Montana Nosebleed
(Written by Sam Cox - December 22. 2019)
The Bridger Brigade represents everything that’s right about skiing. In the event you’re not acquainted with them:
Bridger Brigade
Bridger Brigade Part II
This fall, Axel Peterson put together a retrospective entitled “Montana Nosebleed: Ten Years of Hucks and Heartbreaks” - I’d suggest watching it. We caught up recently to gain some insight about the project.
-Axel, Montana Nosebleed is absolutely fucking beautiful. How did it come to fruition?
Thank you Sam. It has been a long time coming (10 years in fact) since we all arrived in the big sky state with even bigger dreams. As we near the end of the decade and our 20’s we began thinking, “Hey, whatever happened to making the best ski movie ever?” and BAM we knew it was time to dust off the old hard drives. After the many weeks and beers it took to comb through 1 million gigabytes of footage, we realized that nobody wants to watch another minute of self-entitled “check-me-out” powder slashes with over exaggerated sound effects. So we decided to give the people what they really want: something real, low quality and rough aka a ten year crash movie. What is more real than eating shit with your buddies on the mountain? The name stemmed from the Brigade’s favorite cocktail “the Montana nosebleed” featured in the film’s intro and requiring some Coldsmoke beer, cheap whiskey, hot sauce, farm fresh egg, and Copenhagen (KT prefers already-chewed). Basically, we slapped some crashes together with some punk music and Rob held it down on the first take.
-Are you taking the film on tour?
We had a rowdy premier at a warehouse here in Bozeman in November. The screen was rigged from a welder’s shield, some magnets and duct tape and we had to run 60 feet of auxiliary cord through the crawl space to the sound system. All in all, it was a packed night and all 4 kegs were tapped in no time. We also took the film to Ketchum, ID for the Homegrown Film Fest, a fundraiser for the Sawtooth Avy Center. It was one of the more diverse films of the night and perhaps even a breath of fresh air for some. Now it is online for free, so go watch it.
-Give us an update on the Brigade - I know people are pursuing passions and living the good life….
Shit man, we are getting old. Randy just got his pilot license and is flying tours in Denver. Rob just bought a fishing boat to captain in AK this summer. I am doing film work full-time and working on more wildlife related projects. Despite all working ‘real’ jobs, we still find time to get together and FKNSNDR…we just prefer steeper landings now.
-What’s on tap for this season?
Hot laps at Bridger, some snowmobiling, and having a good fucking time! I am really hoping to get over to Idaho to continue working on the ‘Lost River Project’ which is on track to become our next ten year ski project.....
-Thanks for all of the stoke, inspiration and good times over the years. Do you have any words of wisdom you’d like to share?
Keep your tips up and your phones down and make skiing great again! - Bridger Brigade
For your viewing pleasure:
