Photos: Jesse Brown
Interview: NateD

Born and raised in the boonies of Wyoming, Mark Carter is another one of pro snowboarding’s unlikely stars. Growing up on a ranch, driving cattle and digging ditches apparently instilled some values in this self-proclaimed mountain man that in this image obsessed industry are quite refreshing. Mark sees snowboarding more a privilege than a right and takes that appreciation with him every day he is fortunate enough to ride. This season he hooked up with good friend Travis Rice and Dan Brisse to film his part for Absinthe’s new movie Neverland. Here, Mark gives a little background on his snowboarding life, this past winter’s happenings, and a perspective on the state of snowboarding from an “outsiders” point of view.

Just tell us a little about your roots and how you even got into snowboarding.

Basically I grew up in north central Wyoming in a town called Tensleep, population 304. My introduction to snowboarding was probably when I was about nine years old when my mom finally got me a board. At first I just would ride the little hill in my back yard then that eventually grew into riding our home mountain out here in the Bighorn mountain range. At that time it was just basically a poma lift that ran off a big block diesel engine. I remember that thing was ripping. It hauled ass so I had to learn to learn to one foot it really good before I could even ride normally.”

So I just tooled around there for a while and then well, all kinds of stuff, but lets just say got into the pro scene a bit later than most.

Yeah, I though that. I remember the first time I saw photos and footage of you I was like, who? And where has this guy been, he’s obviously been doing this a while.

In high school it was pretty unfortunate that the resort was closed down for a few years because that was really my only way to ride back then. So I just played a lot of other sports in school. I couldn’t skate in Tensleep either; nothing is paved! I went to college and played a semester of college football, decided I hated team sports and all of the jocks so I dropped out went back to the ranch, worked my ass off, saved some money and moved to Bozeman and rode Bridger Bowl for a few winters before my buddies in Jackson were like, “Dude, you need to come down here!”

I ended up moving there and that’s where it started I guess. As soon as I started riding there it was different–that mountain makes you ride good, ya know! Working on the park and pipe out there I started meeting all of the guys like Guch and Willie. Lance Pittman was the one who started it all off for me by getting me going with Illuminati and introducing me to some other sponsors. Then I met Travis Rice and Curt Morgan the year they were filling the Community Project in which I unbelievably got a couple of shots in. The rest is history I guess. Since then I have just been trying to work on that level with any opportunity that I get.

That is NOT how you skin a buck!

So fast-forward to this past winter. What did you get into?

It started off with me not knowing what I was going to do; I knew that I wanted to film with Absinthe though. I knew Travis was going back to work with them and apart from his gigs I hadn’t really worked with any top notch, classy film crews and productions. Fortunately, I have an amazing sponsor in The North Face–they stepped in HUGE and came in with some money for me. Plus I had Travis on my side and he knows Justin Hostynek really well, so that didn’t hurt either.

So that all came together and I am so glad it did. I was really happy just having one big project to work on as opposed to a few different little things. It was me and Travis and Brisse working for a month out here filming with my two favorite filmers in Jared Slater and Gabe Langlois, with Tim Zimmerman shooting the photos. It was just the sickest crew! We got it all done in Jackson and had the best window of snow and the right conditions…it just all came together. The stars were aligned.

I mean I got to ride with Travis Rice. Watching that guy it just totally insane. Then Brisse was all over it too. He’s the only one I’ve seen throwing double corks up to size with Travis. It was an awesome winter, to just be affiliated with Absinthe because you know that they are going to get the shot, and at the same time you also know that you are going to have to throw down if you’re going to cut it.

I need to mention though, before those sessions I got my good buddy Jesse Brown who does the Jackson Hole Snowboarder Magazine to come out and film with me. I kept him on my personal Absinthe payroll so I could work here at home in Jackson when the crews were elsewhere or maxed out.

Pillow time in Jackson.

So can we expect to see your first full part here with Absinthe?

As far as big productions go yeah, but I had a lot of fun with Bluebird, who I had a full part with last year, and then before that I did the Constant Struggle. I’ve had parts with TGR too but this was the first real, sponsors, work, it’s time to get it done type of project. So working with those guys, I mean every rider on Absinthe’s roster is pretty insane.

Riding with Travis, I’m kind of curious as to what kind of stuff you guys did this season?

With that guy, he’s pretty much done everything…especially out there. So we did some fairly standard stuff, if you can call it that, but he is always on the look for different, bigger things. I can’t blame him, but in the end what that amounts to is some crazy shit. I mean we would go on MISSIONS. Like two sunny bluebird days recon-ing this one zone–that’s kind of frustrating, not to ride two perfect days in a row. But he knows what he wants and again, it paid off huge when we would hit stuff that was totally unique and never touched by a snowboard before.

So I saw that you are on with a new snowboard company called Weekend. What’s that all about?

Yeah, I was on with Atomic last year and they came up and started paying me well, which was awesome of them to help my career along but I just wasn’t feeling it one hundred percent. While they make an awesome product, just because of who I am and how I see snowboarding, I couldn’t put it all into a Euro ski brand. Coincidentally, after I bailed that program a friend of mine Dan McNamara hit me up with his gig called Weekend.

These guys also started Bond Outerwear which you may be familiar with. Their deal is not to spend a bunch of money and blow up, but to offer some really sick hand crafted products. I think they are only releasing like 450 boards of each model the designed this year. I guess you could call it more of a boutique style company with some limited edition stuff, if that makes any sense. But this stuff is really sick. These guys are snowboarders have been in the industry forever and they are just doing a little thing to keep it fresh. We work really tight with the boards, which in fact, they are giving me my own model. I got Mike Parillo doing the top graphic and Brian Iguchi doing the base. Super good.

I feel so lucky to have great people behind me like Weekend and The North Face. Like I said, the whole Absinthe thing would not have happened without them. They let us riders give so much input into the research and design that what we get at the end of it all is gear that we love to wear made by the best…made by North Face!

Expect to see Carter destroy terrain like this in Absinthe's newest, Neverland.

You are another one of those guys that if anyone were to meet randomly would have a hard time believing that you are a pro snowboarder. Any thoughts on that? And what do you think of this ridiculous scene that has infested snowboarding?

I don’t know. I mean there is definitely this mold of what a pro snowboarder is and what is kind of disturbing is that some of these kids who get sent off to summer camp or whatever, or are dropped off at some sick resort every weekend, while that probably grooms then to be a really good snowboarders, along the way you can see a lot of them have lost the appreciation for what they are doing. Then there’s a bunch of jaded dudes that are just way to cool for you. It’s such a cool guy industry and if you’re not up to speed on the cool, then you’re shit to them. I don’t understand and I don’t see a need for that. It’s said all the time but we are all doing this for fun, or we should be at least. Maybe I just see things the same as I did when I was a kid and what it meant to me back then. You can’t loose sight of that.

I really personally don’t care what people think. I don’t have to live in California and deal with that on a daily basis like a lot of the industry. I don’t even hang out with snowboarders in the summer. I kick it with ranchers and fishermen dude. They keep it real.

Any plans this summer?

Summertime involves working on the ranch and doing a lot of fishing. I really work hard and it gives me perspective and a great appreciation for what I get to do in the winter. We have a huge cattle ranch so I fill in where ever I can. My brother and I have a fly-fishing outfit, which I guide for in the summers as well, then come fall I do the same, guiding clients buck hunting. I live outdoors man, that’s my thing.