Skiing The Hardest Rail Ever?
This past spring, Canadian freeskier Max Moffatt returned to his home turf of Sunshine Village, Alberta to build and challenge one of the hardest rails ever to be created.
Photo by Liam Glass / Red Bull
The idea was simple: complete a rail, add another, complete it, add another, complete it, add another... to see who can go the furthest. Easy in theory, but insanely challenging in real life.
Max Moffatt. Photo by Liam Glass / Red Bull
This is a new take on the classic game Add On, taken to the extreme. The video features top rail skiers Moffatt, Jesper Tjäder, Hunter Henderson and friends as they keep adding different-shaped rails to see who can complete this challenge, and we recently had the chance to sit down with Moffatt to get the behind-the-scenes scoop on the project.
Photo by Liam Glass / Red Bull
Hey Max. How did this project come about?
I’ve always loved the springtime challenge rails in terrain parks, where you throw a bunch of rails together and just try to slide it to the end. So when Mack from Red Bull and I were throwing ideas around for my first big Red Bull project, we thought it would be super fun to make a bunch of rails, then put one in, hit it, add another one, hit it, and see how many rails we could do.
Max Moffatt. Photo by Liam Glass / Red Bull
It’s pretty cool you did it at Sunshine Village, since it’s near where you grew up.
Yeah it was really sick. Sunshine signed on to host the project, which was sweet, and Lucas from Transition Industries really killed it with building all the rails. And it was super fun to go back to Alberta, because I went to high school in Calgary.
Photo by Liam Glass / Red Bull
And how fun was it to have some of your best friends there skiing alongside you?
So epic. Hunter Henderson and Jesper Tjäder made it out for the project after their insanely long seasons, and I honestly was pretty shocked they were down to make the trip from overseas. And then my buddies Mark Hendrickson and Brayden Tritter were these as well, which made it an all-time crew. I wanted my friends to be around for this so it was a bit more relatable, because that was the vibe I had in mind for this project. All my homies around, build a crazy long rail, and go into a battle trying to get to the end of this thing. That’s my favourite part about spring skiing. Just messing around with your friends.
Hunter Henderson, Max Moffatt & Jesper Tjäder. Photo by Dustin Cressey / Red Bull
How was the vibe during the shoot itself?
It was definitely a roller coaster. We had perfect, sunny weather for five days in a row, which was awesome. So at the start of the project, it was a really sick vibe, with everyone being super hyped, throwing rails in, and getting clips, but not really knowing how mentally draining this project was going to end up being.
Max Moffatt. Photo by Liam Glass / Red Bull
It sure seemed like a crazy amount of effort.
Yeah once we got deeper and deeper and added more rails, especially after the fifth one, it started to be really hard. Sometimes we would get it pretty quick, but by the seventh or eighth rail I started thinking, “I need to get to the end of this thing soon, or I'm gonna snap my polls.” So it was definitely volatile, but mostly good vibes, because we're staying in Banff, having good meals every night, and hanging out together.
Max Moffatt. Photo by Dustin Cressey / Red Bull
Looking back on it now that it’s all said and done, how much fun did you all have together on the hill? Because the video makes it look like it was a blast.
Yeah it was really sick. It was super fun to have some of my oldest friends from high school there, along with Jesper, who I grew up idolizing. It was kind of a crazy mix of crews. We had Reed Ferguson, Dylan Siggers and Sam Tuff filming it, because Red Bull always does a good job of pulling people from everywhere to go all hands on deck for filming and photography. So it was just an all-time crew, which you don’t necessarily see in the project since it only focuses on the skiers, but everyone behind the scenes helped make it that much better.
Jesper Tjäder. Photo by Dustin Cressey / Red Bull
You must have been psyched for Jesper when he made it to the end of the last rail.
I was super pumped. Jesper really shut it down that week. At some point it feels like you just get lucky to get to the end of this thing, but Jesper was consistently making it to the end of a lot of the rails, which was crazy. He’s kind of built in a lab for hitting insanely long rails, so I was really hyped for him.
Photo by Dustin Cressey / Red Bull
And are you happy with the video and how the project turned out as a whole?
For sure. I was stoked on how they edited it, because it’s almost kind of comedic, and really shows all the vibes from the whole week. It shows us being super hyped, and then really bummed, with me screaming and going insane. I went to a place mentally that I don't think I'd ever been while battling for a trick. Because it was a bit frustrating at times when we would add a rail in, start battling, and then I would get pretty close to the end and think, “Within the next 10 tries I’m definitely going to get this one,” but then someone else from the crew would land it. And then no matter what, whether you got to the end or not, we’d all stop and be all hands on deck to add the next rail. So even though I didn’t get to the end of the last one, now we’re moving on to a harder one. And by the end of it we added a tenth rail, and pretty much tried just that tenth rail for four days straight. I probably hit it over 600 times, which was insane. Every night when I went to bed I would think, “If I don't get to the end of this rail tomorrow, I'm going to lose my mind (laughs).” But regardless, I was so hyped for Jesper to make it happen.
Jesper Tjäder. Photo by Liam Glass / Red Bull
Why should people take the 13 minutes to check this video out?
If you’re a skier and you enjoy park skiing you’re definitely going to relate to it. Or honestly, even if you don’t watch skiing or don’t really understand it, you can tell how hard we're trying in this video. We’re pouring our heart and soul into completing this rail. So I think it shows a lot of funny things that went on throughout the week, but also how dedicated we were to getting the end of this thing. So regardless of whether you’re into skiing or not, I think it’s a sick watch.