bananas, three donuts, and an Odwalla smoothie. I'd eat it all.

6:51 p.m. 

Mirror Lake, Uinta Mountains, Utah 

My understanding of a traditional Ironman swim is that it’s a mass start where you get kicked in the face and otherwise violently assaulted. That didn’t sound too appealing, especially since my swimming fitness consisted of paddling my surfboard when I have the chance to visit the West Coast. So I was glad to share Mirror Lake with just a few fisherman and paddleboarders, as well as Lauren and my roommate/friend, Sean Ryan, who were following me in a canoe with Strava running, and a tow rope (just in case). 

I had a wetsuit, but not being a swimmer, I forgot to bring a nose plug and goggles. And my form? It consisted of a spastic front crawl broken up by interludes of backstroke, and one abysmal attempt at a breastroke. 

After 1:51:52, I crawled out of the lake. It was getting dark. I was cold, and suddenly not so excited for my 112-mile solo overnight ride. To cheer myself up, I approached a man grilling at a nearby campsite with his family, wearing a .45 pistol on his hip, as one does. I asked if they had any s’mores to share. I did not get one. 

SEAN RYAN

9:00 p.m.

Somewhere in the High Uintas Wilderness 

After my leisurely 15-minute transition, I felt more ready for the bike than I probably looked. I had never ridden with butt pads before—I was very excited about this new experience—and I wore my trail running shoes over my flat pedals. 

I had mapped a mostly flat course (as much that’s possible in the mountains—there was still 4,691 feet of climbing). Within two miles, the front light on the bike died, leaving me to depend on a headlamp with questionable battery life as I hit 40mph down Mirror Lake Highway. I was trying to stay alert to cars on the narrow, winding road, but deer ended up being the real hazard. I was cookin’ at 35mph when I rounded a corner to see that a doe had perfectly positioned herself in the center of my lane. I hit the brakes hard and skidded, thinking I was going down. The doe just pranced away. Later, I imagined her laughing about the “terrified human on a bike” with all the other critters in the woods. That was the scariest part of the night—until I realized I had forgotten to check the weather.

Around 11 p.m., lightning flashed and I heard thunder. Then the rain started. I didn’t have a shell. As I was pedaling into the town of Coalville a little after midnight, cold and wet, a concerned old woman pulled over in her car and informed me of a motel five miles up the road. It sounded tempting, so I rode away, distancing myself from her reasonable voice. As I rode off, I yelled, “I want to be out here!” I think I hollered it as much for my own benefit as for hers.

At this point, I had to admit that Ironman triathlons are hard. There, I said it. I just wanted to be in my bed—where I knew Lauren and my dog Makoa were. 

East Canyon Pass was the last, gut-busting climb. I put my head down and pedaled grouchily until I was back in Salt Lake. Strava told me I was only at mile 106, so I rode half-mile laps around my neighborhood park at 3 a.m. until I hit 112 miles, for a bike split of 6:21. 

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So began the emotional rollercoaster. It was strange: I no longer felt pissy that I had signed myself up for a self-inflicted sufferfest. Honestly, I didn’t feel that bad at all anymore. I had energy and more than a shred of hope that I’d finish this thing. And I was still giddy over the butt pads.

3:37 a.m. Sunday, August 5

Salt Lake City 

I felt guilty waking Lauren up at 3:30 in the morning, but she had offered to run the marathon with me. While she was filling up her hydration pack, I filled the gaping hole in my stomach with a peach, a sandwich, and a donut. 

My newfound mental fortitude lasted 10 miles. After that, I kept asking for walk breaks, hoping that I could sleep while I was walking. It didn’t work. Lauren tricked me into running four more miles than planned before the first “aid station” break at my house. She also persuaded me to open that second tube of Nuun tabs, and down some much-needed water. At about 6 a.m., with 17 miles down, we got back to my house for some more food, and an espresso. 

Knowing that I only had nine miles left was a game changer. I was rehydrated. I had hope again. I was committed to finishing. 

Makoa joined us for the last leg, which was perfect because his road running pace is a solid and reliable 9:30 mile. The three of us looked like we were just out for a morning jog. But really, I was on my last leg, propped up by dreams of a Feldman’s Deli pastrami sandwich. 

SEAN RYAN

9:06 a.m., and afterwards

My house

After five hours of running, my Achilles felt like a rubber band stretched to the breaking point. A mile from the finish, I was demoted to a run-walk regimenagain. But when I got to my house, I saw that Sean had set up a finisher’s tape across our front porch as a surprise. I picked up the pace and ran through it. You can’t walk through a finisher’s tape. Run split: 5:14. Total time: 13:26

The challenge was over. Right? Not quite. 

Despite my newfound knowledge of electrolytes, I was still massively dehydrated. Instead of having a celebratory beer, my body rewarded itself with projectile vomiting, hot flashes, and head-to-toe fatigue that (I assume) felt like death. The supreme pizza I ate in celebration at breakfast took a hard U-turn in less than an hour. I had a hard time walking for a week. 

All in all, I would give the DIY Ironman 2 out of 5 stars on a Yelp review. I wouldn’t encourage the masses to embark on a huge endurance event with no training. You'll probably hurt yourself. But if you’re feeling really bored, stupid, and motivated on a Friday, and decide to go for it any way, I have one piece of advice: Buy that second tube of Nuun.

A Postscript, by Lauren

Part of me wanted Zeppelin’s “Ironman” to be the toughest thing he’d ever done. I wanted him to encounter all the pain, fatigue, and anxiety of six months of training in a single evening. I thought he was being naïve—or even a little cocky—to assume that he could pull it off with no preparation. 

But as I watched him approach his house on the finishing stretch, I realized that I had a profound respect for him for hauling off on this DIY mission—as much respect as I have for my friends who prep for big races. Zeppelin allows himself to try hard, have big ideas, and do something with them regardless of what the rest of the world tells him is “normal” or “possible.” That’s a kind of courage that I think all athletes can benefit from. Whether or not most of us ever attempt anything this audacious, Zeppelin’s DIY Ironman reminds us that we’re capable of much more than we think—as long as we stay hydrated.

BEHIND THE “FAR FROM EASY” RISE OF WZRD MEDIA

The WZRD crew getting the shot in Jamaica as they traveled the world for their series 'Far From Home.' WZRD

WZRD Media is a young and hungry, collection of action sports filmmakers who approach filmmaking in a different manner. Instead of the traditional approach of creating adrenaline-fueled ski porn, they take pride in the finding the seemingly impossible stories. 

WZRD Media was co-founded by Jackson, Wyoming native Phil Hessler, who moved to the ski town from Boston. It was in Beantown that Hessler first met Brolin Maweje, an aspiring Ugandan Olympic snowboarder–who would later become Hessler's adopted brother. Maweje's journey became the subject of WZRD's first ever documentary, Far From Home, which Hessler made while in college at Salt Lake City's Westminster College with fellow Salt Lake residents Galen Knowles, and Zeppelin Zeerip.

Since then, the boys have continued to take on projects that dig deeper than the traditional “sports story” by simply doing what they love, and bringing to light larger social and political issues in today’s culture. In their latest and most ambitious venture to date Phil, Zeppelin, and Galen assembled a team of talented friends and family to travel the world (literally) and tell the stories of six different unlikely Winter Olympic athletes culminating in the Olympic Channel’s newest documentary series Far From Home presented by Bridgestone. 

We caught up with WZRD Media Co-Founder Phil Hessler, along with Director Cole Sax to talk WZRD's beginning's, their biggest project to date and whats on the horizon. 

TGR: DID YOU CATCH THE STORYTELLING BUG WHEN CONSTRUCTING BROLIN’S STORY FOR FAR FROM HOME?

Phil Hessler: How I originally got into filming was through my love for skateboarding and snowboarding. In those two sports, you are exposed to filming and constantly making edits. 

I was pursuing snowboarding when I was a teenager and through that started to mess around with making little skateboard and snowboard edits. The first film I started creating with Galen Knowles told the story of my adopted brother, Brolin Mawejje, in his quest to become the first African to snowboard in the Winter Olympics for Uganda called Far From Home. We started making that film while we were sophomores in college. It was an opportunity to snowboard, film, and travel but I quickly realized that Brolin’s story had the power to connect with a much wider audience. so it quickly became a biopic documentary with snowboarding and his ambitions to make it to the Olympics being the vehicle to tell that story. 

We spent nearly three years making that film just through trial and error handling every aspect of the process and learning so much. We eventually sold that film to Red Bull.

BUT PRIOR TO THAT, YOU DIDN’T REALLY HAVE MUCH FILM EXPERIENCE, IT ALL SORT OF GREW ORGANICALLY RIGHT?

PH: Yeah definitely, it really just grew through “doing." That’s how I learn–from experience. Sitting in a classroom never really did it for me. I think I’ve taken one formal film class. 

Through Far From Home we started gaining opportunities to work on smaller projects, meeting a ton of people, and it all just kind of snowballed from there. Just putting yourself in situations where you're forced to learn and figure it out. I think the idea of being a part of something that is much bigger than yourself is an empowering idea for me and that helped invigorate my love for snowboarding.

AT WHAT POINT DID YOU SAY ALRIGHT THIS IS WHAT I WANT TO DO FOR A LIVING?

PH: I think it was after we made Far From Home, and the positive reactions started to roll in from people like Sal Masekela and then partnered with Red Bull on the distribution on the film. We really started to see the power of filmmaking and felt a good deal of pride in what we had accomplished, and started to say, "Alright we’ve really got something going here, why stop now?"For example we got the Ugandan government to start the first Ugandan Ski Federation, and really recognize and empower Brolin, so we started to see real action come out of the film and his story which is what we really wanted to continue. 

Phil Hessler and Galen Knowles in their natural habitat. Zeppelin Zeerip photo. 

For us, filmmaking is an opportunity to inspire actions. Humans are able to relate to each other through storytelling and that was the main basis that WZRD was founded on. That we can create and tell stories that challenge perceptions and preconceived notions and ultimately promote more unity in humanity. We moved forward with that mission and started developing new projects and then finding a way to partner with the brands we believed could benefit from the stories we wanted to tell. 

AFTER COMING UP WITH THE IDEA FOR A FAR FROM HOME SERIES, YOU GUYS DIDN’T HAVE THE EASIEST TIME GETTING THE SERIES APPROVED, RIGHT?

PH: Yeah so it was really Galen, Zeppelin and I who did the initial groundwork just hitting the internet literally googling “unlikely Winter Olympic athletes” and then calling them up, and explaining our idea. 

They were familiar with what we did with Brolin’s story, which in a way proved our legitimacy, and they were all on board. Then we were able to partner with two production companies–Madica Productions and Boardwalk Pictures–through connections we’d made from Far From Home. But yeah for about a year we were pitching the concept to a lot of different outlets from HBO to Amazon and no one wanted to do it.

Phil, Cole and the WZRD Media crew followed the female Jamaican Bobsled Team from their homes in Jamaica to qualifying events in Calgary and Park City. Here, Bobsled Pilot Jazmine Fenlator-Victoria preps the jet for takeoff. Cole Sax photo.

Then the IOC started the Olympic Channel to put out strictly original Olympic content, and via Boardwalk Productions we were able to get on a call with their team, tell them about the idea, they were into, so pretty quickly it was go time on production because at this point it was about August, with Olympic Opening Ceremony just eight months away. 

WHAT WAS IT LIKE ONCE THE SERIES WAS A GO? 

PH: Since Galen and Zeppelin were hard at work on our public lands documentary in Alaska, this is when Cole Sax and I got together and do a lot of the preproduction. Cole came on board as a director but really became a huge part of the foundation of this series. He spearheaded the construction of the visual direction of the series and helped bring on the DPs. 

He and I reached out to everyone we could through our networks in Salt Lake and Jackson and recruited the best team we could. Most people came from an action sports background and we ended bringing on about 30 people to make this happen. 

Shiva Keshavan qualified for his 6th Olympics this winter with little to no funding from his home country of India and uses Himalayan mountain highways for his training. Cole Sax photo.

CS: It was a massive undertaking, but with any new project and opportunity we were all so excited to get started. While the characters were selected and bios gathered there was still a ton of pre-production groundwork to be done. Since we didn't have the luxury of landing in the athletes' countries and easing into a relationship, we conducted multiple Skype interviews with our athletes to get to know one another and gather all the information we could to formulate their story prior to touchdown. 

During it all though I did not believe that, “Yes, this is a legit company.” I was thinking, “Yes, we are all going to do what we love.” For a lot of us, this was the most prominent project we have tackled to date.

While in the beginning it was intimidating coming together as strangers, everyone had the same goal, to create the best possible story. So the dynamic was always moving in a right direction.

WITH THE GO-AHEAD FROM THE IOC, YOU GUYS BASICALLY HAD SIX MONTHS TO FILM SIX ATHLETES IN SIX DIFFERENT COUNTRIES. WAS THAT STRESSFUL? 

PH: It was definitely exciting. The reality of the logistics started to kick on, like alright we’re going to be overlapping three shoots at once, how’s that going to work? We’re working with people we’ve never worked with in countries we don’t know much about, how’s that going to work? But we just had to trust they we were going to figure it out in the process, and sort of accept that there were going to be tons of incredibly stressful moments. We had a crew getting ready to film a shoot in Iran, right when Trump was working out his Nuclear deal and we’re getting all these emails saying cancel your trip now, and it’s like well that’s just not an option. There were tons of logistical hurdles, but we just knew that our goal, and telling these stories far outweighed any of these problems.

After 16 straight days of travel and intense production, Phil and Cole enjoy a stein during Munich's Oktoberfest. Photo: Jacob Callaghan.

CS: We joked throughout the whole series that we could write a book called, “Far From Easy.” Logistically it was so complicated; I know that some crew members thought that we were crazy for thinking we could do something, on this scale, in that period. 18 pieces of content ranging from 3-27 minutes crossing three platforms. A 30-person crew between SLC, LA, Denver, and all the home countries, understanding six athletes and their stories and going to 12 countries we have never shot in before, let alone been to. So, yeah. Some crew had every right to believe that this was insane, because it was.

There are plenty of stories that have come from the trip, conducting Skype calls with fixers for other shoots during the production, Visa services losing passports, crew getting sick, political unrest in some areas, constant travel for six months. 

Cole Sax takes in the experience while handling the Red Digital Camera high up in the Himalayas. Phil Hessler photo. 

We are working throughout the series, but there is a balance of taking the experience in. It is so rare to forge these strong bonds with the crew and our talent, while also seeing the world, I had to remind myself always to slow down and enjoy the moment… it is all still somewhat of a blur, but I will say that this opportunity was its own action, comedy, drama, love film in itself.

HOW WERE YOU ABLE TO INITIALLY GET IN TOUCH WITH EACH OF THE ATHLETES? WERE THEY PRETTY RECEPTIVE OF THE CONCEPT?

Phil: They were really receptive, and knew of our documentary about Brolin. It was all just through reaching out to them any way we could. Forrough Abassi, who was the Iranian skier in one of our episodes, communicated almost exclusively through Instagram messenger so it was really by any means.

Cole: Skype calls, and WhatsApp. The vision we articulated to the athletes was that we want to make an authentic film about their life. We want it to be true, and personal, to hopefully empower themselves and someone in their community, or in the world, to follow their dreams. They were extremely receptive to that and began to share the same passion.

EACH ATHLETE HAS SUCH A DIFFERENT STORY AND BACKGROUND. WHO REALLY STUCK OUT AS INSPIRING FIGURES FOR THEIR COUNTRIES?

Phil: For me, I produced and directed the Jamaica and India episodes in partnership with Cole and then DP’d the Brazil episode.

All the athletes and experiences were incredible but Brazil really stuck out to me. Our athlete, Victor Santos, grew up in a favela and lived in a small house with his six siblings and two parents. The favela, Sao Remo, was such an incredibly lively place and there was such an emphasis on community. Even though Victor lived in what many of us in America would consider poverty, he was extremely happy and having a first-hand experience in that environment with him was special. Then, of course, the fact that he is a cross-country skier from this area was mind-blowing.

Victor Santos is not your average looking cross-country skier. Phil Hessler photo

Cole: All of the athletes, to me, stand out as inspiring figures for their countries. Sports are just a vessel for these messages to be delivered. 

Ripping skier, camera wizard, and all around great guy Aiden Ulrich captures Iranian downhill skier Forough Abbasi's dry land training. Chad Jackson photo. 

I never really looked at this series as "sports stories," but stories of humans battling the external issues of their country and the internal issues of themselves and I hope that when you watch their episodes you can walk away with a little perspective shift and maybe some motivation to go and pursue your dreams, because these athletes are living proof that you can achieve whatever you set your mind too. All of them carry unique messages.

WHAT WERE MOST DIFFICULT LOGISTICS IN TRAVELING THE WORLD TO REACH THESE ATHLETES AND REALLY GETTING TO KNOW THEM?

PH: It was a nightmare getting our journalist visas for India. We literally flew out to San Francisco to the Indian consulate three separate times in the 10 days before we were supposed to leave to make it happen.

I stayed at the consulate all day until I could meet with a visa officer and tell him what we were doing in India and convince him to give us a letter to take to the visa service to expedite our visas. Iran was also challenging. We had a great producer in Chad Jackson who was able to do some magic to get those visas. The crew was in Malaysia before Iran and ended up having to pick up their visas in Malaysia because they were delayed in America. It was crazy logistically all in all.

CP: India… mother India works in mysterious ways. Like Phil mentioned it was a nightmare. I flew out to San Francisco four times to help support Phil in getting our visas. We just returned from the eight-day, 12-hour day production in Jamaica to unload and hop on a plane to San Francisco to get our visas a week-and-a-half before our trip to India.

Brolin Mawaje's story helped kickstart the WZRD Media team. WZRD photo.

With three visits we finally were granted access, but our passports were being shipped to different locations. I spent my day flagging down UPS trucks gathering visas only to find mine was missing.  After countless phone calls, we eventually found it at a shipping facility in San Francisco. I flew to SF to pick it up, then back to Salt Lace, then to Boston, Zurich, then India and began production the following day… that was intense. All other travel after that seemed easy.

DID YOU FEEL LIKE MANY OF THE ATHLETES' STORIES WENT FAR BEYOND SPORTS AND THE OLYMPICS?

PH: Absolutely. All these athlete's stories embody so much more than making it to the Olympics. All these athletes are trailblazers and they’ve had to overcome incredible odds to make it to the Olympics. 

From Ugandan snowboarders to Iranian skiers, WZRD looks to tell the unknown stories. WZRD photo.

They symbolize what is possible when you see challenges as opportunities for growth versus unmovable obstacles. My hope is that these stories can inspire younger generations to face challenges with the same resolve and courage that these athletes did.

SO NOW WHAT’S NEXT ON THE HORIZON FOR WZRD? I KNOW THE PUBLIC LANDS FILM HAS REALLY BEEN THE MAIN PROJECT.

Phil: Right now, we’ve got two exciting projects in the works. We are moving full-on into the post-production of our two-year documentary on public lands and we are also doing a short film on cataract blindness in Mongolia which Cole is directing. We’ve got a lot of other things in the pipeline with more stories on Olympic athletes for the summer games as well as a series about shattering the stigma surrounding the millennial generations that we’ve started developing.

ZEPPELIN ZEERIP – HOW TO GO FAR AS A SNOWBOARDER, ACTIVIST, AND FILMMAKER

HERE’S THE WILD IDEA

Zeppelin’s Wild Idea: To share different perspectives of the public land debate through his latest documentary film, and inspire others to get outside.

Aside from having one of the most badass names ever, Zeppelin Zeerip is a pro snowboarder and activist, the author of Don’t Call Me a Gypsy, a producer and partner of WZRD Media, and co-founder of a grassroots snowboard competition called Occupy Pando.

For his latest project, Zeppelin is traveling around the U.S. to film for his upcoming documentary about the public land debate. He is passionate about preserving this land that everyone has access to, but he also knows the importance of hearing perspectives from all sides. We also go deep and talk about some of the loss he endured in his youth, and how that has affected his drive and motivation today.

LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE IF:

• You want to be a pro snowboarder.

• You are passionate about the public land debate.

• You’ve ever suffered loss.

• You try to get outside every day.

• You want to surround yourself with inspiring people.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• 3:40 – Where Zeppelin got his name.

• 5:45 – How he became a pro snowboarder.

• 9:20 – What Zeppelin learned from losing his father early in life.

• 11:40 – How he dealt with loss after his house burned down.

• 15:20 – How Zeppelin got into film and the public land debate.

• 17:10 – What is the public land debate.

• 19:30 – Why he’s taking an unbiased approach to his latest documentary.

• 21:45 – The characters in this documentary that Zeppelin is excited about.

• 26:30 – How he found subjects for the public lands documentary.

• 29:00 – His fear of failure pushes him far.

• 30:40 – How he achieves his goals.

• 32:20 – Zeppelin gets outside every single day.

• 33:20 – What books Zeppelin pulled from his burning house.

• 35:30 – Why he wishes he had checked his pride as a teen.

• 37:00 – The importance of gratitude.

• 37:45 – You have to surround yourself with inspirational people.

GrindTV - How snowboarder Zeppelin Zeerip found positivity in tragedy

A few weeks ago, snowboarder/filmmaker Zeppelin Zeerip released a new documentary.

But unlike most short videos released by sponsored snowboarders (Zeerip is sponsored by Nitro Snowboards and Zeal Optics), Zeerip’s new film isn’t a compilation of him charging massive backcountry kickers set over a thumping soundtrack.

No, his autobiographical film Fly High, Go Far deals with heavier topics, like alcoholism, loss and mental wellbeing:

The movie profiles how Zeerip dealt with the alcoholic tendencies that took the life of his father nine years ago (his dad died of alcohol poisoning) and how he overcame the adversity of breaking his femur and having his home burn down in 2011 while he was in the midst of pursuing a professional snowboarding career.

GrindTV got the 24-year-old Zeerip on the phone to talk about Fly High, Go Far, and what Zeerip is hoping to accomplish with the film.

Zeerip says that he hopes that by expressing his story on film, he’ll encourage others to be honest about the hardships they’ve gone through. Photo: Courtesy of Zeppelin Zeerip

So why did you decide to tell your story now?

My partners at WZRD Media (the production company Zeerip helped found) are all about finding the stories of people in our industry that we feel resonate with the largest audience. We work with brands in our industry a lot, but this story was obviously not marketing focused and pretty darn heavy.

But ultimately, I think it was just bout getting my team’s backing at the start. I’ve been writing a book about my life (Don’t Call Me Gypsy which is currently on Kickstarter) and I think having their interest in turning it into a film gave me a kick in the ass to finish the book.

And I think writing the book and making the movie are helping me come to terms with everything I’ve been through. You know, my dad died from drinking nine years ago now, and not that many of my friends even know about it.

Zeerip says that while it wasn’t easy to open up in his memoir and film, it was ultimately cathartic. Photo: Courtesy of Zeppelin Zeerip

Why did you feel telling the story of your life beyond snowboarding is so important?

Because people don’t talk about what they’re going through.

Nobody wears their heart on their sleeves; we hide it, and that’s not healthy.

For a long time I resented my own drinking and was hyperconscious anytime I had a beer because of my father’s problem. And I didn’t want to constantly live under this fear — this obsession — of thinking it could become this huge problem for me and my family like it did for him.

Zeerip says in the years that he stopped obsessing about turning pro, his snowboarding has gotten better. Photo: Courtesy of Ben Girardi

Speaking of obsession, one of the interesting aspects about the film is that you note that snowboarding has been the thing that helped you through tragedy. But at the same time you say that obsessing over the sport was unhealthy for you, can you elaborate on that?

Snowboarding, for me, started when I was young as a passion: I just loved to snowboard. And I still do.

But as I got better I began taking it too seriously.

I became hellbent on turning pro, and I ended up breaking 14 or 15 bones in the pursuit of riding professionally. It took me breaking my femur to step back and realize how important the pursuit of snowboarding was, regardless of the end goal.

That’s something I want the movie to express: If you have something you’re passionate about, you shouldn’t do it because you want to prove something, you should just pursue it in a way that makes you happy for your own mental wellbeing.

That being said, where do you think you would be today had you not found snowboarding?

I don’t know where I would be without snowboarding; everything I have is related to or attributed to snowboarding. It’s brought me to the lowest and highest points of my life.

After my dad died, I was a pretty angry kid.

But at least, if everything else was changing in my life, snowboarding was still there for me. Snowboarding was the outlet for that angst and anger, because I didn’t have the emotional capabilities to acknowledge the pain I was going through.

In the past two years I’ve begun to realize there are other mechanisms to deal with those emotions, but without snowboarding, I don’t know what track I would be on.

Anything else you want to add about the movie and book?

I just hope it’s larger than my story. We all go through hardships and we don’t need to keep it pent up and to ourselves.

It’s all about finding a welcoming community, and knowing you won’t be judged negatively on showing emotion to the world. I want people to be aware of their circumstances and work to move beyond them. To use their hardships to be a better person.

That’s the biggest message of the film: You can be a victor or a victim.

Read more at http://www.grindtv.com/snowboarding/snowboarder-zeppelin-zeerip-found-positivity-tragedy/#tgw1LzcJl1gmeZDv.99

Powder Files : Getting Deep at Snowbird with Zeppelin Zeerip

Recent storm systems, fueled by an atmospheric river, have steam-rolled across much of the country, producing insane amounts of snow at many resorts. Snow totals have been so high, that some areas have already exceeded their average snow totals for the entire season.  This is true for Snowbird, located in Utah, up Little Cottonwood Canyon, who’s received over 211” of snow this year and well over four feet this past week alone.

When the reports started to percolate that this storm was lining up, we beelined it over to the Bird, just in time to catch some of the super deep fresh. We nailed it timing-wise, rode during two super stormy days, and had one hell of a bluebird pow day. Snowbird rider, Zeppelin Zeerip, got it good throughout the storm, so we linked with him and chatted about how insane conditions have been so far.

Check all out our chat with Zeppelin below, and let us know where you’re getting it good in the comments.

Tell us about this recent cycle,  just how good has it been at Snowbird?

The Bird was insane this week. I missed the entire Christmas storm when I went home to Michigan, so this was my chance to rebate it. Everyday was free refills; I hit things I’d never even looked at as possibilities, and got to go up on my first ‘early tram’ to film.

When was the last time you rode this deep of snow in the Wasatch?

Every year since I moved to the Wasatch in 2012, things have been pretty lackluster. But this past month has delivered the most snow I’ve ever seen in a four week window. Every night I check wasatchsnowforecast.com before bed and subsequently have to tell my partners at WZRD Media that I’m going to be a bit late for work.

What was the overall vibe like on this powder day, was everyone frothing, all out for themselves, or was it a more mellow vibe, and share-in-the-stoke type of a day?

Most of the storm came through on weekdays, so that was a blessing. Weekends at Snowbird can get pretty hectic with people jockeying for position in the lift lines, but the crowds get cut way down and the attitude is much more laid back during the week. We were certainly frothing hard this week.

What are the best parts about Snowbird on a powder day?

The best part is showing up to the marketing department, having Brian [Brown] give me a hot cup of coffee, a GoPro and then eating croissants in the tram club. Just kidding! The best part is getting to the top of the tram, looking over Little Cottonwood Canyon, seeing Superior to the north, the Pfeiferhorn to the west, and Timpanogos to the south. There’s nothing quite like seeing that view before dropping into the cirque and it gives me the feels every time.

What zones do you typically like to ride at the Bird on the pow day?

That’s akin to asking someone for the pin number to their debit card. If I told you, well, I wouldn’t, simple as that.

It looks like more snow is on the way, what are your thoughts about this recent massive storm system?

I’m hoping people are smart if they’re heading out of bounds, with this much fresh and dense new snow and would advise everyone to stay inbounds and play it safe for a few days. Other than that, I hope mother nature keeps the nozzle on and that the Wasatch keeps stacking up!

Anything else?

If you’re heading to the resort, please carpool! Also, head over to Protect our Winter to learn how you can help take action to fight climate change.

Read more at http://snowboarding.transworld.net/photos/powder-files-getting-deep-snowbird-zeppelin-zeerip/#jc6T84X4iGfs1mQs.99

Transworld Snowboarding - Fly High, Go Far

Fly High, Go Far is the story of Zeppelin Zeerip, a snowboarder, writer, and film maker. The film is an honest portrayal of the hardships Zeppelin has endured with the death of his father, breaking his femur, and having his home burn down and his resiliency rise above and make the most of life through snowboarding and beyond.

In addition to launching the film, Zeppelin has also launched a corresponding Kickstarter to help self-publish his book, “Don’t Call Me Gypsy” which features an intimate look into Zeppelin’s life on the road. Watch the film above, and read on for an interview with Zeppelin about the movie and his book.

Tell us about your full movie, Fly High, Go Far?

Fly High, Go Far is a film detailing some of the major life events I’ve been through and how I’ve coped with them, but it’s about so much more than just me. My and WZRD’s goal was to make a film that would resonate with anyone who has been through hard times. At its core, Fly High, Go Far is a story about the human experience. Nearly everyone I know has encountered tragedy in his or her life, and our natural inclination is to internalize the hardships we experience. Our culture subconsciously encourages people to keep our home and personal lives to ourselves, bottled up without an outlet. Filming over the last three months was the first time in years that I had spoken openly about my dad, my house burning down, or my femur, and I’m excited, but also incredibly nervous, about sharing those stories. Fly High, Go Far provided me with the opportunity to talk openly about the events that have shaped me, and also to move beyond them. More than that, it offered me the chance to recognize how damn excited I am about the life I’m fortunate enough to live. In a sense, that chapter of my life is done, though it will not be forgotten. Simply put, it happened.

You also have a Kickstarter campaign going along to with your film, tell us about your book and the campaign?

“Don’t Call Me Gypsy” is a book I’m self publishing. It’s a real, bona fide, paperback book, following the musings of a young man on a ramen and testosterone fueled adventure across the American west. I began blogging while I was driving to let my mom know I was still alive and help people keep up with my travels. When the road trip ended, I continued writing, filling in sections I had left out, and diving into my life story a bit more. It’s been five years of writing on and off, and when Phil and Galen approach me about doing a film, it lit a fire under me to finish and publish the book.

What are your goals with this project?
My goal is to show that our pasts do not dictate our futures. Whenever a tragedy happens, we can either opt to assume the role of the victim or the victor. We can take that experience and grow from it, or we can dwell on it and allow it to hold us back. For a long time my dad’s death held me back, it was a barrier that I didn’t know how to overcome. I had to own it to overcome it. I had to come face to face with his death and respectfully acknowledge that it is now in the past. Hopefully the film inspires other to do the with whatever they may be facing in their lives.

What was the hardest part about making this project come to fruition?
One of the most difficult parts was financing the film. It’s not branded content, and the story is heavy, so it’s not the easiest to get brands excited about. We were incredibly fortunate to get Ski Utah, Solitude, and Goal Zero get behind the project at the beginning.

What began as a 5-6 minute film quickly doubled in length and demanded a lot more time and energy than any of us initially expected, which was also difficult. In every sense making this film has been a passion project for our whole crew. We flew to Michigan twice and spent the last three months editing and trying to put together the crucial parts of the story in a cohesive way.

image: http://snowboarding.transworld.net/wp-content/blogs.dir/442/files/2016/11/Teton-Profile-Pic-600x338.png

Zeppelin Zeerip

Now that’s it’s launched, how are you feeling?
Launching the Kickstarter this morning was nerve-wracking. I was shaky a bit when I hit ‘launch’, but that may have just been the coffee. Through the film and book I put myself out there in a way that I never had before. At this point, my story is out there for the world to see and there’s no turning back. It took a tremendous amount of weight off my shoulders to see it all come together and go live. Years of writing and four months of filming cumulated in this film and book, but you can never guarantee that a Kickstarter will be successful, so my only hope is that the film resonates with people.

What are your plans for this season?
This winter I’m planning on heading up to the Legendary Banked Slalom as well as Cooke City for a hut trip with friends. A trip up Denali has also been proposed, so we’ll see where May brings me.

In terms of future films, one of WZRD’s main focuses is on a feature length documentary surrounding the battle to protect our public lands. This is an issue that hits home to anyone that hunts, fishes, camps, climbs, bikes, climbs or paddles, but also one that is in many ways disregarded. Our national forests and open spaces are at risk of being sold off to the highest bidder, and we need to ensure that the public lands stays in the publics hands.

Where are you living now, how old are you?
I’m living in Salt Lake City now, but I’m originally from Sparta, Michigan.
DOB: 4/16/92
Sponsors: Nitro, Zeal

Read an excerpt from “Don’t Call Me a Gypsy”:
Doctors, my family, and friends often have to remind me that alcoholism is a disease. It’s an drug, the same as heroin or crack. 1 in 12 American’s is an alcoholic, and 40% of the beds being used in hospitals are used to treat conditions relation to alcohol consumption. When I was younger I was quick to cast blame. It was my way of coping, and anger was the only emotion I knew how to harness and work through. As long as I could get angry with my dad I could push past the grief and anguish that I was feeling. So that’s what I did, because it was easy to do. His drinking led to my parents divorce. It led to jail visits, DUI’s, and a constant fear in my life that I’ll be an alcoholic. 
 
I had a lot to be angry about, and rightfully so. What I was too young to realize is that being angry won’t help me. It won’t help me move past grief to a place of forgiveness. It won’t help me come to terms with my own drinking. It won’t do those things because anger is a secondary emotion. It’s what we exude when we don’t know the root cause of our internal turmoil. Often times we’re not emotionally mature enough to realize that we could actually just be scared, hurt, or embarrassed. I don’t cast the blame anymore, because I can’t bear to hold onto the bad memories any longer. I hold onto memories of my dad bringing frozen duck organs to fourth grade show and tell after dissecting the dead bird he’d hit while driving home the night before. I cherish memories of him teaching me how to use a welder and a plasma cutter when I was twelve years old to cut pumpkin faces on propane tanks. I treasure memories of Jason wrapping socks around the stock of a 12-gauge shotgun so my shoulder wouldn’t bruise when we shot targets and old washing machines at the gravel pit.
 
I hold onto those because I know Jason didn’t drink to hurt our family. Acknowledging that has been a long process, but I’m now able to recognize that he had a disease for which there is no cure.  His gravestone forever reads: A generous heart, an adventurous spirit, an inventor’s mind.

Read more at http://snowboarding.transworld.net/videos/zeppelin-zeerips-fly-high-go-far-story-resilience/#bDiRIMKZ0xdza3pe.99

Michigan Boarder

Zeppelin Zeerip sounds like the name of a comic book character or a hero in a Disney movie. However, this young Michigander has been quietly making a name for himself in the snowboard world in the last couple of years. From the summer parks of Windells to the harsh environment of the Alaskan backcountry, Zeppelin truly charges. We sat down with the wildly named young buck to get his take on what it means to grow up riding in Michigan and to see what the future holds.

Birthdate04/16/1992

Hometown Sparta, MI

Home MountainPando Winter Sports Park

Current MountainPark City / Snowbird

SponsorsYES Snowboards
Homeschool Outerwear

What kind of a name is Zeppelin Zeerip and don’t you have a sister whose name starts with “Z” as well? What is your parents strange fascination with the letter “Z”?

THANK YOU for not relating it to Led (Led Zeppelin), I honestly get asked “like Led?” every single day of my life. I didn’t even know who Led Zeppelin was until I was probably 12. My parents just bought me a bunch of books about zeppelins and replica toy zeppelins I was actually named after Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin, the guy who invented the zeppelins used in the earlier part of the century (think Hindenburg). My dad somehow managed to convince my mom the idea came from the inventor and not the band, but I’m not buying it. Since then the family motto has been “Fly High Go Far.” Talk about my sister and I will find you… but yea, her name also starts with Z. I guess my parents may have gotten carried away with that one.

Where are you from?

If you’re looking at your hand in regards to the Michigan mitten, I’m from roughly two inches below the base of your pinky finger. I was born in Grand Rapids and raised in Sparta, a small farm town north of there.

When and where did you start snowboarding?

No idea why, but my parents got me a 120 K2 Swinger board when I was six without ever having expressed any interest in snowboarding, so the first season I was just lapping the ten foot tall hill in my backyard and riding right onto the lake ice at the end every time. From there I started buying passes at Pando and going there nearly everyday after school and just night riding. Maybe once a year on a special occasion we’d be able to make it up to the big ‘hills’ of Michigan and ride Boyne or Nubs Nob. But I still return to Pando every winter to lap with our old crew at Christmas. Pando is sick because they used to host the World Snurfing Championships and allowed snowboarders before nearly anyone else in the area and little has changed around there in the last thirty years. Just last season I heard a family in the parking lot actually arguing amongst themselves about whether Pando allowed skiers or not because they didn’t see a single one on the hill.

Pando is a pretty small resort even by Michigan standards. How do you think growing up riding there influenced your snowboarding?

Even though Michigan and Pando in particular share countless similarities to the Minnesota scene, we didn’t grow up lapping rails like the kids at Hyland did. Pando was a bit slower to catch on and pretty much all of the features except the one and only jump were DIY. Until I was almost twelve, the only rails we had were a three stage log rail and one flat bar. What we did have was a halfpipe/snakerun that was dug in the late eighties/early nineties. The ditch would get all these natural hips and takeoffs throughout it, so we spent a lot more time trying to learn hand-plants and how to pump more speed to send the final corner hip than learning hardway spins onto rails. They would also generally build a 40-50 ft. jump for the weekly “Phat Air Fridays” and I was always looking up to the older guys at the time such as Jonny Sischo and Brady Brunette, so I took a lot of influence from that and began jumping as much as possible. Growing up in the Midwest makes you appreciate even the bad weather and shit days when you do make it west because we’re all used to riding almost strictly at night on features we dug ourselves. Snowboarding in Michigan is still a bit more underground than here in Utah, but that’s good in many ways I think.

Eventually you ended up out west. How did that happen?

I wanted to actually compete and because Michigan can only offer so much, my family began looking into snowboard academies. We first checked out Stratton and Okemo, but they didn’t offer enough scholarship opportunities and I wound up at Crested Butte Academy in Colorado because they offered me nearly a full scholarship. That school is out of business now, but it was epic at the time. It was a pretty weird experience moving out at 13 and having your entire life revolve around riding and Crested Butte certainly taught me how to ride a real mountain and get out of the park. I technically graduated as a migrant student which is similar to the Hispanic students that move between southern and northern states each year, because I did the season move every year for five years as well (just east to west instead). From there I bounced around a little bit, did the typical move to Breckenridge, then Park City, went to Florida for a hot second to work, and now I’m back in Salt Lake going to school and boarding.

What do you think of Michigan snowboarding compared to Colorado, and then Colorado compared to Utah?

Michigan is comprised of a lot of skateboarders turned snowboarders, so the rail scene is strong and the kids work hard to get after it. I remember filling pickup trucks every weekend with snow to setup a rail in the backyard starting in September. You don’t find that same crazy drive as frequently in CO or UT. Between Utah and Colorado, I think the difference is less noticeable, but people still love to hate on Summit County, CO, even though Park City is in Summit County, UT. There may be more “bro’s” in Colorado, but its scene also has more history behind it as far as how much skiing and snowboarding have influenced the culture so you’ve got to respect the old guard. Chad Otterstrom has stayed there so you know it can’t be too terrible. I don’t give a shit which Summit County you ride as long as you are riding and are having a good time doing it.

You also worked at Windells during the summer. How did you get that gig?

The Windells gig came out of the blue with the head coach Danger Dave hitting me up on Facebook one day asking what my summer plans were. It was only a week before I was moving to Florida to work on yachts and I hadn’t ridden in two years due to a broken femur so I immediately said yes. I’d never been to the summer camps because they were too expensive, so to work at them was quite the opportunity. Danger hired me on as a coach, I think in a sense to give me an opportunity to get back into snowboarding after my multi-year hiatus and I’m pretty grateful for that as it definitely renewed my spark. Living at the Ark is its own interview entirely but needless to say, Windells was a rowdy time.

In the past, the dream for most midwest snowboarders was to move out west. However, now it seems like a lot of riders are making careers out of sticking around especially in places like Minnesota. Do you think that trend will continue into Michigan?

I’ve definitely been noticing that. Jesse Paul is a good example, he almost refuses to leave MN in the winter and sees little reason to come west at all. It may continue in Michigan, but I don’t think our winters are reliable enough to sustain a career snowboarding in the state. There is a ton of room for potential because so much of it is still unexplored as far as urban riding goes, but in Grand Rapids we’re hyped to get 80 inches in a season and there just aren’t large enough cities in the upper peninsula. It’s pretty off the map still. I definitely plan on spending more time there around Christmas this year to hit some spots I’ve been eying for years and to film in Detroit would be wild. But no, I simply don’t think there’s enough snow to keep people around anymore.

ZZrip from Zeppelin zeerip on Vimeo.

Are there any local Michiganders in particular that you think show a lot of potential?

To be honest I haven’t spend enough time there in the winters lately to hype any up. There’s quite a few MI kids here in SLC, but I only go back for about two weeks each winter and almost strictly ride Pando when I do. I grew up skating with Tommy Young and along with Erik Zimmerman, those kids are the only two I’ve really seen awesome stuff from. Their showcasing the city and mixing an arsty sense with their edits. Those two along with some of the under fifteen crowd that is lapping the rope-tows day and night but haven’t made the move to the streets yet are doing good for Michigan.

You’re involved with the Far From Home project. Tell us about that project and how you became involved as well as your roll with the film.

Far From Home has been a wild ride over the last ten months. We’re documenting and retracing my roommate Brolin’s journey from Uganda to Salt Lake City by way of Jackson and Boston. Snowboarding was really a platform for Brolin’s successes so far, in that it helped him establish a community and friendships in a country that was so foreign to him. The crew filmed in Whistler with Camp of Champions this summer as well as going to Argentina and spending a few weeks with SASS. Snowboarding is a massive part of the story but it really boils down to the community that has come together in each of the respected areas to help him out along the way and how it can take an entire village to raise a person up. I barely knew the crew at the beginning, but saw that it had a ton of potential and really reached out to them and expressed my desire to get involved. Initially my main role was with fundraising our Kickstarter campaign, but now it has now transitioned to managing the social media for the project. I have been creating content and keeping the Facebook and Instagram accounts current to keep our audience involved before we release. We’ll have it completed by the 2014 Sundance submission deadline.

Far From Home Teaser: Return to Uganda from Galen Knowles on Vimeo.

That’s awesome! Besides working as a philanthropist last season you also traveled to Mt Baker where you sessioned the infamous road gap. How was that trip?

Bellingham is kind of my third home after living there and any trip to Baker is out of control. We finally caught it good last season with 12-16 inches of snow every night and we got to stay in the Debari’s house with my old roommate Andy. But the road gap, hot damn. The road gap is perhaps the most iconic jump in snowboarding and we had the right crew to pull it off on the trip. On the last day of riding we stepped up to it. I’d never hit a back country jump that big or intimidating before and ended up getting too excited and catching a knee to the chin pretty hard trying to seven it first hit. I ended up getting a back seven and backflip over it so it turned out pretty solid. Baker in many senses is like Michigan if you’re really looking for comparisons, in that it’s a small core group of riders that go fast and truly know the mountain well. There’s so much to be explored there if you’ve got the right equipment, so I’ll definitely be going back this season.

OK, lets be honest. Baker is nothing like Michigan. It’s every snowboarder’s wet dream to hit it on the perfect pow day. Speaking of snowboarding fantasies you also headed to AK for Tailgate Alaska. How does a kid from Michigan end up riding some of the gnarliest terrain in the world?

I’d argue it (Baker) is still. The weathers always shit, just like MI. After breaking my femur and then subsequently tearing my ACL, I just needed a motivator to work hard through physical therapy and Alaska was my light at the end of that dark endless tunnel. I couldn’t afford a sled or heli drops, much less a warm place to sleep, so myself along with Ryan Hudson were tent camping next to each other in 0 degree mummy bags and four season tents eating Ramen and peanut butter for meals. Split-boarding 4,000 vertical everyday up to the peaks while the sleds ripped by us was pretty rough, but worth it. That really gave me a new found respect for AK video parts and convinced me to buy a sled. I just picked up an older Polaris last week and combined with my splitboard, I’ll be spending the majority of my winter out of bounds which I’m really excited about. Tailgate is really a solid choice for the first AK experience as there are a few hundred people around with a hell of a lot more experience than you willing to help you out and give advice, plus endless people to ride and explore with.

Michigan has slowly been gaining notoriety in the rest of the snowboard world as an urban destination and recently Cannonsburg was named one of the top 3 parks in the midwest. Now that you have lived outside of the Mitten for a while, how do you think the rest of the snowboard world perceives Michigan and its riders?

That’s true. There have been more crews making the trek to cities such as Marquette and Grand Rapids in search of new and un-hit features and that’s brought a huge increase in visibility and traffic to the state. Five years ago no one knew where Marquette was while today, crews are getting featured on the news when they roll through town. I think to continue the growth of and respect for Michigan riders we need to continue to remember where we came from and be proud of it as opposed to blending into our current environments. Mike Hornbeck has done a good job of it in skiing, as well as Ian Thorley on our end. It’s easy to get spoiled when we move to places such as Tahoe, CO, or Utah, but we’ve got to remain the same as we were at home. We need to continue to be the kids that would do school or work all day and then go ride for six hours at night. The midwest work ethic is a pretty defining aspect of our riding. It’s great to see Cannonsburg getting recognition. They’ve been fortunate to get a lot of money behind their parks in the last few years and have some people that are really on point leading the program in the right direction.

Zeppelin Zeerip Sumer 2012 from IMMD on Vimeo.

What advice would you give to kids growing up in Michigan that want to make it in the snowboard industry?

I’d say not to focus on learning a triple cork. When I was sixteen that was how I defined the best rider. Now I look to Gigi, Nicolas, Travis, and Blauvelt as the best riders because those guys are embodying true snowboarding and making their own paths. Moving out west may be the best option of some, while for others the best bet may be staying in Michigan and hitting every rail in the state. Get a job at a local shop and keep pushing content, ride more and stop giving a shit about what’s cool in snowboarding each year.

Last winter you went back to MI and started Occupy Pando. What is the story with that and will there be another one this year?

I started Occupy Pando last year to give back to the industry and resort that has essentially defined my life’s major choices and to bring snowboarding back to it’s core. Cannonsburg has seen huge success over the last few years, while Pando has always remained an underdog to them, and riders remain dedicated to one or the other. Pando needed something to show that it could still compete and that the “punk rock” or “core” side of snowboarding wasn’t dead. With a huge amount of help from Pando’s park crew, I turned Pando’s halfpipe/snakerun into a combination of a slopestyle course and a under-vert pipe by placing jibs, gongs, and stalls on the walls in addition to building up the main hips. We switched it up and hosted it at night to make it a bit rowdier and we’ll certainly be doing it again this year on December 28th. Save the date.

Occupy Pando 2012 from Zeppelin zeerip on Vimeo.

Sounds like a plan. Is there anyone you want to thank?

I’d like to thank my family, Christian Robertson, John Chorlton, Barrett Christy, Pando, and Jason Pogoloff, in addition to Homeschool, YES and Drink Blood.

The Inertia

Far From Home isn’t just about snowboarding. Or just about Brolin Mawejje. The documentary is about a team as well as communities from Uganda to Utah coming together.

From the day I met Phil Hessler (Producer) and Galen Knowles (Director), I knew they were on to something. That was in January of 2013, and it wasn’t that either of them were the most talented filmmakers — Phil had never picked up a camera and Galen was still shooting on a Canon Rebel — but it was the ambition I saw in both of them that drew me in. We were all undergraduate students at Westminster College in Salt Lake City, and the idea was to make a short film telling Brolin’s story. Brolin and Phil had met through snowboarding in Boston, and since Phil’s sophomore year of high school had been living together with Phil’s family in Jackson Hole.

The project started as a short film, but within three months the team we had compiled recognized that the story had far more potential. After a successful Kickstarter campaign to send Brolin back to Uganda for the first time in ten years, the production ramped up. Two and a half years later we’ve found ourselves with a feature length documentary film that will be shown on Vimeo (released November 11 on Vimeo on Demand) and Red Bull TV.

The thing is, everything we decided to do required a team, whether it was going to Africa, editing the film, or getting Brolin to a trampoline gym for dry-land training. Hundreds of people have chipped in to make this film, be it through a couch to crash on or a dollar on Kickstarter, and that is what has inspired me to push on throughout the process and see it to completion.

For more from Far From Home, available for pre-order on Vimeo on Demand, head on over to their website. And don’t forget to Like them on Facebook as well as follow them on Instagram.

For more from Zeppelin Zeerip, be sure to follow him on Instagram.

Transworld Snowboarding

Zeppelin Zeerip : Mount Hood to Argentina

Zeppelin Zeerip had a solid summer filled with a smattering of boardin’ at Mount Hood and in Argentina with SASS Global Travel. He just dropped this tasty edit of his antics that span from the Pacific Northwest, to deep down south. We reached out to double Z for the scoop on his summer, his role with DMOS, and just how explosive things got in Argentina.

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Zeppelin, give us the low-down about yourself— Where are you from and where do you primarily ride?

I’m from Sparta, MI. It’s a small farm town and I grew up riding Pando Winter Sports Park. The resort is about 100ft. vertical but we had free reign to build whatever we wanted, wherever we wanted, so it was awesome, despite being so small. I’m based out of SLC now and will be riding Brighton and Solitude.

How did the scene at Hood this summer differ from other years that you’ve been there?

 The scene was very similar in that it was all the familiar faces and hype, but the low snow definitely had people nervous about the future. I remember one day the park crew was scrambling to divert a stream that was running under a Windells’ jump, creating a hallow cavern that they were afraid would collapse. Hats off to the camps for managing to pull it off without canceling sessions.

This was your first time to Argentina, what were your two most memorable moments from that trip?

 Oh damn, highs and lows for sure. The best moment was riding out of the wall ride that is my ender shot. Nils Arviddson had built that hip the week before, and when we went to session it, he actually came up to get another trick. He guinea-pigged it and did a massive frontside melon and rode out on that wall switch. I ended up doing the method first hit and calling it a day after that because it was so intense.

The low moment was definitely the last night when everyone was partying and I woke up in bed with diarrhea that ended up lasting for the 40 hours on the plane home. That made it pretty miserable, but I’m fortunate it didn’t happen while we were actually filming. Sorry to the room cleaners.

What are you plans this coming season?

This upcoming season I’ll be riding everyday in the Wasatch backcountry, Brighton, or Solitude. I may try and do some freeride contests for fun, but I will primarily be filming in Utah, Wyoming, and Washington.

What’s your role with DMOS?

Working with DMOS has been awesome, because the startup attitude means that we are moving exceptionally fast in terms of our Kickstarter launch, and our small team means that nearly every suggestion I have is put to action that day without a dragged out process. Right now, I’m managing the team, helping with marketing, and working on our next product, which we will be revealing later this winter.

What’s the best part about having a name with double ZZ’s and the worst part?

The best part is the name recognition; it’s fairly common that people I met 10 years ago will say “Oh yeah, we met back in Colorado”, because it’s hard to forget the name. The only downside is that the legacy of the Zeppelin’s was tarnished when the Hindenburg blew up, so I’m obviously trying to avoid that bad juju.

Anything else you want to add?

Thanks to Nitro, Homeschool, and Blindside, and make sure to checkout Far From Home when it goes live on Vimeo on Demand November 11th. @zeppelinzeerip

Yolo. Stay tuned for more from Zeppelin.

Read more at http://snowboarding.transworld.net/videos/mount-hood-to-argentina-zeppelin-zeerip-edit-and-interview/#imVYQ51iUTsM7fFB.99

The Wall Street Journal

CRESTED BUTTE, Colo. -- Like several of his classmates, Zeppelin Zeerip, a lanky, soft-spoken 14-year-old, sports a stocking cap, sagging jeans and a broken bone. He fractured his collarbone when he fell in practice, and before that he broke his arm.

Sitting a few desks away in history class are teenagers with arms in slings. In the cafeteria, crutches lean against round tables. At times, as many as a fourth of the 67 students at Crested Butte Academy are nursing sprains and breaks. Here, in this picturesque mountain town of about 1,500, a cast or knee brace is often a sign of daring, not failure.

"Injury is a big part of the culture," says John Chorlton, the snowboarding program director at Crested Butte Academy, who recruited Zep from Sparta, Mich., and offered him a partial scholarship.

Snowboarding has become a mainstream winter sport, its estimated six million riders rivaling the number of skiers. As the sport has grown, it has created an academic niche: private high schools for snowboarders. Parents pay annual tuitions of upward of about $30,000, hoping their kids will refine their skills at a dozen or more schools, including Carrabassett Valley Academy in Maine, the Okemo Mountain School in Ludlow, Vt., and Stratton Mountain School, also in Vermont. Alumni include Olympic medalists and pro snowboarders.

Snowboard stars, like Olympic gold medalist Shaun White -- who earns about $6 million a year in salary from sponsors, contest prize money and appearance fees -- are courted by companies selling cellphones, sneakers and snowboards. The stars inspire legions of other young athletes, but only a few hundred of them make a living from snowboarding.

Zeppelin Zeerip shows his snowboarding style with ramps, rails and jumps.

One of the Best

While Zep is one of the best at the academy, according to his coaches, he has a long way to go. Last year, he won a few regional contests, placed 10th in one national competition and 41st in another, but in the spirit of the sport, he remains undaunted. "I'd love to get sponsored by Burton Snowboards," says Zep, a freshman who has an arrangement to receive free gear from Nike 6.0, a division of Nike that makes and markets products for extreme-sports athletes. "I want to be able to live off it."

Zep, named after Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, who designed the rigid airships used in World War II, began snowboarding at the age of six. He distinguished himself back home in Sparta at the age of 8 by winning a "Phat Air Friday" trick contest at a local ski resort.

In the following years, the shaggy-haired, sandy blond began building ramps and rails in his backyard, honing his skills on his own, with advice from fellow boarders. He collected snowboard equipment and winter clothing, along with trophies and ribbons at local and regional competitions.

Usually, most snowboard enthusiasts stop there. Zep began researching private high schools for snowboarders, though tuitions were too steep for his single mother, Marialyce, an assistant elementary-school principal in Sparta.

'Team Mom, Team Granny'

After seeing him compete at a national event, officials at Crested Butte offered a partial scholarship of about $16,000. Adding to that, Ms. Zeerip took all the money from her son's college fund, pooled it with his earnings from a summer job at an apple orchard, and $2,000 from his 83-year-old grandmother, who is one of his biggest fans. Zep lists his sponsors at competitions as "Crested Butte Academy, Team Mom, Team Granny."

Brendan Girard of Cleveland, Ohio, a classmate of Zeppelin Zeerip, practices a trick with the Crested Butte Academy snowboard team in Crested Butte, Colo. PAUL GLADER

His grandparents, Marge and Jerry Sytsma, often drive him to major competitions. "We stand at the bottom and take a few pictures and drink hot chocolate," says Mr. Sytsma. "Marge is saying a prayer that, when he is in the air doing these circles, he is going to land."

The family's contributions still weren't enough to keep Zep, nicknamed "Zip-Lock" by his coaches, at the academy year-round. So Zep attends Crested Butte only from Thanksgiving to mid-April, during the peak of the competition season, at a cost of $22,000. He starts and ends the year at his Michigan high school.

"Zep has an inordinate amount of personal discipline and drive," says Ms. Zeerip. "I guess I'm inclined to acknowledge that and kind of reward that," she says, noting that the sport is motivating him to continue getting good grades, to learn about an industry and to be disciplined about reaching his goals, including riding in the X-Games and competing in the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver.

Crested Butte is decidedly rustic, with slate floors and walls adorned with ski and snowboard pictures. Founded in 1993, the academy nearly went out of business three years ago. Some parents and board members chipped in $650,000 to get the school back on its feet during the Christmas break of 2003, and it recruited Graham Freyfrom an exclusive prep school in Cleveland to be its new headmaster. It is now drawing students from as far away as Europe and Bermuda, who, among other things, like its "powder policy." Students, with a headmaster signing off, can call a powder day three times a year where the entire student body and faculty, many of them former professional athletes, skip school and head to the mountain when conditions are prime.

Rigorous Routine

"The advantage our kids have is that if they are good at what they do, they are a better catch for a college," says Leon Harris, the academic director and English teacher at Crested Butte. Administrators at the half dozen or so snowboarding and skiing high schools claim that, although some students become mountain town ski-lift operators, others do go to good colleges.

Several snowboarders and skiers at the school read sections from Plato's Republic during a Western civilization class. 

The Crested Butte routine is rigorous. Students living on campus rise at dawn for either indoor or outdoor workouts and head to the mountain for a few hours to take turns making runs, doing jumps, spins and board grabs as they ride down a massive half-pipe ramp. On another part of the slope, jumps launch them 20 feet in the air into more flips, spins and grabs, all filmed by coaches.

The school suffered a tragedy just last month when Asher Crank, one of Crested Butte Academy's top free-ride skiers, had a wreck during practice and died of brain injuries. It shook up the school and community, and at least one student then quit competing. The school held a big memorial service for Mr. Crank, whose parents are competitive skiers. The school displays pictures of Mr. Crank in the student commons area, and his helmet rests on a peg in the snowboarding office.

Although Zep is missing regional competitions because of injuries, his coaches have been petitioning authorities to let him compete in national-level events, noting his past performance, including his 10th-place finish among amateurs in the nation last year for slope-style -- essentially tricks on jumps, rails and other apparatus. "He still has a shot at it for sure," says Christian Robertson, one of the snowboarding coaches. Being young, "he'll probably heal quickly."

After a lunch of pasta, broccoli and Gatorade in the noisy school cafeteria, he and other students headed to their assigned chores, including washing dishes, taking out garbage and cleaning vans. Afterward, a snowball fight erupted in the courtyard, with students pelting each other and dodging behind ramps, rails and jumps.

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• Other members of the Crested Butte Academy snowboard team strut their stuff on the slope.

Hearing the commotion, Mr. Chorlton ran to the door and yelled outside at Zep to stop throwing snowballs. "If he re-breaks that, he'll have hell to pay," he yells at the other students. Later, one of the teachers got into a snowball fight with the students and broke a window in Mr. Chorlton's office.

Zep's afternoons are devoted to classes and evenings to finishing homework in his small room, with its unmade bed and music posters on the wall. Zep has a straight-A average. During Western civilization class, he slouched in his chair, doodled in his yellow notebook and appeared to be daydreaming until the teacher, Mr. Harris, began to relate ideas in Plato's Republic to snowboarding.

"Do you ever administer a perfect 720 maneuver? Can it be perfect?" asked Mr. Harris.

"According to Plato, nothing can be perfect," said Zep from a back corner of the room.

If his dreams of snowboarding professionally do not work out, he says he might consider a college major in resort management.