ErniE BUEhlEr's - NRG BLOG

postmodErn intErprEtAtion
of A ZEn gArdEn, nElson stylE.
oUr prEmiEr protAgonist,
19-yEAr-old gArEtt BUEhlEr,
mEditAtEs ovEr his mindscApE.
ErniE BUEhlEr’s
FRONT
yaRd
A story of fAthErhood And dirt jUmps
wORds aNd phOTOgRaphy by JOhN gibsON
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gArEtt BUEhlEr asked his dad if he could
build a few jumps in the front yard of their
home. the answer was “yes.” But a few weeks
later, when his father, Ernie, returned from
work and saw what his son had done to the
property, he was more than a bit surprised.
“i remember saying, ‘holy shit,’” Ernie Buehler
recalls, still somewhat amused. “i thought they’d
made the jumps too big and too far apart.”
The view from Ernie’s front window had changed dramatically.
Garett and Kootenay pro riders Kurt Sorge and Mike Kinrade,
along with local shredders Nick Cima, Russ Fountain and Rick
Schneider, had built a dirt-jump park. They made three lines that
even included an old school bus they brought onto the property.
The build was a four-month project that changed Ernie’s front
yard forever.
His home sits on 10 acres near Grohman Narrows, across
Kootenay Lake from the mountain-bike hotbed of Nelson, British
Columbia. It’s primarily boat access, unless you want to take the
roundabout road that is a one-hour drive from town. In the winter,
the road shuts down completely. Ernie’s small motorboat lives
down at the dock and makes the 10-minute trip to town several
times a week. It usually returns overloaded with bicycles, groceries
and whoever is riding that day.
Ernie’s place is hard to get to and hidden. It’s quiet here, but
occasionally a neighbor will drive by on a sunny day and wave.
One thing’s for sure, though: If you can ride these jumps, you’re
going to go big.
no timE for school crossings: thE
yoUng BUEhlEr opts for thE AEriAl
ApproAch. At right, mEticUloUs AttEntion
is pAid to thE EndUring ElEmEnts
of thE gArdEn’s frAmEwork.
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trAnscendentAl levitAtion:
kurt sorge rises Above his
worldly environment.
“Dad didn’t really know what we were up to and thought we were just
going to build one jump,” Garett recalls. “He was surprised, but stoked.
He’s pretty mellow and doesn’t really care.”
A view of hAppiness And pride
Looking across the yard, a huge transformation has taken place. The
dirt is good, and there’s a natural downhill grade that is well suited to
building jumps. And with the slope facing south, it catches the sun for
most of the day.
The start gate is on the gravel road that runs along the property and
leads down to the first set-up jump, which branches in three directions.
The left line leads to a large hip, then to a jump onto the school
bus before a step-down off the bus. The middle line has the largest
jump in the yard, at 38 feet lip-to-lip. The tricky, BMX-style right line
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has a left-hand hip into a roller, followed by two more doubles. All
three lines are tough to ride.
“It makes me happy that he built those jumps,” says Ernie. “It makes
me proud. It’s pretty awesome—and it didn’t cost me anything. It makes
for a more interesting front yard, and I’m never going to change it—even
after they stop jumping.”
heli-skiing And hucking
Ernie immigrated to Canada from Switzerland in the ‘70s to learn English
and find work in the mountains. He eventually met Hans Gmoser, now
known as the godfather of heli-skiing, and joined his elite team of mountain
guides. Gmoser had come up with the idea of using helicopters for
recreational skiing, and experienced guides were in short supply at the
time. Ernie has since logged 40 years working as a heli-ski guide for

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for the record:
this is not
gArett buehler’s
dAy off.
Canadian Mountain Holidays in the Cariboo
Mountains near Valemont, B.C. He still gets
hundreds of hours each year on snow and is
regarded as one of the most experienced and
trusted guides working today. For him, it’s not
a job anymore.
Ernie and his wife had two boys, both of
whom were born with skis on their feet. Now
divorced, he splits his time between guiding
skiers and his home. While many hockey
dads might be driving their kids to the rink, he
would be shuttling Garett and his friends so
they could hurtle down any one of Nelson’s
80-plus mountain bike trails. Back then, he
didn’t really get to see them ride. Now he can
watch all day long.
“The B.C. boys are the best in the world,”
Ernie says. “It takes a lot of dedication, and you
have to love it and not be afraid. It’s pretty wild,
but it looks like those kids know what they’re
doing. They’re a radical group of guys, and they
like to party, too. It’s a good thing for a while,
but he can’t do it for the rest of his life.”
nArrowing the gAp
With a quiet wisdom gathered slowly over
time, Ernie sees similarities between men like
himself, who spend their lives on skis, and
those like his son, who live to ride bikes. He
likes the fact that Garett has chosen a bike
over a pair of skis.
“The skiers are more at risk because of avalanche,”
he says. “It would bother me more
if he was extreme skiing—the avalanche factor
is huge. The crashes are harder in biking,
though. There’s a lot of camaraderie between
these bikers. And they respect each other,
and I like that aspect.”
Even though the age difference between
Ernie and his younger son is 47 years, Garett
can relate to his dad.
“The lifestyle is similar for a mountain-bike
rider and a ski guide.” Garett says. “I don’t
work a job. My dad wants to be outside all
day long. We both like to hang around the fire
then watch TV.”
it’s All About jumping
Ernie’s elder son, Jackson, has talent on a bicycle
as well, and enjoyed a career as a pro

fessional road racer. But from the age of six, all Garett wanted to do
was ride jumps. And when he saw Kranked 2 at the age of nine, the
stage was set.
“I thought that movie was the coolest thing ever, and it’s what got me
into mountain biking,” he says. “They were going to crazy places and having
fun. Now my life is about riding my bike.”
the preferred nomenclAture is...
Now 19 years old, Garett is a respected part of the freeride scene.
He’s garnered a handful of sponsors, but he doesn’t like to be called a
“freerider”—that term is so 2005. If you must categorize him, the term
he prefers is “big mountain.” And if you had seen him take the slam
of his life at the 2010 Red Bull Rampage, you would probably understand
why. With his group, complicated BMX-style tricks on smaller
bikes are out, and hitting massive jumps on downhill-style bikes is in.
“I’m not a dirt jumper,” Garett says. “I like to ride my bike Kamloopsstyle.
I like big jumps and big airs in general. These [front yard] jumps
are going to help. We would go sometimes a week or two before hitting
a big air, and now it can be every day.”
He points out, though, that there is a big difference between his
front-yard jumps and the 40- to 50-foot step-down jumps he will face
during competitions and film shoots.
“With a gap jump, you have the same speed the whole time,” he
explains. “But with a step-down jump, it’s like riding off a diving
board. You gain more speed and go weightless. Then you start to
get a bunch of speed and it gets loud. Then you hit. Ditching is not
an option. The consequences are more serious when you are dropping,
as opposed to a gap jump.”
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nelson’s spin on shuttling:
from left to right, gArett,
nick cimA And kurt. below:
cimA becomes one with the
Autumn lAndscApe.

ig mountAin or bust
Garett and his fellow big-mountain pros don’t race, instead competing in contests
and riding for video and photo shoots to keep their sponsors happy. They
are gunning for top results in big-mountain contests such as the Red Bull Rampage
in Utah and the Chatel Mountain Style contest in France—contests that
suit their hard-charging riding styles. The Kootenay crew has the desire. And
Ernie’s front yard is now the place to make it happen.
“We’d been building jumps all around Nelson for years, but they always
got torn down,” explains Garett’s friend Sorge. “When Ernie said
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sorge probes where
form And function
meet At his rAmpAge
proving grounds.
we could build at his place, we pulled the trigger and got it done. Now
we can get our tricks dialed on these jumps, then head out and do
them on bigger jumps in contests.”
It’s now the middle of winter, and the jumps and bus are blanketed
in a thick layer of snow. Ernie pulls a sled full of supplies up the hill from
the boat dock. Walking across the yard, he pauses to look at the jumps,
shakes his head and smiles. In just a few months, the boys will return.
Even though they have taken over his yard, it’s still his place. The view
out his window will remain the same. And that’s just fine with him.