Episode #27 - Jure and Marcus created Moonchild Snowboards, to offer bespoke designed and beautifully crafted stock boards. But it hasn't stopped there! Jure now heads up Moonchild Skunkworx, with groundbreaking designs, based on everyday life items, such as a kitchen spatula and ice cream cone. Jure talks about starting a snowboard brand, including the good, the bad, and the ugly. His love of Pow Surfing has seen him design the Atlas Hybrid, a splitboard on the way up a bindingless Pow Surf on the way down ..read more

Episode #26 - Trent Bush was literally there at the beginning, riding boards straight out of the kryptonics factory. His business life is full on Fear(less), Failure and Success. He’s worked on and created some of the founding snowboard apparel brands; Wave Rave, Twist, Burton, Analog… to the present where he’s set up Artilect, out of Boulder, Colorado. Trent had so much to tell that we’ve split the pod in two, firstly chatting about the Colorado scene, before (in part two) moving onto setting up and developing brands, concepts, and much much more ..read more

Episode 22 - During a week Backdrop spent in the arctic region of Swedish Lapland, around Kebnekaiser, in March of 2022, we stayed in some remote huts belonging to the Swedish Tourist Association. Mats was the hut host at one of them - Tarfala - while we were there, making sure we were going to follow the rules, and crucially, how to operate the sauna. Have a listen as Mats describes how the very democratic Swedish hut system works, how he got his love for the mountains and becoming a hut host, along with a few tales of his experiences up there. (A little bit less of our FFS theme to this podc ..read more

Episode 21 - Grabbing a solid stick from the quiver, the Backdrop Crew spent a week in the cat with Lynx Freeride. Based in the Gjeravica mountains of Kosovo, an undiscovered freeride paradise, and a place of bears, wolves, lynx, music, guns, and most importantly powder. The Lynx Freeride lodge is far off-grid, and was far better than our expectations. We chat with Sebastian Fleiss, and his all snowboard guiding crew, to get the low down on what it takes to get a startup cat operation going in the back end of the Balkans ..read more

Episode 20 - Recorded in early January, on a Backdrop Crew visit to the Verbier valley to check out a couple mountain huts, we took the opportunity to interviewed Daniel Coquoz - Verbier’s Head Mountain Guide. The Verbier valley is renowned for its extreme terrain, especially as it hosts the Freeride World Tour final each season. This recognition has seen a huge rise in backcountry skiers and boarders hitting the slackcountry zones straight from the lifts, often without the skill set or knowledge to do so, and even more frighteningly the necessary safety equipment. Pete Coombs catches up with ..read more

Episode #24, the 2nd of our podcasts from Swedish Lapland, here Andy from the Backdrop crew talks with Upguides’ lead guide, Fred Buttard, and with Stranda Snowboards founder and shaper, Mats Drougge. The chat was recorded in the Kebnekaiser mountain station, in the far north, above the actic circle during the Stranda backcountry hut trip, in March 2022. Expedition food is discussed, the landscape of this enormous area, the crazy weather and touring experiences that week, as well as splitboard tech, and a bunch of other topics. Regarding the La Norma Splitboard fest’ that we discuss, being run ..read more

Episode 18 - Mats Drougge, from Stranda snowboards, has a fascinating take on life and snowboard design. Riding sideways has always been part of Mats life, and after time in a punk band, a life of surf and snowboard travels, and an inspirational kick up the arse by his wife, he started his Stranda Snowboards journey. Inspired by 60’s longboard surfers and the directional riding of Japan and time in Colorado, Mats makes snowboards that maximise float, glide and edge hold, cause it makes him happy ..read more

Episode 24 - Runar Hjorleifsson, is probably best known for his film Fjord Lines, made with Vioir Bjornsson. During the summer months Runar is a cod fisherman in the Arctic Ocean, but come winter he loves nothing better than to explore his local mountains of East Iceland, searching for new lines and first descents. We talk; life, asperations, fishing, and all things Iceland. Watch Fjord Lines on the Backdrop Journal website ..read more

Episode 23 - Ilia Berulava is a man on a mission, not only has he set up the Georgia Guide Office from scratch, he was also instrumental in gaining IFMGA recognition for the mountain guide training in Georgia. We chat life, culture, the mountains of his homeland, and what’s on offer in this special part of the world.  After training as a guide in Chamonix Ilia returned home to set up his own little Chamonix in the village of Mestia, high in the Svaneti region of the caucasus mountains, close to the Russian border.  It’s been a great success, increasing local on mountain employment, f ..read more

Episode 15 - Hampus Cerderholm is always pushing boundaries, be it splitboard or hard-boot (or not so hard-boot) design. We catch up with Hampus, who springs from Southern Sweden, and now lives in California, via an education in Innsbruck. Hampus is the brainchild behind the design and development of the  Furberg Snowboards Floorboard Technology,  a tongue and grove system that they claim eliminates movement between the two splitboard halves. He’s also joined forces with one of the Plum crew, to develop a new hard-boot, or as he calls it ‘a not so hard-boot’. Designed for precision s ..read more