When we think Montana, we think rugged. Wide open plains surrounded by stout mountains set the backdrop, while a rancher and his herd play their respective parts. Less romanticized — but romantic all the same — in place of plains there are rivers and cast this time around are flyfishermen and white water paddlers, with mountain bikers setting loose line after line on relatively unexplored faces. We rarely consider that there are real paved roads connecting the entire rugged expanse through. But when we consider a pass layered with switchbacks, the billing is without a doubt downhill skateboarders just BOMBING switchbacks with that telltale grace that looks more like they caught a mellow roller at Malibu, not a whatever-degree decline 40 mile-per-hour (according to Teton Gravity Research where we first saw this video) screamer down a FUCKING MOUNTAIN.
Ben Cole cruised with that sort of grace for 10 MILES of the Beartooth Pass in Montana. As technology allows for these days, here is that epic run distilled to two of its assumed best minutes.
And our favorite part of the project has to be the slightly lower quality production as it reminds us of those National Park Services commercials during the nineties; or, better yet, of those nature/travel shows in the sane nineties where a bearded fellow named Rick (who happened to be a foremost veterinarian) played the role of concierge doctor to the animals, mending any and all sickly animals he met along the way. Does it do that for anyone else?
