Zak Emerson + Andy Beale of BackDrop Splitboarding, had the delight of getting to chin wag with Ryland about his new 28min film by Patagonia ‘DIG’.

The short doc is so, so worth taking a moment out of your busy day to watch. Savage and beautiful Alaskan terrain requires Ryland and his team to be on their game….

This 28-minute film from Patagonia follows Alaskan ripper Ryland Bell as he drops into a full-scale monster: a 3,200-foot spine line that’s almost twice the size of anything he usually rides around home in Haines. And it’s not like he just hopped off a sled at the top either — just getting into position meant 4.5 hours of bootpacking and nearly 4,000 vertical feet of straight-up suffering.

The short doc is so, so worth taking a moment out of your busy day to watch. Savage and beautiful Alaskan terrain requires Ryland and his team to be on their game….

This 28-minute film from Patagonia follows Alaskan ripper Ryland Bell as he drops into a full-scale monster: a 3,200-foot spine line that’s almost twice the size of anything he usually rides around home in Haines. And it’s not like he just hopped off a sled at the top either — just getting into position meant 4.5 hours of bootpacking and nearly 4,000 vertical feet of straight-up suffering.

But before it ever gets to the riding, our conversation starts where Ryland’s whole life does: family, fishing, and growing up in Alaska. He’s a born-and-raised local, part of a multi-generation commercial fishing family, and somehow along the way he’s managed to completely normalise riding 60–65 degree spines like it’s just another day at the office. Which is mildly terrifying for the rest of us.

At one point my 12-year-old asks him if his mom knows he’s out riding such dangerous stuff. Ryland laughs and says yeah — she’s on board. Then, almost in the same breath, he admits he gets properly, stomach-turning sick with fear on every single descent. No superhero act. No immunity. Just nerves.

He talks about standing on a 4,000-foot face, switching his splitboard over while basically balancing by his fingernails, and honestly… “sphincter-winking” doesn’t even begin to cover it. It’s genuinely comforting to know the man is, in fact, human.

Patagonia Trailer DIG below

He loves eating fish (no shock there), but his “favourite snack at the top of a climb” doesn’t really exist — because he’s usually too busy feeling ill with fear to eat. That is… until the board’s on, the edge bites, and he drops into that first turn. Then it all releases. The noise fades. The sickness lifts. And he’s exactly where he’s supposed to be.

In DIG, Ryland and the crew head out on a month-long mission to a remote glacier west of Haines, only to get absolutely shut down by a storm that buries their camp under 25 feet of snow. For nearly two weeks it’s full survival mode — rationing food, shoveling six hours a day just to keep the tents from disappearing, and waiting it out while the mountains do what they want.

“For days it’s full survival mode — rationing food, shovelling six hours a day just to keep the tents from disappearing, and waiting it out while the mountains do what they want.”

When it finally breaks, it’s go time. The film captures the first descent of a massive 4,000-foot line, and an early look at Ryland putting Patagonia’s new PowSlayer Freeride Kit through the wringer in real-deal conditions. Big walls. Deep snow. Tired legs. Shaky hands. And that quiet, all-relieving first turn that makes the whole thing make sense again.