Cool article from Redbull.com about our recent Hidden Mountain project in Japan

For some snowboarders a season of jaunts up the nearest mountain will suppress the hunger, however for those on the more dedicated end of the spectrum this only tickles the taste buds and still leaves a hefty appetite for more adventurous and challenging expeditions.


In 2015 Kiwi’s Heath Patterson and Nick Brown were starving. They yearned to combine their love of snow with their passion for cinematography and creating short films. While working on another project in Japan, they stumbled across what would be the ideal location for their upcoming film production ‘Hidden Mountain.’


Fast forward to February 2017, Heath and Nick cunningly sweet talked six of their mates into joining them on an adventure to a remote snowy pass in back country Japan, endeavoring to build the ultimate base camp ft. snow cave ft. epic jumps.


28 grueling days, 25 tools, 8 crew and 5-hour daily round trips (on foot) to this secret location resulted in one hell of an igloo and one hell of a cinematic experience.

The idea that we build a hidden base camp at the top of a mountain pass in Hokkaido, Japan, brought back something from our childhood. It's the hardest thing any of us have ever done, but even now we all still wish we could be up there digging, building and living in the fantasy that this place turned out to be. Take me back!

Heath Patterson
​
​Check out the gallery below, narrated by Heath.

Taiko in a blizzard© Vaughan Brookfield
​
​Two Taiko drummers from Youtei Daiko Serve Association performing for us in a Japanese blizzard. While they were playing the snow progressively got heavier. I can honestly say I’ve never seen it snow like that ever before. It was perfect.

Nick Brown building snow castles© Vaughan Brookfield
​
​We’ve been building jumps in the back country for over 16 years. On this shoot we decided to experiment with some new techniques. This method worked surprisingly well with Japanese powder.

The way home© Vaughan Brookfield

Every night we would walk out from our location after dark. It was always a bit of a relief to see this view, it meant that Karaage (Japanese fried chicken) wasn’t too far away.

Nick Brown at our local Lawson© Vaughan Brookfield
​
​After a month of eating here, everything tastes the same. Chocolate could taste like chicken, sandwiches could taste like Sushi. Two words to explain it to someone who’s never been there. Pleasantly disappointing.

Rob Mitchell© Vaughan Brookfield
​
​Rob Mitchell found time in between days of digging to lay out a few turns down the gully at Hidden Mountain.

A Stag and Pointer about to make the crossing© Vaughan Brookfield
​
​These guys were probably just as surprised to see us as we were them. They didn’t stick around long, and missed out on the show. Lucky for me that river was warm, although I wouldn’t recommend swimming in it.

Nick Hyne© Vaughan Brookfield
​
​Nick making the most of what little he can see. It's so magical up there at night.

Nick Brown scouting the valley© Vaughan Brookfield
​
​Nick understands that you have to work hard to get those moments of gold.

The crew celebrating the capping of the main igloo© Vaughan Brookfield
​
​13 days of hard labour and very little riding were had up until this point.

Our mate the Lawson Fox© Vaughan Brookfield
​
​We had an idea for the film which involved foxes. Unfortunately they didn’t want to be part of our production and preferred to steal our food instead.

Nick Hyne standing in the 4 way intersecting Igloo© Vaughan Brookfield
​
​This was taken just before it snowed heavily and buried a lot of our work.
We had a four way intersecting igloo. The main igloo AKA 'Bigloo'was built from 100kg blocks that were 3-4 feet thick. It slept six, had a large solid ice (dining) table and chairs, as well as two outdoor areas with ice tables and chairs. The lunch igloo featured a mezzanine floor, two ice windows and a coal burner. This some how came to be called the ‘Shitloo'.
A 50 foot, head high trench with tunneling at either side, and all up 12-13 jumps.

Nick Brown always found time to set off fireworks© Vaughan Brookfield

​Being up there was like being a kid again, we built forts, set off rockets, and ate a lot of candy.
Watch the global premiere of Hidden Mountain on June 24 withBurton at World Bar Queenstown from 7pm, or on redbull.com/nz

#SNOWBOARDING #FILM #ADVENTURE
​
Written by Heath Patterson & Fliss Worsp

TC has been on the last few weeks. Been there 3 days already, a personal best for a season I think. I've been over there filming with Diaries Down Under for episode 1. Will J came out the first day and showed us around a bit. He knows that place pretty well so it was cool to ride some spots I never knew about. A lot of good terrain up there and even found some cool features to session on the front side when the saddle was closed. 

The result of three weeks hanging in a van in Japan has just been released. Its the first project I've done with skiers and was super fun to work on. Jake Munro did a super job filming and editing this and although I'm never really happy with the footage I manage to get, (always want more/better footage) I'm stoked on how the movie turned out!

Had such a good days heli thanks to Burton and Corona. The snow has only just arrived and we were lucky to get up into the Minarets which is kind of west of Treble cone. Great crew Ben Comber, Carlos Garcia Knight, Sanjay Smith and Vaughan Brookfield shooting photos. It was Ben and Carlos first heli so was real cool to see there reaction to the awesomeness of heli boarding! 

How good is Bali!! I can't believe I hadn't been there until now. I just made it over for a quick visit and didn't want to leave. Scooters, waves, beers and sun. Paradise!! 

Its rad to be back in the northwest and nice to see some snow here after last years shocker of a season. I'm arriving the start of spring so a bit later than usual but have still been getting quite a bit of pow! Always good to be back at Stevens Pass, the mountain is amazing, the park is a super fun lap and you can usually do a quick hike and find some real good snow. I've been riding with Will Jackaways, Roland Morley-Brown and Greg Roebucks. Cool to have a good kiwi crew out here once again!

It was the coldest summers day I remember, we got dropped at the Waimakariki river with a couple of rafts, camping and fishing stuff, thanks Steve! The Waimak river flows from Arthurs pass out of the range towards Christchurch. The plan was to raft 70km of the Waimak over 4 days. Day 1's mission about 16km of braided river until a couple of smaller rivers flow in. I was not excited about getting wet, I thought I was coming back to summer but nah. I'm doing this trip with my old man, Pete. It's his idea for this trip but I was stoked on coming along. It was quite a fun day of mostly rafting, stopped and fished quite a few times but didn't catch much, a bit disappointing. 16km seemed like a real long way in a raft. Made it to day 1's destination and set up camp for the night.

Woke up to a solid frost over everything. Everything I though would dry overnight was frozen. The sun couldn't come up fast enough. After some breakfast we went for a wander up this the side river, the 'Esk'. After a few km we hadn't seen a fish so flagged it and headed back almost scaring a herd of cows though our campsite, I had to scrub bash to turn them away. After seeing almost no fish this trip so far we were keen to move on. Hopefully down to the mouth of ‘Broken River’. Day 2’s rafting was real cool. The the river started weaving though some tighter canyons, the water was faster and it was just kinda impressive how massive some of the cliffs were right next to us. Pretty cool! Even got a couple of fish along the way for dinner. We made it to broken river kind of late and set up camp. Another big day down, rafting is exhausting. Fish for dinner, cooked in tinfoil in the fire with soy and wasabi, it was surprisingly good, usually not much of a trout fan!

Our campsite at the mouth of broken river was quite epic, a good fire place and we flipped the rafts upside down and pitch our tents on top of them so sleeping was super comfy. There was tons of deer tracks around the place and that morning almost walked round a corner into a couple. Got a few fish this day although mostly small. One crazy thing about this area is the bumble bees, there is mad bumble bees, I never knew that. They land on anything colourful and are always landing on you. I like bumble bees but they got pretty annoying. Somehow we both got bumble bees in our tents, Pete got stung by a cheeky one in his sleeping bag. We decided to stay another night in this spot.

Day 4 was a leisurely raft ride to our pick up spot. Felt good to be back in the rafts after a day off. only a 4 day trip but it seems like I’ve been away a lot longer with no reception or technology. Don’t go without that very often, its good. Another rad trip down!! ​

The first time on my board in 4 months, probably the longest I break I've had from snowboarding in 10 years. So good to be riding again! We went night riding up Hirafu, its pretty much the best thing ever. Finding lines though the trees and side hits and poppers into powder. Anyone who has done this will know what I'm talking about, goodtimes!! 
This week we scored the snow, the season in Hokkaido hasn't been amazing but the snow is good right now. We have been up in the passes hiking mostly. No one I'm with has been here before so its cool show them some of the areas we have found in the past, and cool to be filming snowboarding again!
Our accommodation while we are here is a house from airbnb, a small house yet the guy who owns it has every gadget, toy and appliance there is. Like an electronics hoarder, it makes me laugh every day. Some highlights.. 70" TV with everything you can plug into it, karaoke,ps3,dvd,apple tv, other random stuff that I don't know what it does, cables everywhere. Kitchen is real real small,like a maui camper, however has an ice cream maker, bread maker, rice maker, two coffee makers, blender, toasty maker, kettle, mini bench top dishwasher, microwave, there is actually only enough bench space for a bread board. Every power outlet had like 8 plugs coming out of it, he has 4 computer screens, electric guitar and drums, remote control helicopter, model pirate ships, multiple clock's and digital temperature gauges in every room, random lights under shelfs that turn on when you walk past. You could not buy this guy a gift he doesn't have. Anyway its nice to have a house.