https://www.newschoolers.com/videos/watch/979310/Summer-of-the-Cap

The 28-year-old Forster Meeks has been putting out his own personal taste of controlled chaos in the streets and Mt. Hood for years. The everso unpretentious Meeks took the chance to sit down and chat about his knee injury, trick selection, his new edit, and what the future has in store for him.

There are few skiers in the game these days that you could easily pick out their style among the masses and whose passion and personality shine through their video parts just as easily as the skiing itself. Meeks is that skier. The HoodCrew alumni and rider for ON3P’s stacked team spent most of the season injured on account of the notorious ACL dilemma. It’s been said before, but Meeks embodies the true notion of being a ski bum, and his talents and style could not be more unapologetically raw.

During the summer of 2020, on the last day of summer skiing, Meeks offered the park crew a case of beer to set up the Kimbo rail. After sending it to flat, his right ACL was cleanly torn. This is his 2nd ACL injury, and as many know, not one to be taken lightly as the recovery process can be gruelling. Nonetheless, the humble savage that is Meeks on skis knew that injuries are prone to the sport and that “it’s not an if; it’s a when.” Recoveries aren’t really anyone’s jam, and Meeks saw with both of his knees that there would be ups and downs. He would be feeling good for a few weeks, push it a little bit, and then be back in pain, along with the mental toll of being couch-locked. Regardless, Meeks tried to make the most of his winter, working with his friends, rehabbing, and helping film for the new Zootspace movie.

Meeks considers ON3P his main sponsor, and when I asked if he ever worried about losing his spot on the team due to injury, I was laughed at. “ON3P and Scott, the owner, are the most supportive homies, and I never felt that I was in a spot to lose my ski sponsor.” Meek’s comfortability with the brand is looked at as a testament to their relationship and mutual respect they have for each other and the sport. Most of the ski community can attest, the team movies that ON3P puts out have been a breath of fresh air and something that has been largely lacking in ski culture. What ON3P does for their team is give them support and creative control for their vision. The result has been nothing short of magic. Giving Meeks “a chance to film with my favourite skiers; Krypto, Magnus, Hackel, the teammates on ON3P are my best friends. Creating something with those dudes has been the highlight of my career.”

Given the okay to ski on March 10th and COVID hitting shortly after, the idea that Meeks envisioned to have an edit that he skis and produces 100% himself became a low priority as fear, and social unrest ravaged the United States. But after some time passed, Meeks and the crew were back at it, and his opener for Summer of the Cap was the first clip he got post-surgery - “I wanted to take an impact to see what my knee could take, to prove to myself that I could ski again.” The unique opportunity that COVID offered was that Meeks had to think outside of the box to find spots, even “walking around the woods until we could find logs that we deemed rideable, the wood shit was the best part!” This window gave Meeks the chance to hit spots that he’d been looking at for 10 years, now accessible because of the low activity. This whole idea of finding new ways to ski goes along with his entire philosophy and mentality to keep things fresh after making the annual pilgrimage to Hood for over 10 years.

“Your vision is your biggest asset. Every few years, your vision changes to what you think is cool or possible, the spot can drastically change, and that’s what will up your skiing, that to me is the most intriguing part of skiing and how I can evolve my vision, not my bag of tricks.”

Meeks has been sitting on this edit for a minute but had it released to paying customers for around $3.00. Paid content was something that Meeks saw as a one-off experiment, inspired after paying a dollar for a snowboard edit and thinking that it made the edit a little bit more memorable. The obvious lack of overall funding in the ski industry is apparent, as we see with the Traveling Circus and Strictly’s GoFundMe campaigns. Nonetheless, Meeks sees that outside support of money lets the funds go right back to skiers’ pockets and enable ski contents longevity. “Even if I don’t fully fuck with their vision, I will still support skiers that are putting out parts because I know how much they’ve put into it.”

Heading into recovery, Meeks hopes to carry on his mantra of “I like to go big, and I like to go fast,” but also diversifying his skiing and drawing inspiration from everything skiing and snowboarding put out. With a lot of tentative plans in place, Meeks is looking to get to business with some heavy up and comers, along with his teammates. “I want to put stuff out with Oscar Weary, B-rud, more ON3P stuff. I really want to see Anders put out more parts and do a video project with him. He’s one of my best friends, and our ideas and skiing really align.” Meeks hopes to find spots that look visually appealing while also personally suiting his style of skiing, with an emphasis on how it’s being ridden and not what trick is being done, “DFD’s are not my thing anymore.” Meeks’ own flavour of skiing has led fans, myself included, to declare that he should get a spot in the coveted X-Games Real-Ski.

On the topic, Meeks expressed that he would be down to do Real-Ski, but not for the obvious reasons,

“Real-Ski has produced so many amazing parts from everyone, and it would be an honour to contribute to the legacy of Real-Ski over the years. I think it would bring the best out of my skiing and be an amazing motivating factor; money and an X Games medal mean nothing. I would want to contribute to the legacy.”

Be sure to check out Summer of the Cap and be on the lookout for more Meeks hammers soon as he continues to obliterate any feature/can in his vicinity. I’ll leave it to him to sign off,

“Shoutout to everyone; if you like to ski or snowboard, I fuck with you.”