Arthur Longo rides a snowboard how we all dream we could. His effortless all-terrain style is paired with an innate ability to launch across obscure inbound resort features. Everything just looks natural when he’s in the air. Among his long list of recent video projects, Arthur’s creativity is highlighted best in his Side Hits Euphoria series, flying from on hit to another in controlled chaos. Because while most of us wont ride Alaska backcountry any time soon, we can always get a few days in at our local resort each season. Riding up the lift, looking over at a 40-foot gap and thinking, “Arthur would probably hit that.”

I'm good, thank you. Chilling today. I was snowboarding the last two days and I was about to maybe go again today, but I'm taking a day off.

I’m in Lake Louise, Banff in Canada. We just had a day where it was kind of dumping for November. It was fun to see the snow falling again.

I spend some time in Nelson. That's where I am for the month. But Nelson doesn't really have any resorts or any snow right now. And when I heard that Lake Louise was open, I just did the drive and did a little trip within the bigger trip of being in Canada for a month.

It really depends on the conditions. Hopefully it's a good Euro winter, which hasn’t happened for a while. But hopefully it's good here as well and I can at least have the choice. I'm going to try to film pretty much the whole season.

It depends on how long the snowfall is going to last and what kind of weather is coming after. When you go more in the north aspect of the mountains and a bit higher, the snow can stay good for a longer time. And it depends also if it's getting ridden a lot by people or not. But with what I do, I stopped trying to have too clean or perfect conditions. I just take what I get and if the conditions are messy, I'm still going for it, filming in messy conditions. It can give some extra flavor. I feel in some way it can be cooler.

Exactly. There are so many people already chasing the perfect conditions and we've already done it for decades of snowboarding in movies. We've seen perfect conditions. I'd rather focus on my creativity and trying to do whatever is possible when dealing with the conditions.

It’s naturally what I would be doing back home. I ride the resort and there's jumps here and there on the left, on the right of the slope. And then with Ollie (Olivier Gittler) my partner that I'm doing the SHE series with, we took a big break to focus on other things. But we're looking forward to filming some more to try to come with something strong enough so that the people would be stoked to see it.

 

It really depends. Either sometimes we focus on only one spot and that spot could take a little bit of work. Often there are little things to tweak to make it look extra good. But we try to keep the idea of the spot, and we don't try to totally change it, but you might have a pole on the run or some stuff that we just tweak. Sometimes we do a little bit of work in the morning on a longer run, and we can film a few spots on the same run. That's the best because we keep the camera out and stay warm and get more shots, it's more efficient.

It depends, there are resorts that are more famous for it. We always meet someone that tells us, “You should go there. It's perfect for hits.” Seymour for instance, a little resort by Vancouver. Whenever people talked to me about that resort they said how amazing it is. And it is rad. But I don't really like to be guided too much because scoping it out is part of the enjoyment for me, creating my line. I have my favorite spots but at the same time I like to go to new ones because you have fresh eyes and there is very often good surprises.

 

There’s not really an answer to this. Maybe it’s my experience, but if I had to clear a big gap tomorrow, maybe I wouldn't be ready for it. The feel I have on the board and the amount of riding I have done this season is maybe not enough for that yet. But the more spots I ride the more my feelings can give me indications on speed and how much I have to pop. At some point you start to be really sharp with your evaluation of the distance and everything, and it works.

 

Yeah, when I’m coming to the jump if it's a little slow, maybe I would pop harder to try to clear the thing, or if I feel really slow I just don't jump. The same if I feel way too fast. Once at the lip I can know if the speed is fine and how much I have to pop or not. And then there’s moments where it's like, ‘oh, wow, that's about good.’ The air can feel like a little long because you still don't know how well you're going to make it. But once in the air if you're well balanced with the right speed it is enjoyable for sure.

Back in the day they would put kids on skis first, but it was also a hotspot for snowboarding. My dad was a friend of the owner, and they would always sign me up for lessons. I snowboarded and skied at the same time and then at some point I just snowboarded more. All winter I would spend the time on my snowboard and the resort has a glacier. It’s open all year and I would spend my summer on the snow.

 

Yeah. I always had so much fun being on snow and trying to find poppers and spend some time in the air and I always liked the excitement of it.

 

My dad was doing it when I was a kid and I always had it in my blood. I always wanted to fly and when I got a bit older and was able to learn it by myself, I just went for it. It's a bit like snowboarding. You could take a green slope and not be scared or go on the steepest couloir and scare yourself. It's a bit like this in the air, you can pick your conditions a little bit.

Do you have a favorite place that you like to ride throughout the year?

I moved to Chamonix a year ago because I discovered this place a little late and I'm still very excited about it. In the valley of Chamonix there are six resorts, so it's still very exciting for me. It has a bit of everything. From tree runs to good side hits in the resorts, steep terrain and high elevation. Other than that, I love Canada. I love North America, maybe the snow is a little bit better in general. They have better winters.

 

I used to travel almost nonstop because I was doing contests and we would train in the summer. We would go to New Zealand and Mount Hood in July. I would go super hard all year and now it's been 3 or 4 years that I'm taking the summers off and just doing completely different stuff. If there's some snowboarding travels, it's between November and May. I have slowed down a little bit on travel and from an environmental standpoint I'm not consuming travel the way people used to. I think we're in a new age and we must change a little bit, so I try to change a little bit as well. I make my trips longer and not go overseas for just a week.

 

Skateboarding has taken quite a bit of space in my life. I didn't really skateboard that much until later. This has been exciting for me in the last five or six years, and I'm super stoked on it. It’s how I have made good friends and usually how I keep on seeing my friends and sharing something with them. I do art as well. It kind of comes and goes, there's periods where I'm super focused on it and some periods where I'm just not doing it. But even when I'm not doing it, I still look for inspiration and ideas.

They give me super good vision. I don't see any foam and it doesn't feel big on my face. Usually, it's hard to wear goggles in the beginning of the season because you're not used to it anymore. You put it on, and it can feel a bit too much, especially with all the gear we have in snowboarding. But with the Roteck it feels light, and I don't even pay attention to it.

 

I wear the Oak a lot, I would say that's my favorite. I also use the more sporty ones, which I'm happy to have for paragliding and doing some more mountain stuff, to have good eye protection is huge.

 

I am doing something with Volcom and I'm probably going to spend my winter with Ollie, which we’re both happy about, we’re a good duo. We’re going to make new SHE because we haven't done it for a while. I feel that the people have been waiting a little too long for it. And we’re going to provide it this winter.