I have a vivid memory of standing at the top of Delirium Dive, Sunshine Village's ultra-raw and restricted-access backcountry zone, with Andrew Hardingham. Conditions were bony at best. A few pockets of pow had blown in here and there, but it was an otherwise uninviting scene. While I searched for the least sketchy line to the bottom, Andrew disappeared in the opposite direction. ‘Maybe he knows something I don't,' I thought. After I strapped in, I looked up and found him. Shockingly, he'd billy-goated up to the top of a cliff that looked to be at least 35 to 40 feet high at my best guesstimate. And let me emphasize this was just a mellow day of riding - no cameras were on hand to document whatever Andrew was about to pull from his ass. Oh, and he was also riding without toe-straps on his bindings.

A blink of the eye later, Andrew dropped and grabbed Indy, then stomped onto the crusty surface and linked a few turns to the bottom. It looked effortless. But under the conditions and circumstances, it struck me as total madness. When I caught up with him at the bottom, he was completely unfazed and seemed surprised by my bewildered reaction. 

"Dude," I laughed. "Why did you do that in such shitty conditions? Weren't you worried about how hard the landing would be? What if you fell?" And that's when Andrew broke down his methodology for me. And trust me, it explained a lot about his riding.

"I never just drop," he explained. A look at everything around me: the take-off, the landing, the rocks and the snow, the places I could potentially fall and what would happen if I did fall. And I picture every possible outcome. And then I picture how I would react and ride away from every outcome. Then there's almost no way I can fall."

And there you have it: snowboarding is nothing more than a mental game for Andrew Hardingham. How else could you possibly explain what he does? The rock rides, the seemingly-impossible lines, the thread-the-needle airs between trees... The degree of precision and risk in how Andrew rides is not to be underestimated, even when it often seems like the stunt-work of a man with a death-wish.

I caught up with Andrew for an interview to learn more about his snowboarding, his opinion of snowmobiles, his bid for the Transworld Reader's Poll Awards, and just how in the hell he conned Travis Rice into making a cameo appearance in his video, Throw Your Panties.

The Mental Game

"Snowboarding is all mental and can be very easily controlled by just believing in your own abilities. When I hit the slopes early season, I like to go straight to the big lines to remind myself that I've still got it. Lines are the most fun and give me that feeling in my special place that I like to get so much. It seems like so many riders, year after year, forget how to ride their bicycle, when really it's just all in their heads. If I'm standing on top of a cliff in the early season and I'm not sure if I'll nail it, I just pretend the last big line I did was yesterday and this is like, the day after, so I must be better at this today. That way you just skip all that downtime in your head and jump to the progression stage again."

Snowmobiles

"Three season ago I had a sled but only put about 10 or so days on it a season. And I live in a National Park, so I have an hour-and-a-half drive just to drop it. Then I made the mistake of parking it in Vancouver and whamo! My truck and sled got stolen. Of course I did park it in Surrey... Anyway, I decided to start using my legs a bit more after that, and just looking at old areas with a different eye. There is so much terrain just off the back of most resorts that never gets touched, and is so much easier to get to than sled lines. Laziness becomes the norm with sleds... I just found other lines to bag. Some inbounds at the hill, some just out of bounds, some just off the road and some on summer/winter hike paths that you would never think about riding. The best lines are in these places and they're easy as hell to find."

NoBoarding

"It's insane how much fun it is. Because you don't have bindings you are much more aware of what you're doing, which helps me hone my skills on my regular board. My first NoBoard run was three years ago and it was a crazy, deep day and the guy I was with just dropped me off alone on the top of a mountain and said, "give ‘er" and pointed to some trees, saying he'd meet me at the bottom. I just took in the mountains and dropped in to some big pillow lines with untouched powder everywhere. I rode it like I'd been NoBoarding for years... when I hit the trees there were even mini-cliffs and I just rolled down them, no stops. I was blown away! Now I make a pilgrimage twice a year to the Revelstoke area for deep NoBoard lines. Just look at all the gurus doing it now-a-days, like Al Clark, Johan Olofson, even T. Rice and Bryan Iguchi were dropping into a few lines last season on a NoBoard."

Throw Your Panties

"I originally made Throw Your Panties because I loved making stupid short films and I always have a lot to say about my favorite sport and how it's changing. So I thought I'd mix the two things together with some solid riding and see what happened. I'd be lying if I said I didn't think it would displease some people -- that was part of what I was trying to do. I have been putting together sections with Sandbox for seven years and I loved it, but it came to a point where I had no more room to grow with them, so I did my own thing and it turned out better than I expected. Shops that took a chance and ordered a few copies got a fresh video, and immediately after seeing it, ordered a ton more. Our first orders were tiny and the second orders were huge. Every single sponsor of the film called me and said they would support me again if I wanted to make another film. I just decided I'm going to make another, but it will be very different again. I don't make money off this project and don't plan to in the future. As soon as you start making money off something like this you start doing the ‘must impress' dance and I want to keep the questionable content rolling. You love it, hate it, or love to hate it... There is no in between with this kind of movie."

Throw Your Panties Teaser #2:

Travis Rice Cameo

"It was so random... Travis didn't really understand what he was getting himself into. We were hanging out in a snowcat at Superpark, so I threw him an interview and told him a few things to say in his own way and with his own words. He obliged and the part was born. I sent him a copy as soon as I was finished the video and his only words were, ‘The part was funny, I liked it, but fuck you're weird!' I don't think I'm weird, but I'll agree the part was funny. Travis is a good personality in this sport and that's hard to find, so I will always try to work with interesting people like him."

The Rider's Poll Videos

"Most elections are completely won by marketing, and I wanted to see if snowboarding could be won on marketing alone, so marketing was what I did. It completely exploded within 24 hours and over 25 sites had my smear videos linked. EXPN.com even linked it and it was getting tons of hits. Even Transworld had it up for about 12 hours, and then I think they realized it was better to just leave it alone. I'm confused what happened after that... The formats of the selections changed, and you couldn't vote online anymore unless it was for one of three riders, and none of them were me. At least that's what I researched. I would have liked to win so I could get up on stage and make a powerful speech about equality, making paper hats out of plastic, and unicorn tears. It's probably because I'm black... But whatever the reason, I thought it was funny, and blindsiding people and the industry is what I like doing, so I'll keep doing it until someone blows up my car with me in it."

Travis on Travis (Rice):

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Related:
Throw Your Panties review
Transworld Rider's Poll videos