I guess that’s the difference between my skiing and snowboarding at this point in time.ĪB: The way you’re describing how you approach skiing now is a little more playful and a little less about, like you said, doing the next death-defying thing. It’s one of those things where I still have a lot I’d like to accomplish. I have to focus, I still crash all the time. Whereas snowboarding I’m still learning so much. My brain doesn’t have to work that hard and I love that. I’m not trying to be too serious or change the world because I went off a bigger cliff.Īll I have to do is go skiing. There’s a huge side of the sport that’s like if you’re not putting yourself in extreme danger, then it’s not worth watching. I don’t want to redefine gravity or do some death-defying shit, that’s just not how I perceive skiing. It’s about the pure enjoyment of it, the leisure and the fun of the sport. Now that I have these other projects, I don’t need to present so many challenges to myself in skiing, which makes it really nice to go back to. I did a lot of the things I wanted to do in skiing, so what’s next?ĪB: With these projects-snowboarding, dabbling in film, the brand-do you feel like you’re able to come back to skiing with a new perspective? Does it offer you a reset? The ski industry is awesome, but it’s small, and eventually, I felt there was no room for growth. You can’t accomplish something if you don’t present yourself with a problem or some sort of challenge. You want to be the best, so you’re going to do anything you can to come up with fresh ideas. Sean Pettit: You know, it’s totally ingrained in who I am as a human trying to keep up and be on top for so long. Was this just another way to keep the pace up? Your adolescence was marked by such rapid growth: your career was skyrocketing, with fresh opportunities and challenges every day. PHOTO: Blake JorgensonĪbigail Barronian: Snowboarding is just one of many side hustles you’ve had going these past few years. Sean Pettit in Valdez, Alaska, shooting for his new apparel brand Superproof. Pettit isn’t giving anything up, he says, just bringing more of the good stuff in. Which, he’s quick to point out, isn’t replacing his skiing. We caught him in a rare break between gardening, filming with Red Bull, and working on designs for his new streetwear brand Superproof to talk about his transition to snowboarding. ( You can read the profile I wrote about Pettit and his carefully commoditized skiing experience here.) He’s earned respect from the snowboard world as a rider with a playful, relaxed style and a propensity for bold, creative hits cultivated over a lifetime on skis. Last season, however, he dropped a snowboard edit just as long as his ski part for the year. At first, it was a surprisingly smooth hit here or there, peppered into his ski-heavy Instagram feed. So when a skier who helped define a decade of freeriding casually switched to snowboarding, he raised a few eyebrows.
Sean Pettit was on the scene as soon as he was tall enough to ride the Whistler park, and he’s been among the best skiers in the world longer than he’s had a drivers license.