The chat was made. Kennedi, Emma, Bryden, and I all needed to discuss options for our first big trip in 2023. As it goes, we were floating a short list of locations across the globe, threatening to “buy now” on entirely different flights every other hour. I’ve almost learned to find peace with this chaos in my 13 years of filming snowboarding.
In the back of our heads, I think we always knew it was going to be Reykjavik. Kennedi and I had just been there the year before with Vans, while filming for It’s Love. Once we recognized how great it was, we had decided on a social media blackout…
It seems like lately snowboarders lack independent ideas when it comes to finding locations to film. If they open social media and see where you are, they will most likely just buy a ticket and be there three days after you, which I kind of get. Winter is short, and there are only so many exciting places with good snow. However, these days if you want your footage to look different, it can sometimes call for extreme caution. Kennedi and I had talked about Reykjavik all summer, and we were dying to go back.
We managed to hurry our way over there shortly into the new year, SO relieved to arrive and find two feet of snow already on the ground. The 52 kilometer stretch from KEF airport to Reykjavik is one of the most stunning roadway experiences (under the right conditions) I’ve ever driven. The low sun, cloudless orange sky, and perfect blanket of white sets the tone and builds excitement for a snowboard trip. I loved getting to experience it all over again with Emma and Bryden for their first time. dorothy has arrived.
Words by Jake Kuzyk
Photos by Marc O’Malley
Additional Photos by Bryden Bowley
Iceland is a shockingly beautiful place, but the city development has really exploded within the last decade. Contemporary architecture and rolling geography, similar to Scandinavian countries, makes it exciting for snowboarders. Even on this trip we found a handful of great spots that hadn’t even existed the winter before.
Pulling into town around noon, we noticed it still practically looked like nighttime and all began to question how bright the days would really get. After some quick research, we embarrassingly realized there would be a total of five hours of sunlight each day for the entirety of our trip, a shocking revelation considering generators and lights haven’t really been a thing for me since winter 2013.
Our Airbnb was one of those classic three-story walk-up apartments in the heart of downtown, the type of experience that only European countries can provide. These environments are so easily romanticized by Westerners. Having early morning coffee by the foggy Victorian windows, snuggled close to the boiler radiator, I pretend to speak four languages.
In reality, this place smelled like a family of cats had died somewhere just out of sight. The rotten stench pierced so strongly that it would devour all of your clothes and easily follow you all through the day, enduring the crisp Icelandic air. There was no escaping it. When we finally had the Airbnb host come to check it out he simply said, “I smell nothing.” Psychological warfare. Sorry, one star rating.
Even the sanctuary of taking a shower brought no escape from the scent of our Airbnb. The warm water in Iceland is not generated by heating tanks but instead is sourced directly from the earth. Hydrogen sulfide. Taps, showers, etc. It all smells exactly like rotten eggs and can get so hot you might melt your skin off. Still, I must admire it for its sustainability.
Eating on these trips is always a struggle, and Reykjavik is no exception. Like every other well-developed city across the globe, they make huge efforts to offer trendy cuisines in a visually non-threatening, TikTok-able space. Big surprise, Mexican food in Iceland isn’t good.
When I travel, I like to try to eat the regional cuisine offered. I do not need pizza-ramen-burger. That said, Kennedi almost exclusively eats foods that come between two buns, paired with a gigantic beer. So our hands were tied. The best meal by far was a place that served bottomless fish chowder and chunks of bread. I loved every bit of it.
Ok, but, the coffee shops are confirmed bangin’. Looking back at my camera roll, the grid is full of Google screen shots featuring lox bagels and fancy espressos. Bryden would wake up every morning and walk to Sandholt, his favorite (and wildly expensive) spot. I’ve met many devoted coffee addicts in my life, but never someone as imprisoned as Bryden Bowley. It takes at least three waves and six euros to satisfy that man’s morning ritual.
YouTube should be paying Marc. The amount of content he consumes on a daily basis is extraordinary. Definitely my favorite VJ. Naturally, we binged three straight nights of Björk interviews. Mother Iceland. I couldn’t help but fixate on the way she would completely change up her accent throughout her career, all depending on which country she had just spent the last three years in. In one documentary she has the viewer completely convinced that she drives the most insanely lifted 4x4 truck and goes off-roading on the daily. I’m obsessed with celebrities who lie this much.
I’m not entirely sure why, but there is an endless supply of shipping pallets abandoned behind every business, which is incredibly convenient for building a drop-in on the fly when a spot needs speed. Emma found this perfectly painted long white ledge hiding behind a sports arena.
She really wanted to front board it, so we dragged a mountain of pallets over to pile high for her starter.
This thing had a crazy angle on the run-up, and we were all hitting it, and nothing was coming together. After a few tries and deeming it near impossible, Kennedi turns to Emma and says, “If you land this right here I’ll buy you 900 dinners.”
Of course she somehow makes it to the end of this 60 foot ledge that next go. We all collapse to the snow scream-crying in complete disbelief. The whole thing came out of nowhere and Bryden was hardly ready to film it. The sun was almost down so we decided to come back the next day so she could try again. We arrived in the morning only to find 10 feet of snow plowed over the entire ledge. A complete burial. Emma decided to keep that first land and her two-plus years of free supper.
Finally, we allowed ourselves one of the 17 days off. Snowboarding is funny in this way, you acknowledge how incredibly fortunate you all are to be in a place as epic as Iceland but still. The idea of missing even one kink rail session feels devastating, so you push on, rarely giving yourself even a second to relax and enjoy the beauty of wherever you are in the world.
We decided to make it simple for ourselves. The plan was to drive 45 minutes to a nearby town called Hveragerdði and hike to some mountaintop hot springs. Of course, we showed up two hours late and only once we started the hike did anyone acknowledge that it would take three hours to reach the top. So we settled for a third of the way up, drinking tall cans next to a massive geyser and watching the sunset. It was perfect.
The last two days were rounded out getting the few clips we still really wanted. Kennedi battled what I think is the video ender. A 5050 creeper that transitions into a flat ledge with a big drop off the end. Marc and Bryden were so freezing that they lit candles for a source of warmth at the foot of their cameras. It was a Wednesday, at an open elementary school with kids constantly coming and going. They were so curious as to what we were doing, checking it all out, running all over the stairs and landing. At some point the principal even came outside and told us he was frustrated to not have noticed sooner so he could bring a full class of students outside to watch. Four hours (a whole day’s worth of sunlight) later we were dragging all 14 of the pallets we had used for the drop-in back to their respective home next to the dumpster.
In the end it was flawless. 17 days of sun, snow and nearly no wind—an extremely rare weather event for Iceland in the middle of January. Probably the most successful trip of the season. Formal apology to Dorothy Parker, I’ve never written anything before.
