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MZ: How long did you look at it for?
Yeah - the take-off took a lot of psyching up (laughs.)

MZ: Did you stomp it?
I could have had more speed during the take off because I landed right on a rock and it snapped the tail of my board. That sent me into a front flip, then a double front flip, onto my back and I started sliding, keeping my board down the hill because I knew there was 400 meters of rock below me. (Laughs) Insane!

I eventually got control, rode out of it and had beautiful turns at the end, but I was scared. I was really scared. I was shitting my pants.

MZ: You grew up at the beach and now you're jumping 100- foot cliffs. When did you first start snowboarding?
My brother did his first season in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and he kept calling me and saying, "You've got to come and try snowboarding. It's so cool." At the time, I was trying to make money building boats but then I got chemical poisoning and I was outta there. I just took off.

I pulled into Jackson Hole with an around the world ticket and did a season there. I had this old Sims Racing Blade and Alpina boots. Just keeping up with the boys was hard because they were on skis, jumping huge cliffs. You could say I got a pretty quick introduction to snowboarding.

MZ: How did you end up in Chamonix?
People kept talking about Chamonix so me and my mate Gavin bought tickets to England, bought a Volkswagen bus in London, and drove it to Chamonix.

We were downtown one day, having a shave on the street in the mirrors of the VW bus and this guy walks by with a huge rack of keys. He took one look at us and said, "It looks like you guys need a place to live."

It turned out to be Claude the ghetto lord. He's still survives today. He's been to jail and everything, but he kept us going for a bunch of years in the ghetto and we just started teeing off. Living in Chamonix is different - it's so insane.

MZ: Jackson Hole is considered one of the steeper resorts in North America. How does it compare to Chamonix?
No comparison - Chamonix is twice as big and much steeper. It's more of a mountaineering style of riding with ice axes and ropes and that. A lot of the steeper sections here run out on to glacier, so it's really exposed.

MZ: It sounds like you get around - what's the worst job you've ever had?
Grinding fiberglass in 42-degree (Celsius) heat in Port Headland inside the hull of a boat with a massive nine-inch grinder, a paper suit, an oxygen mask, and rubber gloves. It's the worst job you could ever give anyone. It's punishment.

MZ: Well, that's all the questions I've got. Have you got any for me?
Yeah, you wanna go to the pub?

MZ: Sure. Let's go...

— Lucas Kane, MountainZone.com Correspondent
Lucas Kane, a freelance photo journalist, wandered the world for nearly a year in search of the perfect terrain, but it wasn't until he arrived in Chamonix, France, that he found a new appreciation for the word "steep" and the utmost respect for Mother Nature. While tourists crowd the streets of Chamonix, slurping espresso and admiring the view, the most talented freeriders on earth are progressing in ways that most of us never imagine. It is here in the French Alps that Lucas has begun to document exactly what it means to trust your edge.