Scripted

SEAN PETTIT JUST FELL IN THE LIFT LINE. He pulls himself up, mumbles his disdain for “lift-line snow,” and pushes up to me, one foot out of his snowboard binding. We’re waiting in a long queue at Blackcomb’s Crystal Ridge chair on a February powder day, one that we didn’t get on the hill for until well into the afternoon. He greets a couple friends but doesn’t link up with them. Pettit, Leo Hoorn, and I ride up the chair quietly. We take three laps before heading in.

Pettit isn’t exactly hurting for days on the mountain. He just got back from Italy and will be heli skiing in the Whistler backcountry in a few days. So a resort day—even with fresh snow—isn’t all that exciting. In part, that’s what the snowboard is for. “It makes the mountain big again,” says Pettit.

At 23, Pettit is one of a kind. At 12, Powder dubbed him a prodigy. At 16, he landed the opening segment in Matchstick Production’s 2008 film Claim—what Pettit calls “a big breakout year.” He hasn’t gone a season without a major film part since. Whistler Blackcomb dubs Pettit a “ski icon,” while other athletes his age are just “pro skiers.” When I asked Pettit what he’d be doing if he weren’t skiing, he simply replies, “I wouldn’t be.”

The insulation, accolades, and challenges of a long, successful ski career make Pettit a bit of a conundrum. His image—one of the most recognizable in the industry, and one that used to pass through many hands before it reached his fans—is now something he curates and controls so