Snowboarder Magazine, August 2009
Thanks Pat!
March 15th, 2009
TGR and Jeremy Jones announce ‘Deeper’ project
Truckee
After appearing in 45 ski movies (the most of any skier or rider ever) Truckee big mountain snowboarder Jeremy Jones is ready to take center stage — but on his own terms.
In the vein of iconic signature shred flicks such as Terje’s “Subjekt Haakonsen” and Travis Rice’s “That`s It, That`s All”, film production company Teton Gravity Research has recently announced a two-year film project entitled “Deeper” that will follow Jones and a select crew of the world`s best freeriders as they search out insane backcountry terrain that has never been seen on the silver screen.
Freeride aficionados who have forever sifted through dizzy-ing kicker and rail footage just to watch Jones three minutes of mountain madness will be drooling when the film comes out in Fall 2010 as the feature footage will be 100 percent “lines” from riders such as Travis Rice, Jonaven Moore, Xavier De Le Rue, Josh Dirksen and Ryland Bell.
For Jones, the insatiable terrain destroyer and consummate environmentalist, “Deeper” will be the anti-dote for a stagnant and poisonous last few seasons of filming.
The project features remote peaks and couloirs that are not accessible by heli or snowmobile, including hopefully a handful of first descents.
“In filming the last few winters I have pushed the cameramen and the heli/snowmo boundaries to the max,” said Jones returning from an overnight trip in the Sierra backcountry. “It got to be where it was the day of days and I found myself standing on top of something I had stood on six years ago.
“That bummed me out.”
To quench that desire for new terrain (and reduce his carbon footprint) Jones has embraced the splitboard, a snowboard that splits in half to form two skis for uphill ascent, as his primary mode of transportation for “Deeper”. Splitboards will take him and his production crew into zones accessed only by long hours of breaking trail, a challenge the snowboard film industry has rarely stepped up to.
Thus far “Deeper” expeditions have included several multi-day winter camping missions in the Sierra as well as rowdy days in the Wasatch and Ruby Mountains. Up next is a three week splitboard trip to glacial cirques outside Haines, AK.
March 3rd, 2009
Nissan Tram Face- Squaw Valley USA: 2nd stop of the Free Ride World Tour
The American riders dominated the Silverado face
The snowboarders Jeremy Jones and Susan Moll won the competition with an excited crowd cheering on all the athletes and their amazing runs. Jeremy Jones, the emblematic rider from Squaw Valley, mastered the terrain with a fluid line and great jumps. Jonas Emery from Switzerland took second with one of the most original lines of the day coming down the center. Xavier de Le Rue from France, Freeride World Champion 2008, opened up the one of the toughest lines of the day with complete control in his jumps.
3-Xavier de Le Rue FRA
February, 15th 2009 ESPN.com
By Colin Whyte/Redcard Writing Group www.rdcrd.com
It’s 8 a.m. at a highway pullout near one of Mt. Rose’s numerous trailheads. The Nevada air is crisp and you can almost see to the top: 10,776 feet. Fresh snow gathered in old tracks suggests hard backcountry use, both by nature-loving Tahoe free-heelers and Sacramento sled-necks whose fuel of choice is PBR not GORP.
Different mountain groups, after all, love mountains differently.
Big mountain master Jeremy Jones is no stranger to this scene. The 33 year-old snowboarder pockets a Clif Bar, clips a pair of snowshoes to his pack and walks over to the sled trailer where Ryland Bell is doing the grunt work. The snowmobile being unloaded is one of the first on the scene yet seven more soon show up on bouncy trailers, old F-250s, and salt-licked double-loaders. It hasn’t snowed in Tahoe for nearly a month so the excitement of a late January powder day crackles in the air like static. The joke, of late, has been “June-uary” and it’s one the locals are keen to ditch. Stat.
Sleds fire up all around and Jones becomes visibly annoyed by the braaps and blue smoke. The noisemakers idle for 10 minutes at a time, stuck into snow banks like mechanical cigarettes. “Let’s go wait in those trees over there,” he says in his trademark monotone, a no-BS hybrid smacking of a sea captain from his native Cape Cod crossed with the uninflected easiness of a Cali ski town bro. “Sled exhaust makes me kind of sick to my stomach.”
Soon enough, his crew is on the move. The group consists of four snowboarders and Ryland’s one sled. After a few trips, the entire crew is ferried to a bench where the sled is ditched. It works fine, but will be of less and less use the deeper they go.
Jones helps to jerk it off to the side and mentions that today’s only his second time on a snowmobile in two seasons—a surprising figure given that his pro peers routinely log 50-plus days a year on the two-stroke monsters. “Love the access, hate the process,” he explains, unzipping vents for the full day of hiking ahead.
As they make their way toward “Relay Ridge,” the crew ducks branches through tight-knit tree fences and threads narrow sidehill sections over jagged bands of rock. It’s increasingly obvious that on foot is on-point out here.
He’s not some raging anti-sled, anti-heli hippie guy, thumping a tub. It’s subtler than that, more personal. 
At the Jones house in Truckee, California, a few posters of Jeremy doing his thing line the walls. Most of the framed pictures show only mountains though: Pontoon Peak. Classic Jackson cliff bands. A certificate from Teton Gravity Research, bestowing the honor of “Spineologist,” backs up how much Jones has added to the progression of riding these steep, fluted faces—thought to be unrideable less than 20 years ago. Nobody attacks Alaskan spines like Jones.
Over the years, the name “Jeremy Jones” has become synonymous with “helicopters in Alaska” because he’s the number one name in steep terrain, and helicopters are the number one way to access steep terrain. It’s easy math.
These days, though, Jones is increasingly aware of what he does, why he does it, and whether or not there’s a better way to do it that doesn’t leave a Sasquatch-sized carbon footprint behind. He’s weaning himself off carbon-based travel as much as possible, be it in the backcountry (snowmobiles, helicopters) or getting there in the first place (planes, driving). He might not be riding his mountain bike from Lake Tahoe to Alaska—yet—but he is doing everything in his power to show that world-class freeriding can be achieved by more responsible means.
The Jones home is an updated cabin from 1966 and it came correct with coffee filters from the ’60s and “macaroni art on the walls,” says Tiffany, Jeremy’s realtor wife. Now, toys belonging to their two children—three-year-old Mia and seven-month-old Cass—coalesce in the hallway with climbing harnesses, skis, snowboards, unopened sponsor boxes and a spider plant that Manny the cat has decided is his. The meta-message projected is that this is a house of equals.
The Winter X Games SuperPipe is on TV, and as he watches the finalists push pipe riding to new limits with contorted 18-foot airs, Jeremy casually mentions sharing a day in the mountains with this skier or that rider spinning on-screen. Heavy contender Kevin Pearce shot with Jeremy in Alaska last spring; Danny Davis, arguably the guy with the best air style (and eyebrows) in the business, recently dropped in on a house just up the street. It’s easy to forget that, before becoming a powder-and-rock-slaying-legend, this action hero with the meaty scar on his cheek (from tumbling through deadly B.C. ice chunks) used to compete in both racing and halfpipe. He might be famous for “one kind of snowboarding,” but he has reverence for them all. He cringes when riders deck out and shouts like a kid when someone pulls a landing out of their ass.
Jones is capable of busting grabs in situations where most transition wizards might call mom on the iPhone. The key difference, of course, is that there is no X Games for big mountain riders. Yet, in a sport that is famous for aggrandizing the energy drink-swilling teenage flavor of the month, Jones has been voted Big Mountain Rider of the Year by his peers an unfathomable eight years in a row (2000-08, Snowboarder Magazine)—a dynastic feat usually associated with athletes like Lance Armstrong or Kelly Slater.
“When he’s having fun, I’m usually gripped,” says Bell. “I love it, though; it pushes me to the extent of my limits. He just has so much knowledge that no one else has in the mountains … from the way the snow is going to react underfoot, to the perfect way to feather your turn so as not to blind yourself with a face shot at the wrong moment.”
Pro skier Sage Cattabriga-Alosa concurs: “It’s obvious that Jeremy has spent a ton of time in the mountains. He projects a calming, comfortable perspective towards terrain and then steps to the gnarliest lines. This combination of cool, collected, smart, technical riding is what makes him the best in the world.”
There are no cameras along for the ride on Mt. Rose. The day is one of scoping, of enjoying the fresh snow and seeing where vented legs and open minds might take us. Two Alaskan salmon fishermen who rip (Bell and buddy Morgan); one out-of-shape writer; and Jeremy frickin’ Jones.
Above us looks like a miniature backdrop to Jones’s life: 800 feet of vertical with steep open faces, a tight rock slot, even a double cliff line that might be doable with more snow. Jones’s crew is going deeper today, though. Higher, too. The abysmal snowfall so far this year in Tahoe means the best snow will start above 9,300 feet.
A long snaking ridge disappears from sight way up to the looker’s left and the plan is to check out Little Cortina, a