NOVEMBER 04: The Prophet and the Sage
Sage, high as a kite
On a sunny day in the winter of 2000, while Ostness was digging an already established jump on Baldy shoulder in Alta, this scrappy crew crawled from the depths of the U of A and inadvertently became his greatest discovery. "We were building this hip, and they just showed up," says Ostness, who created Clay Pigeons around cameos by various pros he stumbled upon at Mt. Hood and Utah. "I remember Chris Collins doing a double back flip and just going way past the tranny and stomping it on flat ground. We were impressed right away."
By the end of that day, Wind-Up had its own talent pool, and Tee Time had what Pigeons lacked—a cast of its own stars. These weren't pro competitors trying to branch out into movies, they were work horses who saw a sunny afternoon of digging and shaping a jump as a diversion from taking out the lodge's trash. The only pay they sought was massive air and a soft landing, and when it came time to collect, they were fearless.
So when Sage, the newcomer of the group, pops off the lip and tucks into his first of two front rotations, Ostness isn't surprised. He's seen this before. As the heli circles around for another pass, however, it's obvious that this clique and these gaps are out-growing his one-man movie company, that this scene is on the brink of becoming something more than kid tricks on man-size jumps.
"You could tell. Just the way he looked in the air, you could tell Sage had potential. And his age and his motivation and the people he was hanging out with…he's going to get a little bit of Jamie [Pierre] and a little bit of Chris, of Matt, of Minneci rubbed off on him." —TGR Cinematographer Pete O'Brien
In the context of the day and the era, the double front flip Sage landed that day at Pyramid was hardly groundbreaking—Minneci's misty 7 the same day was more technical—but it was huge, and stylish, and not only was it caught on film, it caught the eye of the skiing world. The footage got play in TGR's Mind the Addiction and Wind-Up's Flying Circus. Stills from photographer Dave Norehad appeared in national magazines.
"It was the first time any significant [gap] jump had been filmed from a heli," remembers TGR's Todd Jones. "We had some big-name pro guys who wanted nothing to do with Pyramid. All of a sudden the unknowns from Alta come up and are throwing technical, stylie tricks over this monster gap that these guys are cowering over."
Over the next four years, Sage continued to learn, absorbing aspects of his friends' skiing into his own fluid style and light touch. He earned segments in TGR's 2002-03 releases Prophecy and Salad Days, and signed endorsements with Rossignol, Smith, and The North Face. He quit washing dishes and traveled to Europe and Alaska. Seasoned pros such as Mike Douglas openly proclaimed him a skier of the future. "He's got the whole package," Douglas declared in the spring of 2003. "He's a big-mountain skier, strong in all aspects of the sport, then he comes into the park and looks like he was born there."
His breakout day on Pyramid epitomizes how fast he picks things up—a trick he had never tried, in a completely new arena, stomped like he had done it a hundred times. But it's his part in TGR's '04 release High Life that truly set him apart. Sage's role stands out as the most comprehensive and diverse of the year. His performance spans all aspects of skiing—from big AK peaks, to technical billy-goat lines, to park jumps and urban rails—and gained accolades across the ski industry, including Best Performance by a Male at the 2004 Powder Video Awards.
By the end of last winter, the saga of Sage Cattabriga-Alosa became an inspiration to every kid slaving away in a ski town—the story of the dish pig who made it big. But making it as a skier is only part of Sage's achievement. The other, more significant half is what he has brought to the sport—proof that you don't need a silver spoon or years of formal training or a big name sponsor from the time you're 14 to rule this arena. Sage and his friends have none of that, and yet they've managed to turn skiing on its head.
"They're a step ahead in a lot of ways," says Jones. "Every interview where anyone asks where the future is, it's like, ‘putting tricks in lines in the backcountry, in big mountains.' There are few people who are actually doing that. You have these stylie guys, and you have the big guys—the Rob Holmes and Jamie Pierre's. Then you have guys like Sage and the Collins' taking that monster air, and bringing in style, lines, and fluidity."