MARK MCMORRIS | FRONTBOARD DOUBLE CORK 1170 INTERVIEW + STORY
We played phone tag with Mark to ask, what he would have done differently, where he hopes the progress leads, and what comes next.
When you dropped the first Backside Triple Cork back in 2011 you said you never thought you'd see it being done as a staple in contests. Do you feel the same way after putting down this Frontboard Double Cork 1170?
I guess. At the moment, you're like how could somebody ever do this. And then you get proven wrong within two years, three years time. I think yeah, a similar thing could go down. Seems like lots of hang time out of the rails these days.
Any reason why you chose Backside over Frontside? What was the process getting to this trick?
I don't really know why I ended up doing it that way. I was either thinking a Switchback Board, or like a Cab 1080 with a Switch Board tied in. But it was so high speed and scary that I had to go regular. It was scary regular just trying to make sure you locked in the rail. Sometimes if you are going really fast you'd air right to the end, you could really slam into it. So it was a scary one for sure. And all we did was wait out the clouds, hit it once or twice, wait out the clouds ... So it was a lot of different conditions we were riding it in.
That kinda didn't come across. We didn't see dealing with weather.
Yeah, no. The final project doesn't really speak too much on the weather issues but if we would have had full days of sun, we would have destroyed that place.
Is there anything that you'd change about the set up to do something like this again? It looked like you were landing pretty deep.
Yeah, I would definitely have a more legit steep jump landing, in a sense, you know? It would just be less scary and less impact. But, Charles [Beckinsale] did a pretty good job. We would just keep pushing the rail back further and further all the time and resetting it each night. I think you can go a lot further than you think you can off that cannon rail. He's like, we're at a legit 45 feet. And I'm like, overshooting it every time.
That's so gnarly.
I would have maybe built the landing up a bit higher and steeper but other than that, it was pretty all time.
With so many variables in snowboarding, finding the right conditions. Is it difficult to put yourself in a place where you can take your riding to a new level?
1,000%. A lot of stars need to align nowadays, right? It needs to be perfect weather and a perfect jump or whatever 'cause the level is so high. But that's why its fun, right? Not just progressing the riding but progressing the features too.
You've got one variation of a double off a rail, do you think you'll try different ones?
I think I'll try some other ones for sure. I'm very intrigued by the way setups are built and the angles and what you can really do. But yeah, it'll be interesting to see what the rail setups are like at contests this year. What I really wanna see is more quarterpipe hits into a straight jump landing but without a straight jump off the front so everybody has to hit it.
More diverse setting. That's why with Uncorked, in Vancouver, there was a lot of unique features, so we're trying to subliminally tell the contest builders to put more fun shit in there.
So what were some of the better memories from this Switzerland trip?
Totally. For one, working with the crew in front and behind the lens. Haven't ever been on a trip with Judd and he's a really awesome, chill, he's so talented and really fun to hang with. Judd went crazy. Craig went crazy. Just Craig doing shit is always a highlight, making everybody laugh and drinking schnapps. The park guys would have schnapps on their breaks too.
Right. Nice man. Are there any other firsts you have in the back of your mind? Is being first to the game a priority for you?
Definitely helps and it has helped me get to where I am so I would love to do more firsts but I. I just want to curate dope shit, you know? Go ride cool setups and influence people. Yeah, I don't know. I'm not really mapping out some gnarly trick to do first but I'd like to turn heads like first with doing a bunch of different stuff.
Right. What's the plan for the winter? Does your game plan change a year after the Olympics?
Yeah definitely feels a little bit different than last year. Which is nice. Little mellower on the contest side of things this year. Hopefully, I'm going to film a project, that's still in the works, if it does get green light it will be very neat and it's looking that way. But yeah, I'm gonna be in the backcountry a lot this year.
Hell yeah. Sick.
I can't wait.
