“My life is weather dependent so I find out what I’m going to do five days ahead of time.”
A typical day for Kyle Miller might go something like this: wake up early, drink chocolate milk, then hike 20 miles to the top of a craggy peak in the Cascades and ride down 5000 feet of vertical terrain. A typical week? Throw in a little more food, a lot more suffering with many more miles of skinning, lots of duct tape, and as many powder turns as possible. And, he often times going it alone. Living on a shoestring budget and fueled by top ramen, Reece’s pieces and pure heart, 30 year old Kyle Miller has worked his way into becoming the most prolific splitboarder in the Pacific Northwest.
Kyle came to Leavenworth for a slideshow and video presentation hosted by Leavenworth Mountain Association on Tuesday April 11th and we had a chance to talk to him about where he came from (hint: he’s a pure Washingtonian at heart but grew up in the burbs and jumped ship), his most memorable moment snowboarding (a day filled with not only with an epic snowboarding descent but the confrontation of death) and his previous year, including the making of his film Freerider (which basically involved more snowboarding than we ever thought humanly possible).
“My life is weather dependent so I find out what I’m going to do five days ahead of time.”
A typical day for Kyle Miller might go something like this: wake up early, drink chocolate milk, then hike 20 miles to the top of a craggy peak in the Cascades and ride down 5000 feet of vertical terrain. A typical week? Throw in a little more food, a lot more suffering with many more miles of skinning, lots of duct tape, and as many powder turns as possible. And, he often times going it alone. Living on a shoestring budget and fueled by top ramen, Reece’s pieces and pure heart, 30 year old Kyle Miller has worked his way into becoming the most prolific splitboarder in the Pacific Northwest.
Kyle came to Leavenworth for a slideshow and video presentation hosted by Leavenworth Mountain Association on Tuesday April 11th and we had a chance to talk to him about where he came from (hint: he’s a pure Washingtonian at heart but grew up in the burbs and jumped ship), his most memorable moment snowboarding (a day filled with not only with an epic snowboarding descent but the confrontation of death) and his previous year, including the making of his film Freerider (which basically involved more snowboarding than we ever thought humanly possible).
Kyle grew up in the suburbs of south Seattle in the poverty ridden area of Kent, Washington. Kyle, a self-described chubby kid from the burbs, was in a car accident that killed his friend and forever changed his life. After watching his friend bleed to death, he said he realized that he wanted to live life to it’s fullest every single day. He went snowboarding for the first time at the age of 19, dropped out of college and bought a season’s pass. From there, he took the route many of us have-venturing out into the sidecountry at his home ski area, Crystal Mountain, finding new lines to ride. He didn’t stop with the bootpacks though.
Soon, Kyle and his friends were venturing out to the volcanoes in their backyard, learning the ropes about mountaineering, navigation, and skinning, all in the pursuit of untracked powder. “I’m a snowboarder first and a mountaineer second. When the skiing isn’t fun, I stop”. For Kyle, it’s all about the snow and getting as many days in a year as possible while marking off a tick list that makes us exhausted just to think about.
Kyle now skies over 200 days a year and most recently has completed his project to climb and ride the 10 highest peaks in Washington State, an undertaking profiled in the recently released film “Freerider”. A 15 minute glimpse into the life of Kyle Miller, “Freerider” was shot in April and May of last year. He says, “It’s kind of just showing the lifestyle changes of a dirtbag ski bum to being a professional athlete. It’s the soul of a ski bum”.
Like many ski bums, Kyle remembers a time not too long ago when he was scraping by. He tells us, “I’m so lucky. I’m fortunate to be in this situation I’m in. I’ve had times where I had $20 in my bank account and I’d use that $20 to drive someplace to work for three days so that I got another $300 so I could climb for a little while”. He’s recently been picked up by sponsors K2, Smith, and First Ascent and is striving to balance the work involved with becoming a professional athlete while still remaining true to the soul of snowboarding that he loves so much.
When we asked Kyle for his most memorable moment during the filming of the past year, he opened up to us about a trip to Holden Village that nearly took his life on the same day that he received tragic news from home.
“We skied Fernow and it was very interesting because obviously it is a church community and half way through that trip I found out that my father had died from the pastor there. To ski Bonanza which is a 55 degree face for 2000 feet the day after you find your father died…it kind of…it gets to you.” The same day his father passed away he had been skiing a really exposed knife edge line. “I slipped and lost an edge and I actually almost tumbled to my death but I was stopped by a rock so I mean theoretically my mom almost lost both me and my father in one day.”
Despite brushed with death and trips involving occasionally involve circumnavigations of mountains, steep icy chutes, dehydration, and the occasional emergency bivy, Kyle continues to push on by continually creating new goals for himself. By starting in on a new project as soon as he completes the previous one, he continues to push the boundaries as a splitboarder. The day after we spoke to him, he was planning to head back to Holden Village for another adventure. “We’re going to go to Holden and ski some lines out there and then wait for the weather to clear and take the boat into Stehekin and then from Stehekin go up Logan and ski down Logan and skin out to Ross Lake.”
We doubt Kyle will slow down anytime soon and look forward to hearing about what he’ll do next. To keep up with Kyle and read more about his epic descents check out his blog www.whereiskylemiller.com. Information and a trailer for his new movie Freerider can be found at www.crestpictures.com/freerider.
