Photos: Matt Sklar

"Burrrlapz sucks."

That’s what they say, anyway. Dylan Siggers, and Josh and Brody McSkimming, Essex Prescott and Kevin Frank too. They were in Revelstoke last week and they sounded pretty sure about it.

The folks at RMR had given us a nicer hotel room - on the top floor, with a balcony - than any of us deserved, and the week's haphazard snowfall filled in Revy's deepest pockets. In between cloud-covered days at the resort, we tried to look beyond the bootleg North Face branding to see what happens in the Burrrlapz universe. We wondered if it was true, if Burrrlapz really sucks.

https://www.newschoolers.com/videos/watch/816502/Backcountry-Burrrlapz---NS-x-Revelstoke

They list two influences in Nimbus and the Bunch, whose respective creativity and style is reflected in Burrrlapz skiing. Beyond that, they like Skateline. They tend to see this sport as being pretty stupid, though at a certain point who doesn’t? They like each other, more or less, and as a crew, they feed off of one another: Essex will ask enough questions about a line that someone else will shout at him to please just drop in. And sometimes the guys will disregard the question altogether and tell him “no, go mega fast.” Mostly he just stomps the line like he knew all along how it went.

No tindy's, no problem

The boys laugh a lot: at Australians, about Australians, at how “grade 7 through 12” was the most embarrassing thing Dylan did in high school. Their sense of humor runs deep and weird. Brody will lean back in his chair and look up to see this kid who’s hiking a flat box at the bottom of the resort and say “boys” but pronounce it buooyz, and we’ll see that the kid isn’t hiking, he’s getting his chaperone to pull him back up to the top of the feature - and we’ll agree that fuck, not much else you can say to that besides boys.

https://www.newschoolers.com/videos/watch/815379/Backcountry-Burrrlapz---Euro-Trip-

For the first time in a while, Kevin Frank is back skiing with Burrrlapz. He left Fernie two years ago for a “secular non-profit liberal arts” scene, and while he might’ve been gung ho heading in, he was cognizant enough to see it was all a little psychotic, so he left and now he clears huge transfers and skis “fucking...fast.” With a new art school application pending, Josh and Dylan mutter to themselves from behind the camera, “we need to get Kev down to Fernie.”

Hold on there Kev!

Josh was sporting just an awful mullet on this trip, though he owned it, no question. He holds onto the old soul of the Burrrlapz when he skis. Beers, no poles, 8mm lenses and offerings “to the griz,” I mean. That loose cannon vibe is edited out of the most recent Burrrlapz for reasons all too familiar to anyone who’s ever tried to “make it.” The crew spends a lot of time producing content for people who like to see content produced, and that means cutting the part where Josh yells “3-2-1 ferdaboys!” before dropping in.

s'fuckin blower out there eh, mate?

Dylan knows this aspect of the game better than anyone, though his opinion on the subject is going to depend, for example, on whether everyone remembered their lift ticket in the morning. On hill he’s still a spastic kid yelling down to the camera like he’s been stuck with a shot of epinephrine; “Haa,okayready?Drop!” When he’s editing it can seem like he’s so worked up about production quality that the joy is gone, until he looks up and beats you to the punchline of a joke you didn’t know he was hearing. Then he’ll finish a 3,000-like Instagram cut in under half an hour and you’ll get dizzy trying to spit out: “it takes 8 skateboarders to screw in a lightbulb…”

Don't sleep on Siggers

That’s all it really is though, right? All that effort for a few thousand electronic pats on the back and some stoked out marketing directors. That’s what they mean when they say Burrrlapz sucks. Of course, it’s also a means to an end. In the Fall, Burrrlapz will take a page out of Wasted Youth’s book and throw one hell of a premiere. Something to be proud of, something for the homies, well-greased on cheap beer, to stand up and shout about at the local theatre. That won’t suck, not at all.