VIDEO: Bring Your Own (Tiny) Ski Chalet
Sam Giffin had told himself he wasn't going to film skiing and snowboarding anymore. After too many times watching his friends and brothers (as well as himself) risk their lives for the sake of a good shot, he was finished.
But when his brother, Zack, announced he was building a tiny house on wheels to travel the country chasing powder, well, it was just too good to resist. Giffin gave in.
"From racing to high vantage points for good angles (in our follow car), to filming the tiny house as it descended Utah's steepest road mid-winter, documenting the adventure was quite the adventure in itself," Giffin wrote on National Geographic Adventure's blog.
Indeed, the resulting film is a story about the adventure, even if it includes some great shots of the skiers on pristine powder.
In their 112-square-foot house, each of the five inhabitants has 22.4 square feet in which to sleep, eat and store his gear. And while the lack of space and monotony of life on the road do have their drawbacks, it's the truck they lovingly call Rusty (which had logged nearly 600,000 pre-trip miles) that caused the biggest problems. The team barely makes it as far as Silverton, CO, when bungee cord and duct tape-fixes are in order for the vehicle.
After a long trip north to Canada in serach of better snow, the truck finally succumbs with barely a wheeze. But with the tiny house planted in the parking lot of British Columbia's Whitewater Ski Resort, the group's "stranding" is anything but that. In fact, it's the place they most wanted to be.