An Interview With Cooper Whittier

First of all, congratulations again on turning pro. Was that a full surprise or did you have some suspicions?

Thank you. It wasn’t a full surprise. I knew we were doing a board but I didn’t know that he had them. I was under the impression that maybe it wasn’t going to happen this year. Or it was behind schedule. Caleb was definitely stringing me along.

That’s sick. So you did the graphic then?

Yeah. 

What is it?

It’s a photo of this deflated balloon and string. Noah Brown was hitting a spot this past winter and it was on the rail and I thought it looked really cool.

This may be an obvious question but, how does it feel to be a pro snowboarder?

I didn’t think it would feel that crazy. Name on a board, I mean, that’s obviously sick but I didn’t think it would be that dramatic. But now, a couple days in I’m like, you know, this is insane. 

Photo: Bryden Bowley

What’s the deal with that rail at the beginning of your part? I feel like, lowkey, that may be one of the biggest pieces of steel ever touched. 

The rail that almost was [laughs]. So, we found that…we kept driving by it when we were in Sweden and it was this thing out in the distance that we would see from across the water. And you could just tell it was crazy big, to a point where you were like, Oh it’s not possible. And some skiers had a photo of it, and I had seen it but I was looking through their photos and was like, Yo, this thing might work. You know when you look at a rail and the dimensions and it’s like, ok it’s gradual enough, there’s long enough flats. So, Nate and I went there and we were like, I think this is going to work. The speed wasn’t too much.

There was like no run-up.

Yeah because I didn’t hit the whole thing.

There’s more of it?

Yeah. So, it was three days, just Nate and I. Everybody had left but there was enough snow so we were like, we’ll try and get one last thing.

Did you stay just for that?

Yeah, just for that. We were staying at the Videograss house. Shoutout Videograss. It was really sick that they let Nate and me stay there. We would wake up at like seven, go get McDonald's, get to the spot at eight, watch the sunrise, try it until the sunset, and then go zombify. We did that for three days. And then on the third day, there was literally an hour left of light and that try was the one. And Henrik Harlaut pulled up like ten minutes after that [laughs].

I’m trying to remember because I might have been a little drunk and didn’t have the best view at the premiere. Did you just go off the flat?

I went off the flat a little bit to the side. If I had gone off the flat straight over, I would have been like, that’s it for sure. But no, it happened like four times where I got to the flat and it just pushed me. 

Are you done with that one? Going back?

I can’t. I still have nightmares about it. Seriously. I had one a month ago where I was in Stockholm and stumbled upon that. It was miserable. 

Photo by Bryden Bowley

So, this video, the SPIRIT video, feels both different and nostalgic. Did you guys realize that during the winter or was it conscious? Were you guys like, Oh, this feels special.

Yes and no. We knew we had something special but it didn’t feel all that different. Coming off of a really strong first trip, we were sitting on stuff that we knew was really impressive. Not impressive to snowboarding per se, but impressive to ourselves. Like, we’re really stoked on our footage. So there was a ton of momentum coming out of that first trip and into the early season. We could feel that this is different. It feels “professional” for us. So, we just wanted to take advantage of that. But as far as the vibe, and you mention nostalgia but like, I don’t know. I don’t think there was a conscious awareness of that. It was pretty natural. 

Favorite clip in the video?

Cody Warble, nosepress back one in Finland. 

Great clip.

Runner-up would have to be Noah [Peterson’s] frontside air. 

He had so many clips. He killed it that was awesome to watch. 

Yeah, he snapped.

You guys put out a magazine too, Spirit Magazine, is that a one-off, or is this the first issue?

This is the first issue. Bryden and I made it. Bryden did the layout for it and got all of our photos together. This is just issue one, so, hopefully, more. Just photos within our friend group that don’t have anything to do with snowboarding. 

Why go the print route?

I think, for me and I can’t speak for Bryden but when you make a video, you’re producing something and you say, Ok, we put in work and there is a creative element but you put it out on YouTube. You can’t really do that with photos. You need that outlet that’s physical. And it’s so obvious of course.

No, it makes sense. I always think of it as like, you’re not going to stumble upon a YouTube video when you’re moving boxes around in your house in 30 years. 

Exactly. Bryden posts a bunch of amazing photos on Instagram and it was sick to see stuff actually be physical. It was cool to actually flip through it.