Here’s an experiment for you to try. Think of a niche fact about freeskiing from sometime in the 2000s or 2010s. Punch it into Google or, if you’re so inclined, ChatGPT. What you find might be wrong, vague, or filled with half-truths.
I tried it myself, asking ChatGPT about HG Skis’ classic 2017 street movie Eat the Guts, and it told me that the movie was made by Rage Films and released in 2004. Then, it self-corrected twice in two sentences, making back-to-back errors.
“The film was made by the Teton Gravity Research (TGR)–era freeski crew?” the bot said. “Actually, the title Eat the Guts is associated with Rage Films / Team 13.”
I could almost hear the nearest data center overheating, though I don’t have a paid ChatGPT subscription, so maybe that was part of the problem (and in a follow-up attempt, ChatGPT, to its credit, did get it right).
Really, though, the issue is this: there are entire swathes of freeskiing’s story that are told nowhere online or squirreled away on hundreds of random websites and long-defunct Vimeo pages.
freeskiingmuseum.com
To Eric Iberg, that lack of centralized information was one reason he started freeskiingmuseum.com last year. Dedicated to the once-nascent freeskiing movement, it includes an exhaustive collection of movies, webisodes, contest results, pro models, books, and even toys, like the Jonny Moseley Huck Doll, all in one place.
It’s the kind of compendium that only could be made by a devotee of twin-tip skis and the rebellious, trick-oriented culture they spawned in the 1990s, which, surprise, describes Iberg to a T. He was among the original founders of Armada and directed or co-directed cult classics like Idea and The Education of Style, working in the ski industry during a period of dramatic change.
“I did it because I’m addicted to all this s— and I love it,” he said of the online museum. “I really hate how history is forgotten.”
PHOTO: David Reddick
Now 46, Iberg’s unwavering passion is obvious.
“Did you know, in 2018, Candide [Thovex] had like seven different pro model skis with over a total of like 53 different size options?” he asked at one point during our conversation.
I didn’t. But there it was on freeskiingmuseum.com in the pro model skis section: all seven of Thovex’s Faction pro models with the release season and sizing options. For Iberg, that was a brand new fact. He’s also come across a slew of freeskiing movies he’s never seen before.
“And if I’ve never seen it before, then I know no one else has,” he said. “It’s super, super, super fun, man.”
Still, Iberg estimated that 95% of the information on the website he knew in advance because, of course, he lived much of it. And when there were voids he didn’t know about, he said he could tap into his network of skier friends for help.
Phoned buddies or not, though, freeskiingmuseum.com is a one-man, hobbyist project that’s consumed hundreds of Iberg’s hours. And despite spanning thousands of web pages, it’s not finished. While freeskiing was and is a small niche, a lot happened within it between the late 1990s and now.
Some sections, like the contest results, are incomplete. Iberg said that building out that part will be “gnarly.” He knows the footage exists, but getting complete recordings from past contests may prove tough—television rights are complicated, after all. In the meantime, he said he’s been inquiring with ESPN, which used to own X Games, for the past year and a half, periodically sending emails.
Given the grassroots nature of the effort, Iberg noted that while he feels that almost all of the content is accurate, there’s always the chance of a slip-up. During one multi-hour session, he misspelled someone’s name by one letter, and then, he said, “I have some random young kid laugh at me because I spelled my friend’s name wrong from 20 years ago.” That kind of interaction meant the Freeskiing Museum was working correctly, though. When Iberg first posted about the website on Newschoolers’ forums a few months ago, users chimed in about adding missed movies and other tidbits.
“What’s happening now is I have self-correcting built-in mechanisms of fans,” Iberg said.
COURTESY OF ESPN
For someone looking to soak up as much freeskiing history as possible, the movies section may be the best place to start. Mostly, it dates back to the late 1990s and, depending on the movie, includes either a trailer or a full feature. Along the way, Iberg amassed his own collection of physical DVDs and VHS tapes, so many of the tabs include front and back covers that he scanned and uploaded.
Deep cuts abound, from a 2002 documentary about Jonny Moseley to other early aughts movies that even I, a somewhat seasoned freeski nerd, had never heard of. Iberg hoped to shine a light on the projects and the labor they involved.
“Do you know how much work goes into [ski movies]? Like, how many of our friends got injured? How much work went into printing a box cover? How much work went into getting an ad in a magazine?” Iberg said. “I was just like, Dude, I want to preserve that.”
With a foundation in place, he plans, over time, to slowly expand the Freeskiing Museum and maybe add a forum. There are sure to be more slippery tidbits along the way, though, and while Iberg’s found entire filmographies on eBay, one key piece of Poor Boyz Productions memorabilia still remains—perhaps surprisingly—elusive.
“The only movie I can’t find is Every Day Is a Saturday, god d— it!” exclaimed Iberg.
