Return of the Stone, The Volcom Team Heads Downunder – Gallery

July 5th, 2016


Scotty James sends it straight up and out of the Perisher Pipe Image:: Jeff Brockmeyer

Transfer | Pat Moore

I could try to count the beers I consumed in Australia, but it would be a pointless endeavour – calculators can’t handle those numbers. The first of the luggage we loaded into the Volcom team van on arrival were cases, upon cases of Corona. Our guide Shane Azar had swindled a Cerveza sponsorship with the local distributor so our beverage of choice for the southern adventure was pure Mexican gold. Azar is a legend in skateboarding and my goal on the trip was to attempt to send him off some big shit on a snowboard. The plan was to try and see if I couldn’t scare the hard-ass a little. Turns out he’s not scared of anything, so getting him to send it was easy, the bigger issue was me being scared for him!

I’m still not 100% sure what the reasons for our trip were, but as for me I was just excited to check out Australia for the first time. Traveling is one of the raddest things in the world. Thanks to snowboarding I’ve gotten to see a lot of places, but going to Australia had been top of my bucket list for a while now and I was stoked to finally get to hit it. To make the trip happen, Volcom gathered Elena Height, Gabe Ferguson, Scotty James and myself and sent us on a plane to ride the Perisher park and shoot with Transworld photographer Jeff Brockmeyer.


Patt Moore and crew on the way to another stoke-filled day Image:: Jeff Brockmeyer

At least that was the plan. What really happened was a week of non-stop ripping with a much bigger crew including all of the young bucks on the Volcom Am squad. As the kids were out lapping the park, myself and Azar stuck to the more grown up things like dropping espressos into beer and throwing ourselves at different hand plants in the mini-pipe. I like to call this low impact snowboarding, which is the best when combining brews and boarding since you’re not really leaving the ground. Thinking of it, I don’t think I left the ground all that much the entire trip, I left that for the kids like Brock Crouch and Markus Kleveland. They looked like the flying monkeys in the Wizard of Oz, jumping off of everything, spinning and flipping on the perfect Perisher park, the talent of the Am squad had me looking up jobs online.


Lyon Farrell and Marcus Kleveland take it tandem Image:: Jeff Brockmeyer

The culmination of our trip was a closed session of the main park at Perisher the night before we left. With nearly 20 Volcom riders there and a rope tow to ourselves, the park became a party. Throughout the night each feature had its own session and Brockmeyer’s flashes looked like disco lights beaming at riders flying by non-stop. Brief snowfall gave the photos some intense Star Wars looks but the bright lights on the park gave the riders plenty of visibility.  After the biggest jump in the park we ended the evening with some quick handplants on the quarterpipe. With everyone heckling, charging and hyping the good times were magnetic and everyone was involved. The young bucks, team managers, even Azar was flinging up plants for Jeff to capture. And when the lift finally shut down and we ran out of beer we called it good on our shoot with some pretty amazing memories and images.

Before we left from Sydney we were already making plans for the next trip back and Scotty James realised his mistake. His little secret, Perisher, was now on everyone’s list for summer shredding and he was going to have to deal with us for years to come. Perfect park, fun freeriding, and much more to Australia to see, we’ll see you next year mate!


Scotty told us the morning commute was the funniest part of the day Image:: Jeff Brockmeyer


Scotty is always at home on this jump – morning and night Image:: Jeff Brockmeyer


Party Wave! Image:: Jeff Brockmeyer


They call him Mr Plant for a reason Image:: Jeff Brockmeyer


Gabe Ferguson having a laugh Image:: Jeff Brockmeyer