Gigi Rüf - Stalefish - Mt. Cook, New Zealand I was traveling down to the south island of New Zealand with the Volcom team and we had a new member of the team that was being kept hush hush until the contracts were finished. Volcom pulled off a coup of sorts when one of Burton’s top riders, Gigi Rüf, jumped ship in the wake of a rash of guillotines falling on the Burton team. I think Gigi saw the writing on the wall and chose the family-like environment at Volcom as a place where he could promote his riding and his sponsor from his heart. So this was the maiden voyage with Gigi on board, and speaking of boards, Volcom had just begun making boards of their own. As I saw it this was a pretty monumental
moment within snowboarding, similar to when Burton got Craig Kelly from Sims and Craig had to ride blank, red-based boards for the season due to legal obligations. There were a lot of similarities between the two scenarios. That being said, Gigi arrived with a fire under his ass when he was set upon this new course. This cover shot that went down amidst the glacial ice of Mt. Cook was one of the many great moments that went down on that trip with the classic style of Gigi, one of the great modern snowboarding legends.
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