The Cover Shot - Wild #184

Heading out with Steve Leeder, you’re guaranteed to be looking up, then looking up a little more. I’ll point out features which would frame up well in an image, then he’ll mention that cliff above it with next-to-no take off and seemingly no landing. “Sure man, if you want to fly off that, I’ll get the shot!”

We had some overcast weather on this particular day, and decided to stick to the lower valley. Steve picked out this monster boulder he thought had a nice in-run. The first attempt proved it was going to play hard to get, with some hidden off-kilter rocks just at the point he had to duck under a low-hanging tree branch.

After a few close calls, he managed to dial it in and send it, and I got the epic shot we were after.

Then he yelled, “One more!” I took the chance to boost over to another spot to the right, and as I blindly heard him scrape through the tree branches above, he shot out into the sky, crossed up perfectly, and my trusty, snow-caked Olympus came through with the goods again.

See more pics of Steve Leeder, captured by Aaron Dickfos, hitting backcountry airs in the photo essay “Air Apparent”, starting on P84 in #184.

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